Smart guy talks about global warming.
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About being polemical, keep in mind my original comment here was not addressed to Joel, personally. Reading that into it is to misconstrue my intention. I didnât address him. I addressed the whole Calamity Jane tribe of scientists who long predate and will long succeed him. We know it because Western society is about the enterprise of replacing all Godâs big laws with countless petty laws. Like protecting spiders in the Amazon and bird eggs in Indiana. Because scientists tell us to do so.
What is needed today is people shoving scientistsâ noses in their constant refusal to acknowledge the many decades and the many issues their Calamity Jane scholarship has been wrong. Before there can be any reasonable discussion with these high priests of our society, and certainly any discussion among Christians, they must be forced to admit they have a serious credibility problem among those with memories.
Yes, itâs hard for Joel here not to take lampooning of global warming histrionics personally, but itâs equally hard to create a space for argument where parading of credentials along with the epithet âdeniersâ doesnât intimidate everyone into submission syndrome or silence. What we heard here is what the elitists and chattering classes never stop saying in every public forum, shutting down every voice but their own.
Fact is, the scientists promoting their global warming research could be quite right in all their data and even most of their scientific conclusions, but be quite wrong in allowing their limited knowledge to be used for the wicked purposes of green globalists who worship Gaia, whether or not by name. When we know about cloudsâ interaction with temperature this particular year or decade, we the voters know almost nothing about fossil fuelsâ role in those cloudsâ interaction with that temperature, and absolutely nothing about the political, economic, and theological conclusions rolling out across the world from them.
This has been my point from the beginning, and every Christian should be wise enough to be on guard against this present massive overreach by simple scientists enabled in their present version of âthe sky is falling because of manâ by evil men with global aspirations.
When I was his pastor, I gave a copy of Newmanâs âThe Idea of a Universityâ to IUâs VP over research, exhorting him to understand how limited all supposedly âobjectiveâ scholarship was when it refused to allow that queen of sciences, theology, on their campus. When any scholars, but especially scientists, deny their ignorance and sin in interpreting their results, we all are headed to man-made catastrophes that are endless, and this not by the sins of man against Gaia, but by the decree of God Who warned us that when we sacrificed our children to Molech and buggered other men, the land would vomit us out.
You know, sinful man never thinks repentance is the way to avoid brimstone raining down from the sky or bubbling up from the ground.
As was indicated earlier, I drive a Prius. My wife drives a Prius. (Both are Cs and rebuilt salvage titles.) We know people laugh at us for doing so. We heat and cool with closed-loop geothermal. We garden. Weâre letting our mature black walnuts continue to grow. We donât walk on the grass in the sand dunes. We donât look for old aerosol cans we can spray toward the clouds. We prefer trains to planes. We have many friends who are scholars, including environmental scholarsâone of whom even drives a Subaru.
I must be an idiot to talk this way.
That said, I donât believe worldwide laws prohibiting the use of fossil fuels should be considered or passed because I donât believe global warming or climate change scientists are objective in their science, let alone policy recommendations. Dismiss me if you will, but Iâm hopeful some will heed the warnings of a simpleton who has been fooled many times and is determined to grow in wisdom and understanding in the years remaining to him.
Love,
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Thanks Pastor Tim, there is nothing I can really add to this. The problem is sin, not CO2.
Just to disagree: haha Prius! How stupid! 
Wait, I drove an Audi A2 for quite a while, with a consumption of 90 mpg. Oops.
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Iâd like to make a couple points for the record that can be verified by reading upthread.
First of all, in my first substantive comment I stated the following.
Isnât this an acknowledgement of some of Pastor Timâs concerns?
Secondly, Pastor Tim also doesnât like the employment of epithets like âdeniersâ, but the person who was first and has most freely thrown around epithets on this thread is Pastor Tim. What happened to the golden rule?
Thatâs correct, and a review of my immediate reply will demonstrate that I did not take it personally, either.
When Pastor Tim talks about histrionics, sneering, browbeating, ⌠â honestly, those seem more applicable to Pastor Tim than anyone else in this thread. It goes along with his polemics.
I think itâs important to note that the essential dispute between Pastor Tim and I has been whether global warming is science or not, and since it one of the topics I do research on, it necessarily concerns me personally. Iâve said that global warming is science, drawing my authority from my publicly verifiable record in research and teaching â thatâs evidence that can be evaluated. Pastor Tim has said that global warming is not science, drawing his authority from his personal experience and people he has talked with, but without really articulating what any of it is â thatâs not evidence that can be evaluated. And I donât think I am being histrionic or sneering or browbeating in pushing Pastor Tim to show, not say.
