Unfriendly Climate — article from Texas Monthly

[YChang 3,455]

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/katharine-hayhoe-lubbock-climate-change-evangelist/

Neat read about a climate scientist that’s also an evangelical Christian. I’m not a Christian... but Surly Christians—do you agree with Hayhoe’s belief that Christianity and climate change/fixin coexists?

Also how many of y’all fall into the camp of, “I believe climate change is real, but I don’t trust the government to fix it?”

[TwiceHorn 31,509]

Most Christians find nothing in the Bible to contradict most science of any kind.

The type of evangelical Christian that uses the Bible to contradict science to which the Bible is not even directed, are a fairly recent, noisy, and minority view.

Edited September 30, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[YChang 3,455]

2 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Most Christians find nothing in the Bible to contradict most science of any kind.

The type of evangelical Christian that uses the Bible to contradict science to which the Bible is not even directed, are a fairly recent, noisy, and minority view.

 

Man... my perception is that minority sect are awfully loud and influential. 

[Dewey 3,286]

And most likely growing. Look back at a Christian like MLK who emphasized and laid out how religion and science work together.  But today we have these loud mouthed people who have no clue just how dumb they are. 

 

[formermav43 4,606]

I’m puzzled at the idea that Christianity and climate change can’t coexist. I know they DON’T for many, but I’m not sure why that would be inherently questionable.

[BrickHorn 18,248]

I like the part of the Bible where Jesus was omniscient but didn’t bother to tell us about penicillin.  I mean, thanks for all the parables and shit.  But it sure would have been nice to avoid a few of those plagues. 

[cactusflinthead 27,601]

34 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Most Christians find nothing in the Bible to contradict most science of any kind.

The type of evangelical Christian that uses the Bible to contradict science to which the Bible is not even directed, are a fairly recent, noisy, and minority view.

According to the most recent poll I could find it's 40% that say the Green New Deal is a good idea. 

https://www.christianpost.com/news/40-percent-white-evangelicals-support-green-new-deal-poll-shows.html

So, a sizable number but not a majority. It's a Marist poll. 39 pages of data.

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NPR_PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_1907190926.pdf#page=3

[NeverMarryAStripper 21,909]

I’m puzzled at the idea that Christianity and climate change can’t coexist. I know they DON’T for many, but I’m not sure why that would be inherently questionable.

I’m pretty sure Noah and the flood was global climate change

[TwiceHorn 31,509]

3 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

According to the most recent poll I could find it's 40% that say the Green New Deal is a good idea. 

https://www.christianpost.com/news/40-percent-white-evangelicals-support-green-new-deal-poll-shows.html

So, a sizable number but not a majority. It's a Marist poll. 39 pages of data.

http://maristpoll.marist.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/NPR_PBS-NewsHour_Marist-Poll_USA-NOS-and-Tables_1907190926.pdf#page=3

Thinking the Green New Deal is a good idea is far removed from believing climate change is incompatible with the Bible or Christianity.

One can think climate change is an urgent problem and still think the Green New Deal is a shitty idea.  One can think that climate change is not a problem at all for reasons wholly unrelated to the Bible or Christianity.

[softlynow 1,816]

6 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

I like the part of the Bible where Jesus was omniscient but didn’t bother to tell us about penicillin.  I mean, thanks for all the parables and shit.  But it sure would have been nice to avoid a few of those plagues. 

That’s because “penicillin” is the lie told by Satan’s minions to cover up the truth of the healing powers of prayer. And tricky if you, dark one, for slipping in the big lie that there were even plagues across Christendom to begin with. You cannot defeat the faithful, we are protected. 1 Samuel 2:9. 

[cactusflinthead 27,601]

12 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Thinking the Green New Deal is a good idea is far removed from believing climate change is incompatible with the Bible or Christianity.

One can think climate change is an urgent problem and still think the Green New Deal is a shitty idea.  One can think that climate change is not a problem at all for reasons wholly unrelated to the Bible or Christianity.

Closest I could find on short notice. I wasn't thrilled with the wording of the question. See what else I can turn up. 

[XYZ 2,154]

Why would Christianity and climate change be incompatible?

[Guest Lobo]

For the same reason you can't even discuss "Climate", as a macro topic, on the fucking Climate thread on this message board without getting dozens of stupid people all up in arms about it.  We call it a politicized topic for the simple reason is that such a label makes it a shortcut to thinking for many folks.  On a board of largely, well-educated folks...we can't talk about climate shifts without being yelled at my data-deniers.  

You can deny climate change.  You can deny our role in it.  You can deny science.  You can deny facts.  But at this point, we can't even hold a discussion regarding the data behind the debate.  It's Jesus' New Year, but I can't find a catholic that knows Jesus was Jewish, let alone that he was a steward of the Earth.  

