Blog

by Steve Risner

Climate change is real. It’s been changing rapidly for at least the last 4400 years, after the Flood. If you don’t believe there was a Flood, that’s fine. The data confirms what I’m saying about the climate regardless. When people complain about climate change (almost always meaning man-made climate change) I usually ask a few questions: is the climate changing for the better or worse? How do you know? Is it warming up to the right temperature? Or cooling down to the right temperature? How do we know the right temperature? We have tropical fossils all over the globe including in the Arctic and Antarctica; it seems like it must have been warmer in the past. There have been several periods in the past where the temperatures were much warmer and colder than now. For example, the Medieval Warm Period a thousand or more years ago and the Roman Warm Period 1000 years before had temperatures warmer than today. I don’t think SUV’s were doing this then. And the Little Ice Age four or five hundred years after the Medieval Warm Period had the opposite effect.

A great deal of “evidence” the planet is warming is based on the starting point. If we start with the Little Ice Age, we find we’re much warmer. If we start with the Medieval Warm Period, we find we’re actually much cooler than 1000 years ago (when we didn’t have massive industry allegedly destroying the atmosphere). For some time, we saw scientists claiming we were heading into another Ice Age as it appeared temperature trends were falling drastically. But it was much warmer during the time of the Romans as well. The Romans wrote about growing wine grapes in Britain in the first century and then it got too cold during the Dark Ages. Ancient tax records show the Britons grew their own wine grapes in the 11th century, during the Medieval Warming, and then it got too cold during the Little Ice Age.

A large portion of arguments we often hear (which is a logical fallacy in and of itself) is that almost all scientists agree climate change is real. What they don’t say is that everyone agrees climate change is real. What most of us understand, though, is that it’s natural. Man-made climate change is a farce.

S. Fred Singer said in an interview with the National Association of Scholars that “the number of skeptical qualified scientists has been growing steadily; I would guess it is about 40% now.” A 40% rate of doubt that man-made climate change is a thing doesn’t seem like “most scientists” or a consensus to me. In fact, it’s absurd to suggest we can even know this. We have such little data to go off and we’ve kept our own records for such a short time it’s amazing anyone wants to think we know what we’re talking about here.

And what of all the predictions that the world will end? We heard a teenage girl last year angrily rage against the world as she painted a scary picture of the world she believed she would inherit. I, personally, believe she’s been abused mentally, and I feel very badly for her. She was appalled that anyone would question her dark forecast, repeatedly saying, “how dare you.” Come on. We’ll look at these predictions in a moment.

What’s interesting is the chronic forecast of earth’s destruction due to man-made climate change (once called global warming until cooling seemed to be the trend) has continually gotten a pass on being completely wrong. Modern doomsayers have been predicting climate and environmental disaster for nearly 60 years. They continue to do so today.

1967: dire famine in 1975
1970: Ice Age by 2000
1970: water rationing by 1974 and food rationing by 1980
1971: new Ice Age coming within the next 50 years
1972: new Ice Age by 2070
1974: new Ice Age coming fast
1974: ozone depletion will end life on earth
1978: no end in sight for cooling trend
1980: acid rain will kill life on earth
1988: drought will plague the 1990’s
1988: DC will go from 35 to 85 days a year over 90 degrees
1988: Maldives will be completely under water by 2018
1989: rising seas will obliterate nations by 2000
1989: NYC’s west side highway to be under water by 2019
2000: children won’t know what snow is
2002: famine in 10 years
2004: Britain to have Siberian climate by 2020
2008: Al Gore says Arctic will be ice free by 2013
2009: only 8 years to save the planet
2009: 50 days to save the planet
2009: Arctic ice free by 2014
2013: Arctic ice free by 2016
2014: 500 days to climate chaos

And the list goes on and on. The only thing worth noting in this list is how NONE of it has come to pass. There are other predictions that are 50 to 100 years in the future, but we don’t know yet if they were right. But if we compare their predictions with previous predictions, we’ll quickly see they are highly unlikely.

Apocalyptic statements like these have real-world impacts. In September, a group of British psychologists said children are increasingly suffering from anxiety from the frightening discourse around climate change. See talk of Greta Thunberg above.

Some scientists are honest enough and bold enough to stand against the establishment:
“I also care about getting the facts and science right and have in recent months corrected inaccurate and apocalyptic news media coverage of fires in the Amazon and fires in California, both of which have been improperly presented as resulting primarily from climate change… no credible scientific body has ever said climate change threatens the collapse of civilization much less the extinction of the human species.” -- Michael Shellenberger

All of this seems rather pointless, however, when the left and the media are so bent on the doomsday scenarios, regardless of what the data really shows. For instance, there are major stories from 2009 and from 2015 concerning government manipulation of the climate data to make it appear that it’s getting worse when, in reality, it is not. This was to get us deeper into a war on climate change in ’09 and to get us into the extremely impossible Paris Climate Accord in ’15. Whistleblowers have come out several times claiming they and others cooked the books (no pun intended) to make it appear that we are in a warming phase and that the climate is rapidly changing because of man-made pollutants which will result in the end of the world. It’s all bogus. The failed predictions outlined above prove it, but the fact that some scientists with a conscience have come out saying they’ve been doing this makes it case closed. Let’s move on and fix real world problems.

What’s really curious to me is why the left continues to act like this is a major issue for Americans. It’s not. First, in the top 12 issues reported by voters, climate change is #11. That’s not high on the list. Secondly, we are a small contributor to the problem. China is pouring massive amounts of pollutants into the air and into water all the time. They account for 30% of the world’s pollution. India accounts for 7%. The U.S. is between these two nations. If we cripple ourselves over this, we’ll make a very small impact if any to the total amount of pollutants that our environment is taking in. This will further make nations like China, Russia, and certain Middle East nations very, very happy. Thirdly, man-made global warming or climate change is not really a real thing. The climate is changing, sure. It always has. But to suggest we are responsible when the same things have happened in the past is just denying reality as far as I can tell. Also, since we know the data has been fabricated, it seems rather silly to continue to push the narrative. We know it’s false and we know the actions some want to take to fix a problem we have no control over will bankrupt us as a nation. The world needs America strong. We can’t be strong if we don’t have energy.

God has given us dominion over the earth. This doesn’t mean we’re free to destroy it. We need to be responsible and take good care of the earth. It’s the only planet we’ve got. However, making a major issue of fixing a problem we didn’t cause, couldn’t cause and can’t fix is nonsense. We are to be good stewards, but we are not God.

God Himself sustains us and His creation. The Word reveals that God is at the helm. He’s in charge and will continue to cause these natural cycles to persist until He restores all things—bringing in the new heavens and new earth. I don’t believe it’s correct to assume the only cycles He sustains forever are those listed. The list is just an example and, I believe, reflects natural cycles that we see happening around us all the time. I trust Him. I encourage you to do the same. We can see evidence of temperature fluctuations throughout history. Why would we conclude this time we’re doing it when we know we weren’t in the past? Let’s take care of what He’s given us but also understand that we’re not in control of everything—far from it! And ruining ourselves, our livelihoods, our economy, our nation or even our world to stop a problem we’re not causing is ludicrous.

I look forward to all the links and opinions contrary to my own that people will want to share with me. Please understand that while I’m open to honest and thoughtful information, I believe it’s getting harder and harder to find such information. We’ve seen that scientists can change data or omit data to support their needs. We’ve seen censoring of information and censoring or even cancelling those who supply contrary information. My first response to any of the issues we see in our world today is, “What does the Bible say?” I start there.

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