We Who Live at the End of Time - Climate Change Edition

It's been a while since I did an "End of Time" post so figured that since the Climate conference is going on in Copenhagen, I'd just ramble on a bit.

From what I can make out there are four takes on this climate thing

1) Nothing strange is happening to earth's weather at all
2) Something is happening but it's all perfectly cyclical
3) Something is happening and its all man's fault
4) Something is happening and God is behind it because we're at the end of time.

From what I can make out of all this, the folks who don't believe anything is happening and the folks who believe it's perfectly cyclical tend to be Christians or North Americans or rich multinationals.

I'm not so embarrassed that they are north Americans...because I'm kinda used to being on the outside of North American mindsets. North Americans watch mostly provincial news programs -- shows only about their own lands and concerns-- so they don't know that there is no longer ANY snow on Mt Kilimanjaro. Or that Kenyan lakes are drying up and people are starving. Or that Bolivia is really suffering with drought. Or that Denmark hasn't had much snow since 1995. (YAY! Today they got some!) As long as American weather is fairly normal, Americans won't change until their water and land are affected. You can tell what type of person you're dealing with, by the way, by what they call it. If they call it "Global Warming" they're apt to be deniers. Because they can say, "Look the climate's not warming up." Everyone else calls it Climate Change.

I'm also not embarrassed about the rich multinationals...because well, I'm not one. And I'm pretty used to the facts of multinational corporate grief. They were stealing water, attempting to patent seeds, etc for so long... that they're pretty good at pretending that all is well.

But I gotta admit that the Christians who don't believe in any climate change at all are embarrassing me. There is the usual American Christian habit of believing that our country is noble and good...thus if climate change BLAMES the US, climate change is bad. This desire to believe that something doesn't exist because it impugns our country is so wearying as to be stressful. It's mixed up with the American Christian worship of patriotism and law and I'm not gonna go into it except to say it's kinda disgusting to me. Well, I'll just add that this kinda thing is also connected with the belief in the pre-trib rapture. Basically, as long as America exists, American Christians believe that all is well. (Wouldn't it be soo weird if the rapture was post-trib and all the Christians who believed in the pre-trib rapture took the mark of the beast because they thought the beast couldn't come before the rapture? Just thinking.)

Many of these no-climate-change Christians also believe that "God made the world perfect" therefore the world can endure any of man's evils...because the world is not fragile. They also believe that God said the seasons would endure til the end therefore the climate of the world cannot be destroyed. My opinion of this is that I know the world can recover... but only if God deems it necessary that the world recovers. My other opinion of this is that the Bible tends to only talk about two seasons. Winter and Summer. The division of stuff into winter, spring, fall, summer..is purely man-made. Also, who says the continuation of seasons necessarily bars climate change? One can still have seasons with climate change... except it'll be weird seasons.

Okay, then there is the "it's all man's fault group." I'm a bit on this side. Although I can't say it's all man's fault. Because another part of me totally thinks --yeah, here it comes-- that we live at the end of time. Seriously, what person in his or her right mind really really really thinks the earth will be around in the next two hundred years? (Not talking about the 1000 years of peace, mind you.) Seriously, wars and rumors of wars abound. The four horsemen are running rampant: strange disease pestilence/epidemics, famine, natural disasters, and war.  So while I do think greedy men and average folks like myself have contributed to the over 3.5 carbon factor in the air... I gotta say something vastly greater and weirder is going on.

The funny stuff about all this is the selectivity of info. Many Conservative Christians will select conservative pro-American media outlet to believe, and will believe those series of reports. Many progressives will select anti-American media outlets to believe. I find this all very funny...but Jesus did warn us against "rumors of war" which is the old term for "propaganda." So when Christians start allowing media to teach them how to think...we're in trouble. I tend to listen to everyone's viewpoint... but that's me. And I like listening to news shows from all countries. So I'm aware of let's say news from Kenya and Bolivia...and I see how the weather is changing for those countries. Most American Christians however don't really do that. They're content with news from Fox News and from their ministers -- who presumably have degrees in climatology as they deny climate change.

Now, whatever we may believe...the sad truth is that something has got to be done to starving people all over the world who are being affected by all this strange climate. Whether it's through countries such as the US, Canada, China, etc lowering their carbon emissions or through working with the "normal cyclicality" of it all we really ought to help people. I read recently that one of the Ice Ages affected humans. Most people seem to think ice ages only affected dinosaurs. Ah, people, people! People!!!!!