A call to good stewardship of Planet Earth

Last year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) gave its fourth report on global warming and announced that warming is “unequivocal” and that the cause of rising temperatures, melting ice caps, and rising sea levels is “very likely” induced by human activity.

But then, the IPCC is a panel chartered by the United Nations and to be quite honest I have about as much confidence in the UN as Paula Deen has in margarine. So, my ears are often deaf to the sounds of alarm coming from the Turtle Bay neighborhood on the east side of Midtown Manhattan.

But there has been another alarm sounded and that by former Vice President Al Gore. He claims we are in a “planetary emergency” due to fossil-fuel burning. Gore has also urged politicians to get involved in the fight against global warming and insists that Dick Cheney and global warming doubters are like those who thought the earth was flat.

The March 27 edition of USA Today reported Gore’s dismay over some prominent leaders who aren’t convinced that humans are contributing to the problem, saying, “I think that those people are in such a tiny, tiny minority now with their point of view, they’re almost like the ones who still believe that the moon landing was staged in a movie lot in Arizona …. That demeans them a little bit, but it’s not that far off.”

Well, the honest truth is that I am not a climatologist; and ever since Al Gore declared in error, I might add, that he invented the Internet, I have felt it necessary to double-check his professed expertise in other fields of knowledge.

Oh, I know that Hollywood saluted the former vice president for his interest in the environment and gave him an Oscar for his documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth.” However, I am not yet convinced that he is an infallible expert on global warming and the environment.

In fact, World Magazine recently reported that data has emerged showing that four leading trackers of global temperature have noted a marked global cooling over the past year – enough cooling effectively to erase the one degree (Celsius) temperature rise over the past century – an earlier statistic that sparked so much public consternation about climate change.

Cal Thomas has stated that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration had expressed concerns about global warming, but when Climate Audit confronted NASA with evidence to the contrary they had a change of heart and reversed their viewpoint.

Thomas remarked, “Without the fanfare used to hype the global warming fanaticism it had earlier supported, NASA now says four of the top 10 years of high temperatures are from the 1930s. Several previously selected “warm” years – 2000, 2002, 2003, and 2004 – fell behind 1900.

Climatologist Roy Spencer, a former NASA scientist now at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, counts himself among those skeptical of the catastrophic projections popularized in Gore’s film.

Well, I think you get the point. There is considerable debate over the environment and global warming. Some have even suggested that on this topic the liberals are conservative and the conservatives are liberal.

Recently, the New York Times released a statement entitled, “Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change.” Dozens of prominent Southern Baptists had signed the Declaration. Some have unfairly lumped Southeastern Theological Seminary student Jonathan Merritt, the architect of the document, and the signatories of his initiative in with Al Gore and his global warming groupies, but Jonathan’s Declaration has less to do with global warming and more to do with environmental stewardship.

I was one of the original signatories, but requested that my name be removed for three reasons: First, I was on the 2006 SBC Resolutions Committee that crafted a resolution “On Environmentalism and Evangelicals” and chaired the 2007 Committee that presented a resolution “On Global Warming” to the Convention in San Antonio. I felt that both resolutions were strong; and I decided that I did not want my name on a declaration that in any way militated against the work of the Resolutions Committees.

Second, I did not agree with the part of the declaration that indicated Southern Baptists had been “too timid” in addressing these ecological, environmental, and global warming issues. In fact, I think Southern Baptists have been acting in a timely and responsible manner in regards to these concerns.

Third, I really had a struggle with the “human induced” part of the Declaration. In fact, it appears to me that the jury is still out on just how much, if any, of global warming is due to human activity.

Otherwise, I thought Jonathan Merritt, the architect of the Declaration, expressed an astute sensitivity to a matter that should claim the attention of all citizens of this planet. I have every reason to believe his motives were pure and his desire to see all of us become better stewards of our environment most genuine.

Jack Graham, former SBC president and pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, was one of the signatories of the aforementioned Declaration. He stated, “Biblical Christianity … has a real answer to the ecological crisis.” Francis Schaeffer, whom Graham quoted, insisted that Christians ought to be the best stewards possible of the environment.

The Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the SBC has issued a statement declaring, “Recent emphasis on ecology by public officials, private interests, and the mass media has brought people to a new awareness of their special responsibility to be better stewards of the earth. This may be a new awareness, but it is old truth.

“The Bible, in its very beginning, speaks of this God-given responsibility (Gen. 2:15); and this charge has never been changed or withdrawn. For Christians, efforts to prevent pollution of air and water and to promote conservation of energy and soil grow out of the Bible’s mandate as well as out of a spiritual understanding of social responsibility. The earth and its resources belong ultimately to God and should be treated as his. The Bible’s basic teaching about ecology is clear.”

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