[Newdoc 3,448]

27 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

I like the part of the Bible where Jesus was omniscient but didn’t bother to tell us about penicillin.  I mean, thanks for all the parables and shit.  But it sure would have been nice to avoid a few of those plagues. 

Non sequitur. Good job on contributing to the topic.

[TwiceHorn 31,509]

 

8 minutes ago, cactusflinthead said:

Closest I could find on short notice. I wasn't thrilled with the wording of the question. See what else I can turn up. 

Just sayin.  But if 40 percent of squirmin evangelicals believe Green New Deal is a good idea, it is fair to assume that climate change is not incompatible with their beliefs.  Add in mainstream Catholics and Prods and you probably have a good 75% of self-identified Christians that don't find incompatibility.

Edited September 30, 2019 by TwiceHorn

[cactusflinthead 27,601]

I found this. It's a pdf. The problem with this one is that I don't think that they tested any other age groups besides college students. 

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aaf0ce

Edit: Lead author is the dad of Katherine Hayhoe in the Texas Monthly article. I knew there was no way two people with the same name was a coincidence. 

Edited September 30, 2019 by cactusflinthead

[SwanderedTalent 5,761]

1 hour ago, YChang said:

influential. 

no

[YChang 3,455]

no

Tell me more...

[TwiceHorn 31,509]

2 hours ago, YChang said:

 

Man... my perception is that minority sect are awfully loud and influential. 

They're loud because they feel compelled to broadcast their politics and their religion at the same time.  They're still a minority of Christians.

You don't know about the regular ol Catholics,  Methodists,  Presbyterians, Episcopalians and the like who don't feel compelled to tell you their religious beliefs while discoursing on politics or non-religious policy issues. The mainstream protestant view seems to be that we are stewards of the earth and should govern our personal and political lives accordingly.

[52-80 19,190]

Why can't it be plausible that God ordained global warming to punish Russians and Canadiens?

[irishtexan 11,522]

Climate change isn’t incompatible with Christianity. It’s incompatible with conservative deification of fossil fuel profits.

[Telegraph_it 3,358]

12 hours ago, YChang said:

 

Man... my perception is that minority sect are awfully loud and influential. 

Is this not the case with most minority groups that believe strongly about something?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13,515]

Most issues are now simply down to us vs them.  And if you give “them” any leeway in any of “their” issues, “they” will use your weakness that to push everything thru Congress. Therefore climate change is a liberal issue.

you would think that being good stewards of the land God gave us would be of vital importance to Christians. Guess not.

[BabaYaga 15,302]

28 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Most issues are now simply down to us vs them.  And if you give “them” any leeway in any of “their” issues, “they” will use your weakness that to push everything thru Congress. Therefore climate change is a liberal issue.

you would think that being good stewards of the land God gave us would be of vital importance to Christians. Guess not.

We already have a fucking cloak room for these highly nuanced and articulate "us" vs. "them" binary, echo-chamber bullshit.

[wood 11,227]

13 hours ago, YChang said:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/katharine-hayhoe-lubbock-climate-change-evangelist/

Neat read about a climate scientist that’s also an evangelical Christian. I’m not a Christian... but Surly Christians—do you agree with Hayhoe’s belief that Christianity and climate change/fixin coexists?

Also how many of y’all fall into the camp of, “I believe climate change is real, but I don’t trust the government to fix it?”

I'm not religious, so I dunno if I count in terms of what you want. At any rate, I believe climate change is real and I believe in taking care of the planet. I think most people do. I just don't think climate change something that's caused by humans. The climate has always been changing. It's done so since long before we got here, and it'll continue to change well after we're gone. FWIW.

Edited September 30, 2019 by wood

[Iceman 2,720]

13 hours ago, YChang said:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/katharine-hayhoe-lubbock-climate-change-evangelist/

Neat read about a climate scientist that’s also an evangelical Christian. I’m not a Christian... but Surly Christians—do you agree with Hayhoe’s belief that Christianity and climate change/fixin coexists?

Also how many of y’all fall into the camp of, “I believe climate change is real, but I don’t trust the government to fix it?”

Question the Christians.  No debate here.

Question the living fuck out of the 'science' too.  That's what science is supposed to do.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Iceman

[gecko 1,104]

This thread is going exactly the way one would expect.....

[YChang 3,455]

Question the Christians.  No debate here.
Question the living fuck out of the 'science' too.  That's what science is supposed to do.

Yes, agreed the science should be questioned too. You’re correct there. And I like to think based on the article, the scientist and many like her is doing what science is supposed to do.