Well, if Pastor Tim is willing to acknowledge that global warming might be science after all, then maybe we can begin to have an edifying conversation. And his statement about the green globalists doesnât sound completely dissimilar to my opening statement.
Joel, can you clarify your terminology here? It seems akin to saying âfish is biologyâ. My guess is you mean âglobal warming is a valid topic of scientific inquiryâ but want to be sure Iâm reading you correctly.
If that is what you are saying, I donât think Pastor Bayly would agree thatâs what the argument is about.
Thanks.
It starts with Pastor Timâs statement, without qualification, that global warming is unfalsifiable and continues with his statement, again without qualification, that global warming is not science, but religion. Itâs not so much an assertion that global warming is not a valid topic of scientific inquiry but rather an assertion that scientists who have been working on the topic and who have come to the conclusion that global warming is real actually have not been practicing valid science. Since I have been working on that topic and have come to the conclusion that global warming is real, Pastor Tim is essentially saying that I, too, have not been practicing valid science. Thatâs a strong claim, and I have been challenging Pastor Tim to back it up.
Joel, histrionics, sneers, and browbeating are the constant rhetoric across the world of scienceâs high priests and their enabling globalists. Weâre tited of being called âdeniers.â Love,
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I just want to point out that you have confirmed that global warming is unfalsifiable. Falsifiable is very different from being able to posit evidence for it, which is what you began to offer to do instead. The big bang is unfalsifiable, whereas a flat earth is falsifiable. That doesnât mean that man-made global warming is impossible, but it definitely changes the nature of the research.
Iâm really struggling to see why you would bring this back up as it is the place youâve done the most damage to your reputation as a scientist in this conversation in my mind.
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Can we please shut down our comments for an hour or two. Joel and I just talked and I would like a chance to comment again before anyone else does. Thanks,
Perhaps this is an everyday understanding, but among scientists, falsifiable basically means being able to posit evidence for or against. So in that way, the big bang is falsifiable whereas the theory of multiple universes is not since there is no way to observe outside the universe to see if there are others or not.
[Edited to add:] I am now thinking part of whatâs going on in this confusing debate is that I have in mind one definition whereas others have a different definition. Iâm used to thinking about everything in the science framework.
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Joel and I just had a good conversation in which I said some things it would be good to say here. First, some of my language and rhetoric were intemperate, and for that I apologize, publicly. Please forgive me.
Second, I donât question Joelâs own science or the excellence of his scholarship. I should have made this clearer in what I wrote. Whatâs important is that everyone know I think Joel is the best representaive of the sort of scientific concerns and conclusions that are behind the climate change movement, and itâs always been clear to me that Joel is no patsy for that movement. He is an elder and a Christian, and thus he himself sees many of the concerns we see. Nevertheless, this is his discipline and area of expertise, and as such he is willing to advocate for his lifeâs workâwhich is as it should be.
Thereâs still much to say about the larger climate change movement, and I hope we can re-engage on this subject here on Sanityville with more trust in one anotherâs goodwill and Christian discernment, and I will do my best to further that.
With love, and gratitude for Joelâs perseverance,
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Praise God. Grateful for you both.
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I listened to one of Doug Wilsonâs Plodcasts yesterday. He brought up the current movement among young people in Europe (which was supposed to land in the US today) to boycott school every Friday to raise awareness for global warming and climate change.
Doug made the point that he would be more inclined to pay attention if the solution of more government control and spending wasnât always the solution. This struck a cord and put words to why I react against anything to do with this topic. Those who campaign for global warming and climate change are so heavy-handed and they always, always, always want government to be the solution.
The god of government is the issue from my vantage point. It smells to me that this issue is just another way for governments around the world to take more freedom from us and thereby oppress all the more.
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Iâd like to express my appreciation to Pastor Tim for his gracious apology here and for reaching out to me via phone. Iâd also like to express my respect for Pastor Tim and the work that he does and the voice that he is, but I think my respect is obvious seeing that I stuck it out and continue to hang around here even though it seems most people disagree with some of my views.
After talking with Pastor Tim and seeing some of the other comments, I think I understand better the non-science concerns that people have and would be happy to speak to those if there is still interest in continuing the thread.
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I love happy endings.
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Very kind sir. TwentyâŚ
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