Climate Change and Christians
I have received e-mails from some Christians warning me to not accept the lies about climate change. I am always puzzled by why some Christians do not accept evidence or scientific proof on such matters. There is no reason why Christians should not accept the empirical evidence about climate change in this country or in the world in general.
Australia and the globe are experiencing rapid climate change. Since the middle of the 20th century, Australian temperatures have, on average, risen by about 1°C with an increase in the frequency of heatwaves and a decrease in the numbers of frosts and cold days. Rainfall patterns have also changed – the northwest has seen an increase in rainfall over the last 50 years while much of eastern Australia and the far southwest has experienced a decline. Recently while in Cooma inspecting the Snowy Hydro scheme, I examined the rainfall patterns and snowfall patterns over the past century. There is no doubting the evidence. This driest of winters and our shortage of water in all dams are further indicators of climate change.
Dr. Geoff Love, Director of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, has said, “I expect climate change to affect all Australians. It is the Bureau’s responsibility to provide decision makers and the general public with accurate observations and information about our changing climate.”
For about fifteen years, I was a director of a large general insurance company. Every year I read with interest the European reports from Munich Re (one of the largest re-insurers in the world) of the financial impact of climate change upon the insurance industry.
Unless climate change slows, they warn, years like 2005, when their catastrophe bill topped $80 billion, could become the norm, with premiums for those in disaster-prone areas soaring, and some regions becoming uninsurable. But insurers have been criticised for not doing enough to encourage their clients to be more environmentally friendly.
As part of the world’s largest industry – with $3.4 trillion in annual premium income and $1 trillion in investment income – insurers have huge power to influence the behaviour of citizens throughout the world. Hundreds of thousands of American homeowners have had their property policies cancelled or not renewed or seen their premiums leap after the big hurricanes of 2004 and 2005, the result of climate change.
Christians should understand the issues, examine the evidence and seek to change the way we live. This week a film about climate change featuring Al Gore, An Inconvenient Truth, will be released in Australia. Federal Labor politician, Tanya Plibersek, wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald (September 6, 2006):
“The film examines some of the effects of climate change: extreme weather – droughts, floods, cyclones; the potential displacement of millions of environmental refugees as water levels rise; extinction of plant and animal species. It shows that last year was the hottest year on record, and the 10 hottest years have been in the past 14. Category 4 and 5 cyclones and hurricanes have doubled in the past 30 years.”
By 2030, the CSIRO says, Sydney’s water supply will drop by 25 per cent, as will rainfall in the Murray-Darling Basin. Domestic food supply and agricultural exports will be affected. NSW is experiencing its worst drought ever. Wetlands such as Kakadu face permanent change and warmer oceans threaten the coral that builds our Great Barrier Reef.
Australia has more endangered animal and plant species than any other continent – numbering hundreds – with 54 animal species and 61 plant species already extinct. Climate change will speed their demise. The number of bird and animal species listed as extinct, endangered or vulnerable rose by 41 per cent in the 10 years to last year.
Climate change is one of the biggest facing us. Christians must be at the forefront of good stewardship of our planet. I expect even the enviro-sceptics and climate change flat-earthers will agree. God is the author of all truth and we need not fear it.
GORDON MOYES
September 10th, 2006 at 3:11 am
As Christains we have to be very careful with the “truth.” For a while a lot of people were promoting the ‘hockey stick’ graph which purported to link climate to the human presence.
This was totally rebutted by statisticians, and it alarmingly ignored both the medieval warming period and little ice age.
This is a very complex subject with anomalies all over the map. Some very distinguished scientists are on the opposite sides of this divide.
Climate has a cyclic component as the geologic record and recent history will show.
Can humans change climate? I get a bit wary of this question. If the answer is no it will put good stewardship in jeopardy.
Christians should be good stewards of the earth regardless of the media hype.
As for Gore – he may be right, but for the wrong reasons.
Ted Cooper
October 22nd, 2006 at 12:18 am
God declares in His Word at Genesis 8:22
“While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease.”
It is a comforting thought for a Christian that God watches over His Creation, and this Scripture is particularly reassuring in the face of so much doom-saying along the lines of a “Greenhouse effect”.
Michael Thorpe