Climate, Science, and Religion

Despite claims to the contrary, planetary sh*t does happen.

Caveat at the outset: This post addresses some issues of faith. It is not my intention to question or undermine any individual's religious or spiritual beliefs. It's merely to point out that an insistence of "solid or good science" cannot use religion as a context for judging what is good science.

Did you catch the news? That renowned politician and self-appointed climate expert Senator James Inhofe (R-Okla.) has written a new book, The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future. Now, I've only read a free Kindle sample of it from Amazon.com, so I'm not about to comment on the book itself. But my dive into the first few pages did get a little something stirring deep down.

A Principled Stand for Good Science?

Two of the passages early on that caught my eye:

• In the endorsements section Vaclav Klaus, president of the Czech Republic, seems to disparage climate science by calling it a "global warming religion."
• In the book's introduction, Inhofe quotes from a 2003 statement of his that blames "phony science" for propagating concerns about global warming.

OK, not bad, Senator. You may have your climate science wrong -- I don't know, I didn't read the whole book -- but I can certainly get behind your principled stand for good, solid science. And yes, just as Klaus seems to suggest, let's leave religion out of it. Right?

Not quite.

It seems that for the senator, religion is very much part a huge part of climate science, so much so that during a recent interview Inhofe pronounced that his beliefs on global warming are "biblically inspired," and he quoted from Genesis 8:22, where God made his covenant with Noah -- "As long as the earth remains, there will be springtime, harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night" -- Inhofe's point being, I suppose, that catastrophic global warming cannot happen because it would violate God's covenant, and that to even consider or register such a thought is sheer arrogance.

Oh well, so much for science. But you know, I'm bothered by the senator's implication that we are free to do what we want, that it will all be taken care of by a higher being. Experience, history, and geology tell us the world can be a dangerous place.

Yes, Senator, Global Catastrophes Do Happen

Being neither a biblical scholar nor a prophet, I am unqualified to judge what falls either within or outside the parameters of God's domain. But I would like to point out for your consideration that really, really bad stuff has happened on our planet in the past.

For recent history, you have to go no further back than a year ago, when the one-two punch of an earthquake quickly followed by a tsunami in Japan killed thousands, devastated the Fukushima power plant, displaced 320,000 people, and rendered the area uninhabitable for at least a generation. The area around Chernobyl, a human-inspired accident a bit further out, is still radioactive and off-limits for at least another 300 years.

But to take a look way back, first and foremost among global catastrophes, I'd say, have been the mass extinctions, in which anywhere from 50 to 90 percent of all species that have ever roamed the Earth were wiped out. Thus far, five such events have taken place. The last one, occurring some 65 million years ago, annihilated more than half of the planet's species at the time, dinosaurs included. (See also here.)

But I guess a counterargument could be made that all of these events occurred well before modern humankind happened on the scene some 100,000 to 200,000 years ago (see also here), and therefore before the days of Noah, and so there is no biblical contradiction (all that bad stuff preceded the covenant). Some people have a problem with this because it appears to contradict a religious text -- the stance Inhofe's endorsement seems to suggest we should avoid. But let's not go there; there are lots more modern examples.

A Quick Review of Some Bad Scenes on the Earth from the More Recent Past

There's no room to list them all, but here are a few highlights of Earth's past catastrophes:

• About 70,000 years ago, humans came within a hair's breath of going extinct. What's a hair's breath? Lev A. Zhivotovsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences and colleagues, in a paper published in 2003 in the American Journal of Human Genetics, estimated that at its nadir the human population was only 2,000. And it wasn't a Noah-like flood that almost did in those couple thousand people living in small, isolated patches of Africa; the culprit appears to have been a series of devastating droughts.
• Then there are the Ice Ages. The most recent glacial maximum occurred from 26,500 years ago to 19,000 years ago, a time period that constitutes about 7,000 years when there was not exactly a regular progression of "cold and heat, winter and summer."
• And after the thaw following the last Ice Age came the so-called Younger Dryas, when the warming climate suddenly made a 180-degree turn back into ice-age conditions for another 1,300 years, a time that saw widespread extinctions as well as a significant drop in the human population. Some scientists have speculated that the Younger Dryas was caused by a shutdown in the ocean's conveyor-belt circulation, a scenario the 2004 film The Day After Tomorrow turned into cinematic sci-fi. Another theory, advanced by Richard Firestone of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and colleagues in a 2007 paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that a large extraterrestrial object (such as a meteor or comet) colliding into the Earth triggered the Younger Dryas. Further evidence supporting that hypothesis came from Isabel Israde-Alcántara of Universidad Michoacana de San Nicólas de Hidalgo and colleagues in a paper published in the same journal last week. Bear in mind that such an event would have injected huge amounts of dust and soot into the atmosphere, effectively blotting out the sun for a while, making for lots of twilight and night but not much day, maybe for as long as a few months.
• And don't forget the likely fallout from Mount Tambora's 1815 eruption: 1816, the year without a summer.

So there you have it: a review of a few bad times in our planet's past, all caused by the natural progression of things.

Is it sheer arrogance to think humanity could cause a global catastrophe? How about nuclear war? Does anyone doubt that a global catastrophe would be in the offing if we humans stupidly decided to start a full-out nuclear exchange? So far we've kept away from that precipice. Maybe because we've been careful and smart? Albert Einstein said, "The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind."

So Einstein thought mankind held the key to the avoidance of nuclear catastrophe, just as humans, himself included, were the ones who had unlocked the technology in the first place.

Others might think it's been by the grace of God that we've averted such disaster. If that's the case, here's hoping for some grace on the climate front, as well. I hope I'm not being too arrogant to remind those hoping for heavenly intervention on climate of the old saw that "God helps those who help themselves." Some cuts in greenhouse gas emissions might be a graceful way of chipping in.

This piece also appears on TheGreenGrok.

 

Follow Bill Chameides on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TheGreenGrok

Comments

[maxwells]

11:46 PM on 03/22/2012

But Dr. Chameides, given your article's title, shouldn't we bear witness from the encyclists themselves?

E.g., a report from the Pontifical Academy of Science at the Vatican states:

http://catholicclimatecovenant.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/Pontifical-Academy-of-Sciences_Glacier_Report_050511_final.pdf

"Declaration by the Working Group

We call on all people and nations to recognise the serious and potentially irreversible impacts of global warming caused by the anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and other
pollutants, and by changes in forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other land uses. We appeal to all nations to develop and implement, without delay, effective and fair policies to reduce the causes and impacts of climate change on communities and ecosystems, including mountain glaciers and their watersheds, aware that we all live in the same home.

By acting now, in the spirit of common but differentiated responsibility, we accept our duty to one another and to the stewardship of a planet blessed with the gift of life.

We are committed to ensuring that all inhabitants of this planet receive their daily bread, fresh air to breathe and clean water to drink as we are aware that, if we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us. The believers among us ask God to grant us this wish."

[maxwells]

11:38 PM on 03/22/2012

Not that I agree with the following guy on much else, but given the title of the above article...

"Pope urges international agreement on climate change

(CNS/Paul Haring)

By John Thavis
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI urged international leaders to reach a credible agreement on climate change, keeping in mind the needs of the poor and of future generations.

The pope made the remarks at his noon blessing at the Vatican Nov. 27, the day before officials from 194 countries were to begin meeting in Durban, South Africa, to discuss the next steps in reducing greenhouse gases and stopping global temperatures from rising.

"I hope that all members of the international community can agree on a responsible, credible and supportive response to this worrisome and complex phenomenon, keeping in mind the needs of the poorest populations and of future generations," the pope said."

http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1104646.htm

[Publicola]

10:56 PM on 03/21/2012

Prominent "Skeptic" Roy Spencer: The Bible Disproves Evolution and AGW

Netdr aka leeseburg-larry:  "The attacks by alarmists on people for their religion especially Spencer is actually amusing"

Roy Spencer incorrectly analyzed NASA satellite temperature data for years until corrected by independent scientists.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/18/science/earth/18CLIM.html
http://tinyurl.com/5r47ed

Roy Spencer has been repeatedly debunked by other climate scientists.

http://bbickmore.wordpress.com/2011/02/25/roy-spencers-great-blunder-part-1/
http://profmandia.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/spencer-braswell-2011-proof-that-global-warming-is-exaggerated-or-just-bad-science/

Roy Spencer is a Board member of Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, which preaches that per the Bible God will protect us from global warming:

-----------------------
The world is in the grip of an idea: that burning fossil fuels... is causing global warming that will be so dangerous that we must stop it by reducing our use...

