Mark Maslin in his book, Global Warming: A Very Short Introduction, provides an imminently readable introduction to the complex issue of global warming. Before I go on to discuss his work, I must admit that I am far out of my field of expertise when it comes to this issue. The last time I had a science class was 13 years ago and global warming was not a subject matter in that course. Moreover, I am an Evangelical Christian, and thus part of a community which has not always been concerned with creation care and environmental issues (our concern has been more with apologetics concerning the creation of the world). Recently this trend is changing for the better and some Evangelicals are rethinking their theology for creation care and environmental issues and are seeking to move these concerns to the forefront of Evangelical communities. One Evangelical organization that is trying to rethink Evangelical’s relationship to the environment is the Evangelical Environmental Network (http://www.creationcare.org) Here is just a little snippet from their website that provides a brief overview of why Christians should be concerned and active regarding environmental issues.
Biblically understood, "the environment" is actually part of God's creation, of which human beings are also a part. So why should we care for all of God's creation?
1. Christ died to reconcile all of creation to God (Col. 1:20).
2. All of creation belongs to Jesus (Col. 1:16; Ps. 24:1).
3. It fulfills the Great Commandments to love God and love what God loves. (It's hard to love a child with asthma when you're filling her lungs with pollution.)
4. Pollution hurts the poor the most, and Christians are called to care for the poor and the less powerful (Mt. 25:37-40).
Thus, caring for all of creation provides a Christian with the deepest sense of joy and contentment since it is part of loving God. We call this "creation-care."
What is "creation-care"?
Creation-care means caring for all of God's creation by stopping and preventing activities that are harmful (e.g. air and water pollution, species extinction), and participating in activities that further Christ's reconciliation of all of creation to God. Doing creation-care fills us with the joy that only comes from doing the will of God.
What does the Bible say?
Our scriptures page provides many texts from the Bible about God's relationship to creation and what God's will is concerning our relationship to creation.[1]
I pasted this snippet from their website here to give a brief theological reason (for those who question this) for why Christians should be concerned about global warming. I find the argument that it involves loving our neighbor and particular those who are poor very compelling since they most likely will suffer the most from the effects of global warming.
What is global warming? According to the Merrian Webster online dictionary global warming is defined as: “an increase in the earth's atmospheric and oceanic temperatures widely predicted to occur due to an increase in the greenhouse effect resulting especially from pollution.” Usually the discussion focuses on the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide and the consequences additionally added greenhouses gases will have. Maslin introduces the complexity of Global warming in the first chapter of the book. It’s a lot more complex then I was aware of. For example he discusses external and internal forcing mechanisms. According to Maslin, “an example of an internal forcing mechanism is the variations in the carbon dioxide content of the atmosphere modulating the greenhouse effect, while a good example of an external forcing mechanism is the long-term variations in the Earth’s orbits around the Sun, which alter the regional distribution of solar radiation to the Earth.” (15) Thus he argues that “in terms of looking for the evidence for global warming and predicting the future, we need to take account of all the natural external and internal forcing mechanisms.” (15)
A further question that Maslin raises is how the global climate system will react to the mechanism. According to Maslin “there are four possible relationships, and this is the central question in the global warming debate – which is most applicable to the future?” (18)
1. Linear and synchronous response.
“This can be equated to pushing a car along a flat road: most of the energy put into pushing is used to move the car forward.” (18)
2. Muted or limited response.
“This is the ‘pushing the car up the hill’ analogy: you can spend as much energy as you like trying to push the car, but it will not move very far.” (18)
3. Delayed or non-linear response.
“This scenario can be equated to the car on the top of a hill: it takes some effort and thus time to push the car to the edge of the hill; this is the buffering effect. Once the car has reached the edge, it takes very little to push the car over, and then it accelerates down the hill with or without help. Once it reaches the bottom, the car then continues for some time, which is the overshoot, and then slows down of its own accord and settles into a new state.” (18-20)
4. Threshold response.
“This scenario equates to the bus hanging off the cliff at the end of the film The Italian Job; as long as there are only very small changes, nothing happens at all. However, a critical point (in this case weight) is reached and the bus (and the gold) plunge off the cliff into the ravine below.” (20)
At this point it is clear that global warming is a complex issue to be wrestled with.
When I first started reading the book I wondered what possible solutions there are to preventing the worst effects of global warming. Maslin suggests two solutions to global warming: adaptation and mitigation.
Adaptation
The assumption of the first solution is that there will be climate change. Thus the way to deal with this is to study “the potential sensitivity, adaptability, and vulnerability of each national environment and socioeconomic system, because if we can predict what the impacts of global warming are likely to be, then national governments can take action to mitigate the effects.” (146) Currently the largest threat of global warming is its unpredictability. The apparent weakness of this position is that it takes lots of financial resources to implement these changes. Moreover, they might take to much time to implement.
Mitigation
Apparently, the idea of cutting global carbon emission in half in the near future is not as crazy as it sounds. Steve Pacala and Robert Socolow, two researchers at Princeton University tackled the problem as follows: “Instead of seeing one huge insurmountable problem, really what we are faced with are lots of medium-size changes which add up to the big change …. They also provided several examples for the wedges, each of the approximately saving 1 gigatonne of carbon every year …. For example, one wedge would be doubling the efficiency of 2 billion cars from 30mpg to 60mpg, which actually is a very achievable aim, as cars have already been built that can easily do 100mpg.” (150-151) Each country would have to figure out what their “wedges” are to reduce their carbon emission.
In the end it comes down to whether or not we are willing to do what it takes. Will Christians do what it takes?
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