TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT

Global Warming! Climate Change!  Is this a tempest in a teapot?  Is it simply a global political scam to control and manipulate power on the planet? Is global warming truly a very real, clear danger to humanity? Today is Earth Day.  An idea for a national day to focus on the environment evolved in 1970 when Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin witnessed the ravages of an oil spill and began to investigate other forms of pollution. When we universally stopped to focus on the various forms of the environmental impact, certainly, our planet posed serious pollution problems.  Absolutely, the moment to pause, evaluate, repent, and begin an awareness, cleanup program, and legislation to enforce reasonable restrictions moved forward with vigor.

Awareness created a sense of urgency that consumed our nation beginning with the preschool training of our children.  We became keenly aware of the factories and polluting industry belching emissions into the air we breathe.  We   grimaced at the revelations of improper waste disposal, and reeled with disgust at the neglect of preserving our forests and natural resources.  I totally agree that the pre-1970 mindset, if continued, would lead to disastrous consequences for our planet.  Recycling, reasonable restrictions on industry, and a constant vigilance of our forests and natural resources developed and became a natural part of daily life, and rightly so.  Leaders realized the development and growth of industry and the wanton depletion of natural resources must be restrained. The Environmental Protection Agency emerged in 1970 with board power to regulate.  Present day youngsters begin life with the mindset and knowledge to protect and aggressively pursue environmental issues. Every day is Earth Day!

All this attention is positive and sensible.  Scientific studies reveal progress in the direction of sensitive environmental issues.  All countries must surely be aware of the impact of their actions with all the hurrah from the scientific and political world.  It remains to be seen if they will discipline their actions in the future.  The high price of conforming and the economic impact may speak louder than the fear of climate change effects. Merely signing a document on Earth Day is only a gesture of agreement, not compliance.

Although many of the arguments of man-made climate change are credible, I’m unconvinced that humanity realistically impacts global warming with much validity.  Present data is weighed in the balance and found wanting.  Scientific experts spin the evidence in the “winds of the jet stream” and vacillate just as radically.

So without denying that we earthlings do contribute to the demise of the wonderful world the Lord has created for us, I believe He is in control and set the universe in motion.  (Gen 1:17, Job 26:7-14, Job 38:4)  The earth rotates on its axis, thus we have night and day.   The earth rotates around the sun, thus we have four seasons.  The solar system rotates, thus we have seasons lasting hundreds of years.  Where are we in this cycle today?  In my memory, cold, severe winters where rivers and lakes froze for weeks or months occurred.  My grandfather told of driving a team of horses across a deep river in West Virginia in a location where I never saw ice form in my youth.  Of course, I yield the fact that pollution may be partially effective in the warming of that particular river.

However, as the decades have passed, I have observed the gradual warming of the earth.  Perhaps in my youth, the universe glided through its spring.  Now many decades later, we are warming, moving into the summer of the universe. The season may last many years bringing desert like conditions to otherwise mild locations.  Glaciers may melt causing coastlines to shrink and growing crops may be difficult in areas normally fertile.  Climate change with wild winters and humongous storms may prevail.

 

With a lifespan of less than one hundred years, humanity will record this phenomena and spread fear, panic, and despair, and lifestyles will be effected in this scenario. There is nothing new under the sun.  (Ecclesiastes 1:4-9)  God is in control.  We should abandon the rhetoric and focus on how humanity may prepare for a future with changing lifestyles.  We sent a man to the moon. Surely, we can adapt to a changing planet.  Where are the heroes?

Of course, what do I know; I’m just an old lady without a clue.