Ask just about any person living in the U.S. if they are certain about anything, and they will more than likely say, yeah, Global Warming. They know that if scientists say it, well it must be true. Umh!
Well, do all scientists agree? Is there a consensus? Is man-made global warming certain?
Not according to many scientists, who are ignored by the environmentalists and present administration, but they do exist and they are considerably noteworthy.
February 27, 1992, a “Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Greenhouse Warming… signed by forty-seven atmospheric scientists, many of whom specialized in global climate studies…warned that plans to promote a carbon emissions reduction treaty to fight global warming…were ‘based on the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from the burning of fossil fuels and requires immediate action,’ adding, ‘We do not agree.'” ((Environmental Stewardship in the Judeo-Christian Tradition, (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Acton Institute, 2007) p95: The Statement by Atmospheric Scientists on Global Warming can be accessed at www.sepp.org))
A 1992 survey of United States atmospheric scientists by the Gallup organization demonstrated that “‘there is no consensus about the cause of the slight warming observed during the past century’…’the majority of scientific participants…agreed that the theoretical climate models used to predict a future warming cannot be relied upon and are not validated by the existing climate record,’ and pointed out ‘agriculturalists generally agree that any increase in carbon dioxide levels from fossil fuel burning has beneficial effects on most crops and on world food supply.'” ((Environmental Stewardship, p95))
The Heidelberg Appeal, released at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992, warned against “the emergence of an irrational ideology which is opposed to scientific and industrial progress and impedes economic and social development.” ((Environmental Stewardship, p95: The Heidelberg Appeal can be accessed at www.heartland.org)) This was signed by over three thousand scientists, including seventy-two Nobel Prize winners.
The 1997 Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change, which was signed by eighty leading scientists in the field of global climate research and twenty-five meteorologists, declared “the scientific basis of the 1992 Global Climate Treaty to be flawed and its goal to be unrealistic…[because] it was based solely on unproven scientific theories, imperfect climate models–and the unsupported assumption that catastrophic global warming follows from an increase in greenhouse gases.” ((Environmental Stewardship, p95: The Leipzig Declaration on Climate Change can be accessed at www.sepp.org))
The 1997 Global Warming Petition developed by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine, which “was signed by more than 17,000 basic and applied American scientists, including over 2,500 physicists, geophysicists, climatologists, meteorologists, oceanographers, and environmental scientists well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on the earth’s atmosphere and climate, and over 5,000 chemists, biochemists, biologists, and other life scientists well qualified to evaluate the effects of carbon dioxide on plant and animal life.” ((Environmental Stewardship, p96: The Global Warming Petition can be accessed at www.oism.org)) The petition urged “the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol” saying “the proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment…and damage the health and welfare of mankind.” ((Environmental Stewardship, p96))
They further stated, “there is no convincing evidence that human release of…greenhouse gases is causing or will…cause catastrophic heating of the Earth’s atmosphere and disruption of the Earth’s climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural and animal environments of the Earth.” ((Environmental Stewardship, p96))
So much for the media and present administration telling the public the truth about global warming. Why is this so important for a Christian to understand? Well there are a number of reasons, but two will suffice. First, we are to be good stewards of the planet that God gave us, but we cannot fulfill that obligation with incomplete and misleading information bandied about by those who believe that the earth is to be exalted above man even if it takes faulty science to do so. Second, the restrictions from the present administration as well as the Al Gores will actually hurt humans, particularly in undeveloped countries, because they will never be given the tools–fossil fuels, etc.–to develop richer food supplies and cleaner heating fuels, etc. Presently, “some three to five million children under the age of five die each year from diseases contracted from impure drinking water. Perhaps another three to five million die from diseases related to the widespread use of dried dung and wood for cooking and heating in the hovels of the poor, causing toxic indoor air pollution.” ((Environmental Stewardship, p81))
Without sufficient income, the poor cannot afford the solutions to such basic problems. Without economic development, they will never have the income. Without a free market and access to things such as clean burning fossil fuels and affordable energies they are doomed to die.
