By Randy Evans
In his Second Inaugural Address, President Barack Obama said this:
“We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. (Applause.) Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.”
In the days that followed, the Obama administration confirmed that climate change is “among his top priorities.” In responding to the president’s next hard push, politicians might be well-served to avoid these four common mistakes.
Mistake No. 1: Climate change does not exist. Both creationists and scientists agree the climate has changed over the entire history of planet Earth. The Bible describes a time when it rained 40 days and 40 nights leading to a flood. Scientists describe times when the planet was completely frozen, at one time being “Snowball Earth.” Although it is hard to believe now, deserts were once oceans; tundra once green; and so on.
Mistake No. 2: Climate change is not happening now. The climate is always changing — even now. The climate changes by the hour, day, week, year, decade, century, millennium, and more. Ice ages have frozen the planet and cooling periods have chilled it.
The last cooling period is called the Little Ice Age. (NASA says this period extended from roughly 1550 A.D. until about 1850 A.D. — basically ending around 160 years ago.) Leading up to and during the Little Ice Age, glaciers grew, rains came (with the Great Famine), and summers stopped being predictable.
On the other hand, there have been warming periods, like the Medieval Warm Period (from about 950 to 1250). There have been others. Of course, it is no secret that most scientists believe the planet is currently in a warming period.
Yet, while the temperature changes, the Earth itself is cooling as the radioactivity that produces its heat declines and its molten mass core cools. Fortunately, if scientists are correct, this cooling process will take millions of years.
Mistake No. 3: Man can control the climate. Climate change happens for many reasons. For creationists, it is the province of God. For scientists, there are a multitude of reasons, not the least of which is the movement of the continents. (Basically, North America moves away from Europe about as fast as a person’s fingernail grows — about an inch per year or about six feet every generation). Other factors range from volcanic activity, to the Earth’s orbit, to meteorites to the simple aging of the planet.
For a period, many scientists focused on the risk of global cooling and looked for ways to stop or slow it. More recently, the shift has been to focus on global warming, with strategies for controlling the emission of various greenhouse gases.
No one suggests (credibly) that man can actually control any of these mega-factors. Of course, this has not dampened the enthusiasm to try; certainly, President Obama has committed his administration to the next big attempt.
(Interestingly, according to many reports, cows are actually one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases — hence, the push for dietary changes as part of any “comprehensive” global climate change effort — good news for Chick-fil-A.)
Mistake No. 4: Man should try to control the climate. Putting aside the idea that man could control the climate, everyone should worry if man does try to control the climate. Here, the rule of unintended consequences has serious implications. Just when scientists figure out one thing, they inevitably discover that there are several other things that they never understood. Questions of advancing or postponing the next ice age in the context of drifting continents, and completely unpredictable volcanic activity, is definitely a few levels above any mortal’s pay grade. And, the risks of getting it wrong — well, they are bone-chilling. Throughout history, climate change has really always been about mitigation and adaptation. From the religious perspective, Noah adapted to the flood by building an ark. When local climates became inhospitable, entire civilizations moved to more hospitable environs, such as from Africa to Europe and Asia to the Americas.
There are good reasons to address greenhouse gas emissions and other pollutants. But, the bottom line is that the planet (and its climate) changes, and no one can stop that. Mitigation and adaptation are the keys to success.