Prophetic Musings

Um, you're serious about this, aren't you?

EthicsDaily.com writer Robert Parham tosses out this little gem of an article about how those of us who don't feel that global warming is as big of a threat as it is being made out to be are "deniers" and should be called out for it. I've got problems with several parts of his article, but I'll start at the beginning.

"Newsweek" exposed this week the axis of corporations and conservative organizations that oppose the scientific evidence that human actions are causing global warming as the "denial machine."

So what about the alliance of corporations and liberal organizations that confirm the scientific "evidence" in the face of increasing inaccuracies? Are we to simply believe them out of hand? Just because there is a majority holding a certain belief doesn't mean that belief is correct.  

Just this week, a man named Steve McIntyre posted a rebuttal of the data and methods used by the NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. Mr. McIntyre showed his findings to NASA, who acknowledged the error, gave credit to Mr. McIntyre for finding it and, to their credit, published the corrected data. But what did this data show?

The GISS has been tracking the deviation from the mean temperature calculated from temperature measurement stations throughout the USA. While this is US-only data, it is still significant. Why? Look at the two charts below.

Based on this new data, the four of the top ten warmest years in recorded history are from the 1930s. Only three are from the last ten years, and several years in the previous decade fell considerably. Again, why is this important? Because it shows that the "warming" trend of the last 10 years was arguably just the same as what happened during the 1930s.

Steve McIntyre was also partially responsible for debunking the "hockey stick graph" used in many global warming presentations. Listen to this guy. He's not a crackpot nor is he an armchair climatologist like Al Gore, Robert Parham, or even myself. He is an actual scientist who knows what he's doing.

OK, back to Mr. Parham's article. About the article in Newsweek, he said,

The magazine's insightful overview of chronology, participants and arguments missed only one thing—the role of religion as fuel in the campaign of doubt and deception.

How is religion fuel for this campaign? My faith has nothing to do with what I perceive as a fearmongering tactic being used by politicians and media. Parham goes on to state:

Corporations, like ExxonMobile, and lobbying groups, like Global Climate Coalition, Information Council on the Environment and American Petroleum Institute, were listed as entities in the campaign of disinformation.

The Southern Baptist Convention and other Christian Right groups were missing from the list, however. Yet they deserve as much shameful identification as Rush Limbaugh and Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.), who were named in the article as being part of the community of denial.

So, is this just a smear against the more conservative leaning people who don't believe the same as you do, Mr. Parham? Don't you even hear what people are saying? We aren't denying that global climate change is occurring, what we are denying is the hubris of us to believe that we are the cause of it. Should we do something about it? By all means, yes, I've said that before. Let's burn cleaner fuel and let's get rid of the pollution in the air, but for heaven's sake, let's be realistic about it.

When does it stop? Global cooling was coming in the 70s, but that was wrong wasn't it? They had a consensus of scientists then, but I guess those who didn't feel the same way were all idiots, weren't they?

Let's not forget all those harbingers of doom who said that we were going to be in a world of trouble as global warming was going to cause bigger and more powerful hurricanes after 2005. Hmm. Let's look at the past two years and see how that track record is. Not very good is it? They followed that up with a statement that global warming would cause a decrease in the number of powerful hurricanes. Can't have it both ways people.

Fundamentalist leaders have surely played a destructive role in providing a flawed theological perspective to justify moral inaction and juicing up people of faith to reject the science of global warming.

EthicsDaily.com has repeatedly identified those who reject climate change with the same kind of language as Newsweek. We have used the phrase "global warming deniers."

Again, theology has nothing to do with this. We aren't rejecting the science of global warming (though it has proven to be increasingly faulty), we are rejecting the religion of Global Warming. Al Gore has done more "juicing up" of people than anyone on the other side of the issue, but he agrees with you, so I guess it's alright.

Climate change is too serious to leave unchallenged those in church conversations and public discussions who dismiss global warming as bad science or faulty theology. Silence is too often interpreted as agreement or acceptance. Silence in the square filled with no-nothing extremists or the uniformed rarely advances the common good.

At every point, thoughtful and responsible Christians need to speak up about our moral responsibility to address climate change. Refuting directly the global warming deniers will throw the sand of discourse into the gears of the denial machine.

Global warming is bad science, as was global cooling, as were the hurricane predictions. Paul over at Wizbang has a post today that details some of the bad science being thrown around. How do we claim "moral responsibility" of something that we can't be sure is happening?

I'm sorry Mr. Parham, but you are painting everyone that doesn't agree with you as idiots. You are using extremely strong words in order to show that those of us who are on the other side of the argument do not have a leg to stand on, that since we are against "consensus" then we don't know what we are talking about. I'm sure Copernicus might have felt outnumbered when he said that the Earth wasn't the center of the universe. Consensus does not mean something is true. Don't call me a "no-nothing extremist" (by the way, it's know-nothing). I and others like me simply have a different opinion. And there is nothing wrong with that. I stand by my beliefs about global warming. I feel that it's the "thoughtful and responsible" thing to do.