Chis Allen is a weatherman for WKBO in Kentucky. He is also an idiot. Witness:
My biggest argument against putting the primary blame on humans for climate change is that it completely takes God out of the picture. It must have slipped these people's minds that God created the heavens and the earth and has control over what's going on. (Dear Lord Jesus...did I just open a new pandora's box?) Yeah, I said it. Do you honestly believe God would allow humans to destroy the earth He created? Of course, if you don't believe in God and creationism then I can see why you would easily buy into the whole global warming fanfare. I think in many ways that's what this movement is ultimately out to do - rid the mere mention of God in any context. What these environmentalists are actually saying is "we know more than God - we're bigger than God - God is just a fantasy - science is real...He isn't...listen to US!"
I have a huge problem with that.
See? God's not going to allow humans to destroy the Earth. So let's just sit back and let him take care of everything. After all, as he says later in his screed, "[t]his earth is bigger than all of us and is in much bigger hands than ours."
Looking at Allen's online bio, you don't see any mention of any college education (certainly not in, uh, science). He's probably a YEC as well. He attends Hillvue Heights Church which believes:
The Bible is God's most complete and comprehensive revelation of Himself to humanity. It is not merely a science book, history book, work of literature or biography. It is, however, God's revelation to mankind -- a story of redemption from start to finish. The Bible is God-breathed and is therefore inerrant in truth and meaning making it completely useful for teaching, training, rebuking, and instructing in righteousness.
Remind me never to move to Bowling Green.
Comments
If he is from one of the weirder christian sects (rapturalist possibly) then he should believe that yes God is making a mess of the world to prepare it for the rise of the beast.
Seems odd that he doesn't think that God (all powerful, omipotent etc..) can't choose to use mankind as the tool for effecting change.
Oh well, when his home is 6ft under water; what do you mean he lives atop a mountain!!?, surely he trusts in the lord. (p.s. I've no idea where he lives, but it isn't uncommon for the naysayers to just happen to reside in areas less likely to be affected by the doom they deny. Strange that).
Posted by: Chris' Wills | February 12, 2007 1:29 AM
Many apparently believe that since the Book of Revelation does not include anything like global warming among the tribulations it describes, we can be sure that global warming will not be a serious problem. (War, famine, and pestilence, yes; but not global warming.) Really, that's what I've heard!
Posted by: t hodge | February 12, 2007 4:01 AM
Doesn't God allow us to kill people he created? Doesn't God give us the free will to do evil? How is this good theology?
Posted by: The Ridger | February 12, 2007 5:11 AM
Given that we are flawed, and afflicted by original sin, why wouldn't we be that stupid? This isn't very good Christianity, is it?
Posted by: Alex | February 12, 2007 6:18 AM
If the Bible is inerrant, then God is a moron. Check Leviticus, the fine print. (It's a short book.)
Posted by: Roy | February 12, 2007 7:50 AM
Oh, c'mon people, it's not like He's ever allowed anything bad to happen before, right?
Posted by: csrster | February 12, 2007 8:46 AM
I'm suprised that christians aren't environmentalists. Doesn't the bible say somewhere that "god will destroy those who destroy the earth"? But then again, I guess you could find a verse that supports nearly anything.
Posted by: jeffw | February 12, 2007 11:20 AM
I live in Bowling Green, or as I like to call it Blowing Green. I find all of this very depressing, but I am not at all surprised. I have lived most of my life in Kentucky with a few years here and there in Oklahoma, Tennessee and Georgia. I for one can not imagine what it would be like to live in a liberal place where religion and conservatism is not at the forefront of everything. In other words, I don't think there will be many celebrating Darwin Day here in B.G.
Posted by: TOF | February 12, 2007 4:02 PM
His bio says,
Doesn't this work to thwart the will of God?
Posted by: Duane | February 12, 2007 5:00 PM
No, it just leaves the kids in a pickle.
Posted by: llewelly | February 13, 2007 10:57 AM
Letting God take care of Global warming reminds me of this story:
A guy is on the roof of his house due to a flood; he's stranded there.
A guy in a rowboat comes along and says, "Jump in. I'll bring you to safety"
The guy on the roof says, "No thanks. God will take care of me."
A while later a woman in a rowboats floats by and she says, "Come on. I'll take you to someplace safe."
The guy on the roof says, "No thanks. God will take care of me."
A while later a Coast Guard cutter comes by and a voice booms over the loudspeaker, "Ahoy there! Climb aboard. The water is still rising!"
The guy on the roof says, "No thanks. God will take care of me."
The water rises. The guy gets swept off his roof and drowns.