I can’t tell if I irked you on the Christian part but I asked mainly because of a theme from the article and I think many of our posters identify as such.

[Iceman 2,720]

1 minute ago, YChang said:

 

Yes, agreed the science should be questioned too. You’re correct there. And I like to think based on the article, the scientist and many like her is doing what science is supposed to do.

I can’t tell if I irked you on the Christian part but I asked mainly because of a theme from the article and I think many of our posters identify as such.
 

 

No you did not and I did not mean to convey that.  

Question everything.  I meant that at face value.

[Bateshorn 9,928]

If God created the universe, then God established the laws of physics that govern it.  Which means this guy (Svante Arrhenius):

used those laws of physics in 1894 to establish exactly how much CO2 will trap heat in the earth's atmosphere. It's actually fairly simple physical chemistry.  The more of that CO2 is in the atmosphere, the greater the heat trapping potential of said atmosphere.  Without being facetious, it's entirely consistent that this earth's atmosphere acts in ways according the laws God established for the universe.

If one were to believe in an omnipotent being who created our universe.  

[RollLeft 5,045]

17 minutes ago, YChang said:

 

Yes, agreed the science should be questioned too. You’re correct there. And I like to think based on the article, the scientist and many like her is doing what science is supposed to do.

I can’t tell if I irked you on the Christian part but I asked mainly because of a theme from the article and I think many of our posters identify as such.
 

 

Are you new here?

[YChang 3,455]

1 hour ago, Telegraph_it said:

Is this not the case with most minority groups that believe strongly about something?

Mmm... yes. And at least for the context of this topic/article — my opinion is that some of them are slowing meaningful action to fix the problem. 

[YChang 3,455]

1 minute ago, RollLeft said:

Are you new here?

My perception then. If I'm wrong, then I'm wrong, no biggie. 

[RollLeft 5,045]

13 hours ago, YChang said:

https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/katharine-hayhoe-lubbock-climate-change-evangelist/

Neat read about a climate scientist that’s also an evangelical Christian. I’m not a Christian... but Surly Christians—do you agree with Hayhoe’s belief that Christianity and climate change/fixin coexists?

Also how many of y’all fall into the camp of, “I believe climate change is real, but I don’t trust the government to fix it?”

The former dean of biomedical engineering at UTexas used to give seminars on how science and the Bible can coexist.  Being either does not negate the other.   

[Dahobbs 17,625]

2 hours ago, wood said:

I'm not religious, so I dunno if I count in terms of what you want. At any rate, I believe climate change is real and I believe in taking care of the planet. I think most people do. I just don't think climate change something that's caused by humans. The climate has always been changing. It's done so since long before we got here, and it'll continue to change well after we're gone. FWIW.

So you don't think CO2 build up causes a warming effect on the planet? It is a fairly basic interaction that is understood quite well. Statements like this appear to me to simply be code for laziness or willful blindness.

Here is a great overview from those smarties at NASA: https://climate.nasa.gov/causes/

Scientists attribute the global warming trend observed since the mid-20th century to the human expansion of the "greenhouse effect"1 — warming that results when the atmosphere traps heat radiating from Earth toward space.

Certain gases in the atmosphere block heat from escaping. Long-lived gases that remain semi-permanently in the atmosphere and do not respond physically or chemically to changes in temperature are described as "forcing" climate change. Gases, such as water vapor, which respond physically or chemically to changes in temperature are seen as "feedbacks."

Gases that contribute to the greenhouse effect include:

1. Water vapor. The most abundant greenhouse gas, but importantly, it acts as a feedback to the climate. Water vapor increases as the Earth's atmosphere warms, but so does the possibility of clouds and precipitation, making these some of the most important feedback mechanisms to the greenhouse effect.
2. Carbon dioxide (CO2). A minor but very important component of the atmosphere, carbon dioxide is released through natural processes such as respiration and volcano eruptions and through human activities such as deforestation, land use changes, and burning fossil fuels. Humans have increased atmospheric CO2 concentration by more than a third since the Industrial Revolution began. This is the most important long-lived "forcing" of climate change.
3. Methane. A hydrocarbon gas produced both through natural sources and human activities, including the decomposition of wastes in landfills, agriculture, and especially rice cultivation, as well as ruminant digestion and manure management associated with domestic livestock. On a molecule-for-molecule basis, methane is a far more active greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, but also one which is much less abundant in the atmosphere.
4. Nitrous oxide. A powerful greenhouse gas produced by soil cultivation practices, especially the use of commercial and organic fertilizers, fossil fuel combustion, nitric acid production, and biomass burning.
5. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). Synthetic compounds entirely of industrial origin used in a number of applications, but now largely regulated in production and release to the atmosphere by international agreement for their ability to contribute to destruction of the ozone layer. They are also greenhouse gases

On Earth, human activities are changing the natural greenhouse. Over the last century the burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). This happens because the coal or oil burning process combines carbon with oxygen in the air to make CO2. To a lesser extent, the clearing of land for agriculture, industry, and other human activities has increased concentrations of greenhouse gases.

