While the extreme cold temperatures in Grand Rapids are moderating and the sun is shining today, our condo is getting colder: yesterday the furnace fan stopped working.  When Marge and I left the place for work this morning, the house thermometer was down to 62°.  So until the furnace repairman comes tomorrow morning, it will indeed be cold comfort for us at home.  “So where is global warming when you need it?” I thought to myself.

Ironically, when I came to work this morning one of the first conversations I had was to respond to a question: “So, Dean, how does this record cold and snow fit into the global warming theory?” The best answer I could offer was something like, “Well, the climate-change people say that one of the characteristics of global warming would be wild fluctuations of temperature and precipitation—given that patterns we have come to accept as standard will change: jet streams, hemispheric air circulation, ocean currents, and so forth.  So who knows?”

That got me to thinking about how a Bible-believing follower of Christ might think about global warming.  Here’s my thinking about it today:

1.  Science can never be 100 percent certain of its conclusions. One of the drawbacks of basing our behavior on the conclusions of science is that while it is one of the most certain of all disciplines, it can never have complete knowledge of all the variables and possibilities.  The majority of climate specialists tell us that global warming is happening and that it is likely caused in large part by the behavior of human beings.  But some scientists believe it may be caused mostly by the sun becoming hotter, or some other factor.  The difference between those two conclusions, however, has critical implications: we can do something about human behavior; we can do nothing about a hotter sun. Aristotle gave us an important truth that relates to this: It is better to act in a timely fashion on a fact half-proved than to wait until it is too late to act on a fact fully substantiated.  We love certainty, but the truth is that many of the decisions we are required to make have to be made in the absence of total certainty.

2.  Regardless of whether or not we can prove we’re causing global warming, we know that some things humans do are not good for us or for the earth. We know that we should not keep tilling into our soil what is harmful for us to ingest, pouring into our water what we should not drink, and emitting into the air with what we should not inhale.  On these matters, the science is a lot more certain.  For all we know, global warming may not be nearly as harmful as the consequences of other human practices, the facts of which we currently have little definitive scientific knowledge.

So my conclusion is not to argue or fuss about the big upper story question about whether or not people are causing harmful climate change, but to look to the ground level questions about what we can do to keep the biosphere as pure and healthful as God made it.  Old evangelist Bob Jones, Sr. told a great story that applies here [my having heard it once or twice every year I was at Bob Jones University!]:

A stagecoach company was seeking to hire new drivers for its hazardous route through the mountains.  The hiring agent asked several job seekers just how close they could drive a team of horses and a stagecoach to the edge of a precipice.  Most bragged about their skills: three feet, two feet, one foot, even six inches.  None of them got the job.  The only one hired was the guy who said, “I have absolutely no idea how close I can drive to the cliff side; I always drive as close to the mountain side as I possibly can.”

The purpose of this post is not to start a debate about global warming or even suggest what followers of Christ must do to either address or not address it.  It’s merely to suggest a couple ways we can approach the question.  I’d love comments on whether or not my thinking here is reasonably and biblically sound, but I wouldn’t want the post to lead us into the great debate on the causes or even the reality of global warming.  There are dozens of Websites dedicated to that.

See you outdoors,

Dean