RE: [asa] Climate change & Christianity (was: Associated Press Reporter Does Science and Peer Review)

" Romans 8 (creation will also experience redemption with us)"

It could also be argued that the new creation really is a new creation- the old is destroyed and remade. Saving the Earth could be futile like rearranging the deck chairs on the sinking Titanic. I think the more one is fundamentalist (recent creation, immanent return of Christ), the more they won't care about global warning. The more liberal Christian, accepting that Christ could tarry another million years or more (which doesn't say much for immanency), would be concerned much more about global warming and taking care of 'spaceship Earth.'

-----Original Message-----
From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On Behalf Of Christine Smith
Sent: Friday, October 30, 2009 10:39 AM
To: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: Re: [asa] Climate change & Christianity (was: Associated Press Reporter Does Science and Peer Review)

Hi all,

Cameron wrote:

"I would be equally impressed if he could make clear to me what he has not made clear to me in his twenty or thirty posts on the subject over the last year, i.e., what relevance he thinks the debate over AGW has to Christian faith or Christian theology, which is, after all, the focus of this discussion group. In his posts I discern statistics, claims about computer modelling, and claims of a sociological and political nature about the biases of those who express doubts about aspects of AGW, but I've heard precious little about God, Creation, the Bible, etc."

Well, I'm obviously not Rich and can't speak for him, but this is an area of interest to me so I'll go ahead and address Cameron's request. The areas I see climate change relating to Christian faith and theology are as follows:

- The predicted impacts of climate change will disproportionally affect those in poverty, both because they are more directly dependent on nature (food and water shorages will hurt poorer populations sooner and more severely), and because they lack the resources to adapt to climate change (no money, technology to relocate or adjust through other means). As Christ particularly identified with the poor, this obviously must influence how we respond to climate change.

- More broadly, the impacts of climate change will affect industries such as tourism, agriculture (both land-based and marine), recreation (i.e. skiing), land-use/infrastructure/development, etc. Likewise, any response to climate change will undoubtedly impact the energy, retail, auto industries, etc. As Christians, we are called to care about the well-being of all those in our community, and this must influence how we balance the need to reduce greenhouse gases (which will benefit certain groups/industries) with the need to mitigate economic losses (for those negatively impacted).

- Many people, when addressing climate change, do so with a mindset of despair, fear, and hopelessness. As Christians, we are called to bring light to those experiencing these anxieties, and to counteract alarmism more broadly by reaffirming God's sovereignty and power even in the midst of serious problems.

- In Genesis 1 and 2, we are called to exercise dominion over the earth, as Christ exercises dominion over us. We have been entrusted with the gifts of the earth to be used for ourselves, our posterity, and all of God's creatures. Indeed, God reaffirms the His care of and for creation in such passages as Genesis 1 (where He blesses the animals and provides them food along with us), in the story of the flood (where He saves and makes a convenant with both the animals as well as humanity), in Christ's sayings to us (the relationship of shepherd/sheep, the lillies of the field, etc.), and in Romans 8 (creation will also experience redemption with us). Therefore, our responses to climate change must be conducted in the context of our stewardship of all creation, and the fact that we will ultimately be held accountable for how we exercised that dominion.

- In Romans 1, St. Paul affirms that in creation, all can see God's power and deity; in the Psalms, in Job, and in many other places, we find Scripture testifying to the beauty of God's creation as a reflection and glorification of God and a place within which we experience God's presence. It seems important then, that creation be preserved as well as possible so that all people may continue to perceive the beauty and peace and power which gave rise to these encounters with the divine.