The consequences of changing the natural atmospheric greenhouse are difficult to predict, but certain effects seem likely:

On average, Earth will become warmer. Some regions may welcome warmer temperatures, but others may not.

Warmer conditions will probably lead to more evaporation and precipitation overall, but individual regions will vary, some becoming wetter and others dryer.

A stronger greenhouse effect will warm the oceans and partially melt glaciers and other ice, increasing sea level. Ocean water also will expand if it warms, contributing further to sea level rise.

Meanwhile, some crops and other plants may respond favorably to increased atmospheric CO2, growing more vigorously and using water more efficiently. At the same time, higher temperatures and shifting climate patterns may change the areas where crops grow best and affect the makeup of natural plant communities.

The Role of Human Activity

In its Fifth Assessment Report, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group of 1,300 independent scientific experts from countries all over the world under the auspices of the United Nations, concluded there's a more than 95 percent probability that human activities over the past 50 years have warmed our planet.

The industrial activities that our modern civilization depends upon have raised atmospheric carbon dioxide levels from 280 parts per million to 400 parts per million in the last 150 years. The panel also concluded there's a better than 95 percent probability that human-produced greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have caused much of the observed increase in Earth's temperatures over the past 50 years.

The panel's full Summary for Policymakers report is online at https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers.pdf.

Solar Irradiance

The above graph compares global surface temperature changes (red line) and the Sun's energy that Earth receives (yellow line) in watts (units of energy) per square meter since 1880. The lighter/thinner lines show the yearly levels while the heavier/thicker lines show the 11-year average trends. Eleven-year averages are used to reduce the year-to-year natural noise in the data, making the underlying trends more obvious.

The amount of solar energy that Earth receives has followed the Sun’s natural 11-year cycle of small ups and downs with no net increase since the 1950s. Over the same period, global temperature has risen markedly. It is therefore extremely unlikely that the Sun has caused the observed global temperature warming trend over the past half-century. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

It's reasonable to assume that changes in the Sun's energy output would cause the climate to change, since the Sun is the fundamental source of energy that drives our climate system.

Indeed, studies show that solar variability has played a role in past climate changes. For example, a decrease in solar activity coupled with an increase in volcanic activity is thought to have helped trigger the Little Ice Age between approximately 1650 and 1850, when Greenland cooled from 1410 to the 1720s and glaciers advanced in the Alps.

But several lines of evidence show that current global warming cannot be explained by changes in energy from the Sun:

Since 1750, the average amount of energy coming from the Sun either remained constant or increased slightly.

If the warming were caused by a more active Sun, then scientists would expect to see warmer temperatures in all layers of the atmosphere. Instead, they have observed a cooling in the upper atmosphere, and a warming at the surface and in the lower parts of the atmosphere. That's because greenhouse gases are trapping heat in the lower atmosphere.

Climate models that include solar irradiance changes can’t reproduce the observed temperature trend over the past century or more without including a rise in greenhouse gases.

[Bateshorn 9,928]

3 hours ago, wood said:

I'm not religious, so I dunno if I count in terms of what you want. At any rate, I believe climate change is real and I believe in taking care of the planet. I think most people do. I just don't think climate change something that's caused by humans. The climate has always been changing. It's done so since long before we got here, and it'll continue to change well after we're gone. FWIW.

A.  CO2, Methane, and Water Vapor all trap heat.  It's why our planet is habitable.  Right now, we are the primary driver of rising GHG levels.  For a variety of reasons, but mostly due to utility and industrial emissions, agriculture, destroying rain forest (eliminating a CO2 sink), and transportation. This can't be argued with, explained away, or ignored.  It's as immutable as the force that keeps you attached to this planet (and far better understood).

B. You are correct, that the climate is and has always changed.  It's just never changed in the way's we are seeing in humanity's time on this rock.  We are, in effect, pushing the entire planet through a massive real time ecological experiment. At a speed which is virtually unprecedented in geological history. 

How that experiment ends is, to some degree a mystery, but most of the scientific community thinks it will be very, very bad for both the environment and us. 

It really is that simple.  We are making the blanket around this planet thicker in ways it's never been since we've been here.  There's an extremely high likelihood we will suffer greatly from doing that.

Edited September 30, 2019 by Bateshorn