Over the years of ministry, I have conducted many weddings. I loved these days as I shared such a joyous moment in people’s lives. I must confess, I can’t remember them all, but some still stand out in my mind. In the mid-90s, I conducted a wedding for the daughter of our good friends, Larry and Wilma Rich. Amy, their daughter, who was training to be a nurse, was marrying Jon Clausen, who was studying to be a medical doctor. Years later, I remember having lunch with them at a Perkins restaurant, when they shared how they felt God was calling them to begin a ministry to ‘reveal God’s plan for the family; His heart for marriage; and His desire for parents to raise their children to hear His voice.’ My advice to them was to go for it, which is what they did as John continued to practice medicine. You can check out their ministry at gofam.org. I recently read Jon’s blog on climate change (which was relevant as I had just started writing a Langstaff Letter about this topic). John wrote, “More than 1600 scientists, including two Nobel laureates, have signed a declaration saying, ‘There is no climate emergency.’ Dr. Jonny explains that scientists, especially climate scientists, have become compromised. They are driven by competition, notoriety, grant funding, and political pressure rather than pursuing objective truth. We can no longer blindly accept what scientists say but need to critically appraise what is released or re-released in search of what really is true” (gofam.org).
CLIMATE CHANGE-DIFFERING OPINION
You only have to google ‘climate change’ to find an ongoing debate. It is doubtful that this issue will be resolved any time soon. You may not agree with my own opinion, but we need to respect other people who may think differently from what we believe.
Although scientific declarations were highly respected in the past, in recent times, this has not been so. The COVID epidemic that produced decisions later found to lack factual backing shook one’s trust in the scientific community. For example, the determination that wearing masks did not prevent the spread of COVID and were thus unnecessary. Likewise, the belief that climate change was a settled matter (Time Magazine took that position) is no longer accepted as fact. For more information, check out an article by Dr. Willimas of the Gatestone Institute (www.gatestoneinstitute.org).
There have been any number of books that seek to dethrone climate change, calling it a hoax, such as ones that state, “Proof that climate change is normal not man made,” “that climate change is a “pathway to socialism,” and “politics and power are behind the warming hoax.”
You will also find many books and articles seeking to refute what they call deniers.’ As said before, it does not appear that this issue will be solved quickly. Only history will give us an answer.
CLIMATE SCIENTIST’S CONFESSION
Climate scientists now admit to editing their papers to fit the “preapproved narrative.”
“Climate science must now fit into “preapproved narratives” to receive publication by notable scientific journals, according to Dr. Patrick T. Brown.
Following the publication of his paper studying the impact of climate change on wildfires in Nature, the climate scientist said he left out the full results of his studies to ensure its place in the prestigious journal.
“The paper I just published—’Climate warming increases extreme daily wildfire growth risk in California’—focuses exclusively on how climate change has affected extreme wildfire behavior. I knew not to try to quantify key aspects other than climate change in my research because it would dilute the story that prestigious journals like Nature and its rival, Science, want to tell,” Brown wrote for The Free Press, a new media company founded by former New York Times op-ed staff editor Bari Weiss.
He continued, “This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.”
He continued, “This matters because it is critically important for scientists to be published in high-profile journals; in many ways, they are the gatekeepers for career success in academia. And the editors of these journals have made it abundantly clear, both by what they publish and what they reject, that they want climate papers that support certain preapproved narratives—even when those narratives come at the expense of broader knowledge for society.”
Brown also noted that scientists looking to publish in journals are discouraged from recommending practical solutions such as “employing practical adaptation measures like stronger, more resilient infrastructure, better zoning and building codes, more air conditioning—or in the case of wildfires, better forest management or undergrounding power lines” in favor of “policies like the Inflation Reduction Act, aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
“To put it bluntly, climate science has become less about understanding the complexities of the world and more about serving as a kind of Cassandra, urgently warning the public about the dangers of climate change. However understandable this instinct may be, it distorts a great deal of climate science research, misinforms the public, and most importantly, makes practical solutions more difficult to achieve,” Brown wrote”(foxnews.com).
So, one wonders what to believe in all this, as noted regarding the way people view forest fires.
HEAT VS COLD
I read an article that pointed out that cold temperatures cause more deaths than hot. Yet global warming headlines tell us that climate change poses the greatest threat to our lives. Here is a portion of that article by Marisa Herman.
“The summer of 2023 was a scorcher in much of the U.S., but not the record breaker that the global warming lobby would like you to believe. As temperatures soared above 90 and 100 degrees in late July, some scientists were warning that man-made carbon emissions were heating the planet to unsustainable levels which, among other things, would lead to more Americans dying from the heat. But a closer examination of data shows that this summer, while undeniably hot, had nowhere near the temperature extremes of previous years. The six hottest July 19ths in the U.S. occurred in 1934, 1932, 1936, 1930, 1926, and 1901-when almost half of the U.S. was over 95 F. And when it comes to temperature variations, heat is not the biggest threat to our lives. It’s the cold.
Doctors for Disaster Preparedness, a nonprofit group dedicated to preparing for threats, notes that a new European study published in the British medical journal The Lancet determined that 1-cold-related deaths in Europe account for 10 times the number of deaths due to heat. The group issued a stark warning in a newsletter to its members: “Pay attention to the other side of the graph: deaths from cold. Winter is coming!” A CO2 Coalition newsletter also pointed out that “it is very well documented that many more people die from cold than from heat.” The nonpartisan foundation, which works to educate people on the importance of carbon dioxide, cited several studies that found cold weather kills at a far more significant rate than heat. One study in the U.K. and Australifa found that cold-related deaths in these countries had a mortality rate that was more than 15 times higher than fatalities due to heat. Another study showed that some cold weather deaths outpaced heat deaths by 20 times”(newsmax.com).
ANOTHER SCIENTIST QUESTIONS CLIMATE SCIENCE AND METHODOLOGY
Here it is from Hoover Institute. “Steven Koonin is one of America’s most distinguished scientists, with decades of experience, including a stint as undersecretary of science at the Department of Energy in the Obama administration. In this wide-ranging discussion, based in part on his 2021 book, Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters, Koonin gives a more refined look at the science behind the climate issue than the media typically offers, guiding us through the evidence and its implications. As Koonin explains in this interview, he was “shaken by the realization that climate science was far less mature than I had supposed” and that the “overwhelming evidence” of catastrophic implications of anthropogenic global warming wasn’t so overwhelming after all”(www.hooover.org).
MY OWN OPINION
Let me go out on a limb. I believe climate change is a hoax. Many predictions from people like Al Gore and other scientists have not come to pass. I believe that climate change is normal, not man-made, and is caused by such things as sun flares. I am no expert, but this is my belief. I respect others who think differently. Let me state one issue that I have. I do not like things like wind farms as they spoil the landscape. More than that, they are likely to last only a relatively short time, considering the cost to build and maintain them. There are many other issues I haven’t dealt with, such as the fact that you will never reduce CO2 in the atmosphere unless China and India lead the way. I believe climate change is driven more by political pressure than objective reality.
I welcome your responses, so send them in.
RESOURCES
https://www.pushbackculture.org/pushback-main-page/episode/7bde45f9/rough-climate
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19962/climate-emergency-hoax
https://www.foxnews.com/media/climate-scientist-admits-editing-paper-fit-preapproved-narratives
Herman, M. (2023a, September). Cold temperatures cause more deaths than heat. Newsmax, 16.
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