We believe that idea... fails the tests of theology... with a worldview of the Earth and its climate system contrary to that taught in the Bible...
------------------------
http://tinyurl.com/27murl6 (pdf)

Roy Spencer is a Creationist.

http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Spencer_(scientist)

Roy Spencer's repeated failures to have climate science conform to his fundamentalist religious beliefs notwithstanding, climate science deniers parrot what Roy Spencer says with zero skepticism.

[maxwells]

08:11 PM on 03/21/2012

So, 8 times banned leesburg-larry = http://tinyurl.com ,

since Dec.15th, 2011,

I've repeatedly asked you, given you claim you're a "college prof",

how can you post up to 70+ AGW impact denial comments per day here, 8+ hours per day, every day?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/maxwells/farm-bill-climate-change-crop-insurance-subsidies_n_1146058_123642807.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/leesburg-larry?action=comments&display=all&sort=newest

3 MONTHS LATER on MARCH 16th, 2012 -

you amended your claim to,

"Actually I am a RETIRED college professor "

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/leesburg-larry/rick-santorum-global-warming-hoax_n_1345053_141702677.html

How smart are you, really?

Given it took you 3 FULL MONTHS to offer your by then absurd explanation?

And you still haven't even tried to explain any of your other obvious self-contradictions, like:

a) How can someone with just a BS degree be a college prof?

"I have a BSEE and have created computer models professionally for several years."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/social/netdr/farm-bill-climate-change-crop-insurance-subsidies_n_1146058_123797495.html

b) If you're a modeling expert, why can't you answer any of my simple climate modeling questions?

c) Why do you pretend that two phony graphs from a phony AGW denial ".COM" site are from NOAA, when all NOAA (and U.S. government sites) are ".ORG" sites?

Hmm....?

[lynniebaker]

03:57 AM on 03/22/2012

Dear Professor, You are obviously a very knowledgeable person. You replied to my comment regarding Thoreau and climate change, but I was unable to reply to that link.
The cherry blossoms are blooming in Washington DC a month early. In Wisconsin we are experiencing spring two months earlier than we did last year. Last year at this time we were shoveling snow through the month of April. It was a very long and very cold year. Can it change that rapidly? I am not denying that our climate change is due to CO2's, but why did we experience a totally different climate last year? I believe this is why people are not convinced by it. It's hard to justify global warming when you are still experiencing extremely cold winters. And please, I am not even close to a Harvard Grad, so go easy on me. :)

[Publicola]

10:43 PM on 03/21/2012

Those who believe they know "truth verses lies when it comes to climate" 

-- which includes AGW "skeptics" like Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Dr. Roy Spencer and Ross McKitrick, who believe that per the Bible God protects us from global warming including  -- 

"think they are God"?

If you say so, Netdr.

---------------------
* "leesburg-larry" is one of Netdr's many online climate science denier personas. Other personas include "Neptune2", "Texas-Titan", "Ptolemy101", "NGC2623" & "Hoosier-Daddy25".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/02/23/robot-wars/

[Publicola]

05:26 PM on 03/21/2012

Prominent global warming "skeptic" / climate scientist / creationist Roy Spencer is on the Board of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation. 

Here's the Cornwall Alliance on their belief that per Biblical prophecy God will protect us from global warming:

---------------------------------------------------
The world is in the grip of an idea: that burning fossil fuels... is causing global warming that will be so dangerous that we must stop it by reducing our use...

We believe that idea... fails the tests of theology... with a worldview of the Earth and its climate system contrary to that taught in the Bible...