When he gets to heaven he says, "Lord, what happened?? I thought you'd take care of me!"
God replies, "Who do you think sent the canoe, row boat and Coast Guard??"
Posted by: F.T. | February 13, 2007 11:20 AM
I think the first step in convincing people that devout of global warming is to stop insulting their beliefs and start educating them. It's very easy to insult someone who is different from you, but the real challenge is finding a way to relate to them and convince them of your argument. Otherwise, you're just "preaching to the choir," and changing nothing.
Personally, based on research I have read, I think climate change is a mixture of solar change as well as man-made pollution. I have this inner fear that 200 years from now our descendents will be laughing at us for jumping the gun on the phenomenon instead of studying it further. CO2 gas as being responsible for global warming is a hypothesis that works, but we also know the sun itself as well as cloud formation effect our climate. We are also observing a warming on other planets at the same time our planet is warming, but we don't know enough about their environments to draw any conclusions yet. There are even studies showing the temperature of the Earth has been on the rise for thousands of years.
What if we jump the gun on global warming and fix the wrong problem, or worse yet, make an even bigger problem. There are scientists proposing releasing chemicals in the air to reflect more solar energy, putting panels into space to reflect more light, and dropping iron into the ocean to create more plankton. Don't you think we should really flesh out this hypothesis before we make such drastic changes?
A few decades ago everyone was afraid we were headed into another ice-age. Every generation for thousands of years has thought it was going to be the last on Earth. Yes, we have global warming, nuclear and biological terror, and a host of other technological fears that drive that ominous feeling of impending doom. What if we're just portraying the same societal fears that have been innate in humanity for centuries, and the world really isn't going to end?
Let's take a deep breath, remove the politics and insults from the argument, and let science do its job.
Please stop insulting others. It's not going to win your argument or fix any of our problems. Insulting someone's belief immediately causes them to stop listening, and that is exactly what we don't need right now.
Posted by: Another Opinion | February 13, 2007 11:45 AM
Yes, yes, Another Opinion is right. We shouldn't rush to conclusions. It's probably going to be okay, and we don't want to create bigger problems. We should just keep on with our lives, keep living the way we've always done. Petroleum products aren't a problem, we need not reduce our oil consumption. Let's just wait a few years before making any changes in our lives in light of this whole "global warming" thing, and after that, maybe wait a few years more. It's okay.
Posted by: Big Oil | February 13, 2007 4:16 PM
I wonder if Another Opinion carries fire insurance on his/her house, and if so, why. After all, a house fire is a low probability event, right? And it hasn't burned down yet, right? Why waste money on insurance? Just because the cost/benefit ratio seems in favor of it, why hell, that's no reason to buy insurance and buy a smoke detector (and maybe even a battery for it). After all, he'll probably wake up when the fire starts. Maybe. Unfortunately, pissing on the fire then won't do a helluva lot of good. It'll still be what we in the fire service call a cellar save. And Another Opinion may well wind up what we call a crispy critter. But he saved on that insurance premium.
Posted by: RBH | February 13, 2007 6:10 PM
My argument stands as previously posted. Before we wreck economies by limiting C02, alter our environment with solar shields or whatever solution we implement, or strike fear into the populace; we should let science do its job and further study climate change. We all know that if CO2 is the main cause of climate change, a few years isn't really going to change anything. Even if we started today it would take many years to return the world to normal CO2 levels.
Sometimes the cure can cause more damage than the disease. If we run out into the world without understanding the mechanics involved with global climate change, then we could do more harm than good. We could waste billions of dollars, destroy economies, and harm people's lives while not actually stop climate change.
Science needs to be the answer to this issue in two ways. We need to develop new technologies that allow the world to keep running without the use of petroleum products, and we need to further study climate change to find out all the factors involved.
The capitalistic world isn't going to stop using petroleum until there is a viable alternative, and they won't limit its use until it becomes economically feasible to do so.
Education is great, but you have to understand the mechanics of people as well as the climate. It will take economic changes to truly lower CO2 emissions.
Posted by: Another Opinion | February 14, 2007 3:00 PM
Yah.
We had a school in Seattle which a few weeks ago was going to show the Al Gore film "An Inconvenient Truth" in a science class and some fellow blocked having it shown. They had no problem with global warming per se. After all, "It mentions global warming in Revelations," (?!) but his problem with having the film shown was that, "It left God out of the picture."
Posted by: Timothy Chase | February 14, 2007 5:26 PM
Antarctic Temperatures Disagree With Climate Model Predictions
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/02/070215144314.htm
Posted by: Hmmmmm | February 18, 2007 12:04 AM