Earth and all its subsystems - of land, sea, and air, living and nonliving - are the good products of the wise design and omnipotent acts of the infinite, eternal, and unchangeable Triune God of the Bible. As such they reveal God’s glory. Mankind, created in God’s image, is the crown of creation. Human beings have the divine mandate to multiply and to fill, subdue, and rule the Earth...

Human beings have the divine mandate to multiply and to fill, subdue, and rule the Earth, transforming it from wilderness into garden. They act as stewards under God to cultivate and guard what they subdue and rule. 

continued...

[SallyMaclennane]

12:23 PM on 03/21/2012

Not much of substance in this article. Just because man could cause a global catastrophe with a nuclear war means that he can also cause AGW? Not very well reasoned.

[Katmandu01]

03:13 PM on 03/21/2012

It speaks to Inhofe's claim that man cannot radically change the earth's climate because a god would not allow it to happen. This idea is absurd and regardless of whether one accepts the scientific evidence concerning anthropogenic global warming it's abundantly clear that even a "limited" nuclear war such as one that might occur between India and Pakistan would lead to catastrophic climate change, in other words a nuclear winter.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19900067303_1990067303.pdf
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/424481?uid=3739392&uid=2&uid=3737720&uid=4&sid=55930074063

[maxwells]

02:31 PM on 03/23/2012

Not much of substance in your response.

[Norge]

01:37 AM on 03/21/2012

There will be those types also and then there are these types, the more grounded types........................http://www.ratical.org/LifeWeb

Have a fine read, enjoy knowledge about the 6th great extinction. In real time.

[Doug Brockman]

10:24 PM on 03/20/2012

I read the book.

And now I'm a believer.

I'm firing up the Winnebago for another summer of fun driving to Yellowstone, Mt Rainier, San Diego and the Grand Canyon.

Let's burn up that Arab oil before the Chinese get to it!

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

12:03 AM on 03/21/2012

Translation: I'm a greedy money grubber and the natural world must indulge my unexamined life at any cost.

[SwiftJonathan]

12:08 AM on 03/21/2012

Best projection of the day award!

[Publicola]

07:36 PM on 03/20/2012

AGW "Skeptics": God Protects Us From Global Warming

Senator James Inhofe, the leading climate science denier in Congress, believes that per the Bible God protects us from global warming.

http://tinyurl.com/7fr6z36

Other prominent global warming "skeptics" -- including Roy Spencer (a scientist favored by "skeptics"), Ross McKitrick (economist / purported "hockey stick" slayer), and Joseph D'Aleo (weatherman / Icecap blogger) -- also preach that per the Bible God protects from global warming, along with other signatories of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation's "Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming":

http://www.cornwallalliance.org/blog/item/prominent-signers-of-an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/

Roy Spencer is moreover on the Cornwall Alliance's Board of Advisers:

http://www.cornwallalliance.org/about/board-of-advisors/

More from the Cornwall Alliance on their belief that per Biblical prophesy God protects us from global warming:

-----------------------
The world is in the grip of an idea: that burning fossil fuels... is causing global warming that will be so dangerous that we must stop it by reducing our use...

We believe that idea... fails the tests of theology... with a worldview of the Earth and its climate system contrary to that taught in the Bible...
 
God’s wisdom, power, and faithfulness justify confidence that Earth’s ecosystems are robust and will, by God’s providence, accomplish the purposes He set for them.
------------------------
http://tinyurl.com/27murl6

Netdr as "leesburg-larry": "The Global Warming religion is very jealous of other religions."

Science denier irony is eternal.

[Publicola]

05:21 PM on 03/21/2012

Prominent AGW "skeptics" who believe that per the Bible God protects us from global warming -- including Senator James Inhofe (R-OK), Dr. Roy Spencer and Ross McKitrick -- "hate all other religions"?

If you say so, Netdr.

--------------------
"leesburg-larry" is one of Netdr's many online personas. Other personas include "Neptune2", "Texas-Titan", "Ptolemy101", "NGC2623" & "Hoosier-Daddy25".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing
http://www.monbiot.com/2011/02/23/robot-wars/

[ILoveFiction]

09:38 PM on 03/21/2012

You love fiction!

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

12:06 AM on 03/21/2012

You sound like a cult leader.

[El Justiciero]

09:11 AM on 03/21/2012

Okay, that's the second time you've posted that that I've seen. I call SPAM ALERT.

[BluePhantom2]

06:26 PM on 03/20/2012

The Senators views are his own but as to puting the warmist into a religious context? In his position I'm pretty sure he can get all the information he needs on just about any subject. And he did get elected to make descisions and apparently he has made his. Sorry you don't agree! Sad you can't make a better arguement and have to resort to personal attacks.

[Dallas Dunlap]

09:15 PM on 03/20/2012

BluePhantom2 - I suppose there is a fine line between criticism and personal attacks, and I don't see any in the article. Chameides simply argues that using Biblical quotes is a poor way to make scientific decisions. And he notes that Inhofe makes the claim that AGW is a religious belief, which is ridiculous.
In my own case, I expressed an opinion that Inhofe has integrated his religious and political viewpoints into a world view which has no moral content except for prohibitions on women's sexual behavior. IMHO, his world view is evil in that it has no concern for the less fortunate, and that his antiscience activities are going to cause massive human suffering.
If someone wants to invoke Biblical authority for a foolish and dangerous belief, I don't see the problem with challenging his interpretation of Christianity. I don't consider that a personal attack.

[Sister Lauren]

12:23 AM on 03/21/2012

Great answer.

[waltifarian]

09:38 PM on 03/20/2012

So your argument is that because he is a politician he is honest and smart?

Smarter about science than the world's scientists? The claim that global warming is caused by increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere resulting from human activities is recognized by the national science academies of all the major industrialized countries and is not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing including US, UK, EU, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, the Caribbean, the People's Republic of China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Malaysia, New Zealand, Sweden, Japan, Russia, Mexico, and South Africa, The American Physical Society, American Quaternary Association, Australian Meteorological and Oceanographic Society, Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences, CEuropean Academy of Sciences and Arts, European Geosciences Union, European Science Foundation, Geological Society of America, Geological Society of Australia, Geological Society of London-Stratigraphy Commission, InterAcademy Council,, National Association of Geoscience Teachers, National Research Council (US), Royal Meteorological Society, and World Meteorological Organization among others.

[BluePhantom2]

06:04 PM on 03/21/2012

No I said he was elected to make descisions and that he had access to whatever information he needed. I did not specify what he knows, what he thinks I was stating that he has apparently made his descision and it's too bad the author didn't like it. But thanks for the stock answer and pasted list.

[jimboy71]

09:56 PM on 03/20/2012

The attack, sugar is when Spencer tries to make Jebus ride the dinosaur.

Religion has no place in science.

[Sister Lauren]

11:58 PM on 03/20/2012

Yeah but the Green religion has it's own Dragon cult. Just in case you might want to join it or proselytize, here is a link,

Cult of the Green Dragon
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Cult-of-the-Green-Dragon/121700311230749

I googled it and discovered the founder did it in response to the video posted there. I thought it sounded like fun and joined, but we never have any meetings. Too bad, I think the snacks might be interesting.

[SonicUltimate]

05:48 PM on 03/20/2012

 I hope I'm not being too arrogant to remind those hoping for heavenly intervention on climate of the old saw that "God helps those who help themselves." 

The "good book" also says we're supposed to be good stewards of the Earth, but I guess that's all in how you define "good".

[Sister Lauren]

12:00 AM on 03/21/2012

The author should have mentioned the great dust bowl.

[SonicUltimate]

09:33 AM on 03/21/2012

He could get even more recent with the introduction of fracking creating wells that yield flammable water, and debatably earthquakes as well.

[jimboy71]

09:57 PM on 03/20/2012

So clever.

You must be proud of your utter inanity.

[El Justiciero]

09:13 AM on 03/21/2012

Then our activities should be tax exempt. Awesome.