In Christ,
Christine

"For we walk by faith, not by sight" ~II Corinthians 5:7

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--- On Wed, 10/28/09, Cameron Wybrow <wybrowc@sympatico.ca> wrote:

> From: Cameron Wybrow <wybrowc@sympatico.ca>
> Subject: Re: [asa] Associated Press Reporter Does Science and Peer Review
> To: "asa" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 5:50 AM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Richard Blinne wrote:
>  
> >One controversy of the day is
> whether the global
> temperature is warming or cooling. The problem is what
> cognitive psychologists
> call motivated reasoning. We see what we want to
> see.
>  
> Agreed.  But on both sides of the
> controversy, Mr. Blinne
> -- on both sides.
>  
> >Oftentimes, the story devolves into
> a he said/she said
> "balanced" piece with equal times for both
> views.
>  
> I haven't noticed much balance, at
> least in the mainstream
> secular media, regarding Darwinian evolution and its
> critics.  Generally
> speaking, Darwin critics are mocked, condescended to, or
> savaged by biased
> reporters, editors and producers.  I wish the
> mainstream media were guilty
> of the "sin" Mr. Blinne is imputing to
> them.
>  
> But in any case, what is Mr. Blinne
> suggesting as the
> superior alternative?  That the science journalist
> should pick a side, and
> try to push the reader to believe that side rather than the
> other one?  On
> what basis?  Most science journalists don't know
> enough of
> the specifics to know who is right.  They
> have journalism
> degrees.  Or maybe, if one is lucky, a Bachelor's
> degree in some science,
> but almost never the science that the article is about,
> since science
> journalists have to cover all the science stories, not just
> the science stories
> pertaining to their own studies.  And even if a
> science journalist happened
> to have a Ph.D. in climatology with
> a dissertation on global warming
> models, it would be an abdication of the reporter's
> role, and an adoption of the
> columnist's role, for the science journalist to
> "slant" the article so make
> one side in the AGW debate look good and the other
> look bad.  It would
> be like having a witness to a crime serving on the
> jury.
>  
> >What this shows is you don't
> need a fancy degree to do
> science.
>  
> Yet Darwin skeptics are told
> repeatedly, here and elsewhere,
> that they don't know enough about this or that science
> to be entitled to an
> opinion, because they don't have Ph.D.s in evolutionary
> biology or population
> genetics or something else.  I am glad to have Mr.
> Blinne's support for my
> non-specialist resistance to some of the arguments of the
> life scientists on
> this list.  Though I must say, his change of heart on
> this issue is rather
> odd, as in the past he has argued that truth in science is
> rightfully determined
> by the majority of those holding Ph.D.s in a specialist
> area, e.g.,
> climatology.  It appears that in Mr. Blinne's
> universe, when a
> non-specialist agrees with him about global warming,
> non-specialists warrant an
> encomium, but when one disagrees with him, non-specialists
> need to learn their
> place.
>  
> >I will be addressing this topic in
> a future post about a
> fascinating paper in last week's Science.
>
> I would be much more impressed if Mr.
> Blinne would send us,
> instead of posts summarizing pro-AGW articles and blog
> posts that he has read
> and admired, a copy of one of his peer-reviewed papers in
> the field of
> climatology or any related earth science.
>  
> I would be equally impressed if he
> could make clear to me what
> he has not made clear to me in his twenty or thirty posts
> on the subject over
> the last year, i.e., what relevance he thinks the
> debate over AGW has to
> Christian faith or Christian theology, which is, after all,
> the focus of this
> discussion group.  In his posts I discern statistics,
> claims about computer
> modelling, and claims of a sociological and political
> nature about the biases of
> those who express doubts about aspects of AGW, but I've
> heard precious little
> about God, Creation, the Bible, etc.
>  
> I would also appreciate it if Mr.
> Blinne would use English,
> and not coded and phonetically impossible locutions
> such as "pwned". 
> It isn't worth the time wasted to
> consult Wikipedia to find out the latest
> offenses to human communication that the techno-geek
> community has
> adopted.
>  
> Cameron. 
>  
>
> ----- Original Message
> -----
> From:
> Rich
> Blinne
> To: asa ; Randy Isaac
>
> Sent: Tuesday,
> October 27, 2009 11:15
> AM
> Subject: [asa]
> Associated Press Reporter
> Does Science and Peer Review
>
> Irrespective of what side many of
> us find ourselves in the many scientific controversies of
> the day, what we can
> agree on is that science journalism is for the most part
> poor. Oftentimes, the
> story devolves into a he said/she said
> "balanced" piece with equal times for
> both views. This makes it easier on the journalist
> because it does not require
> him or her to have a deep knowledge of the material. You
> write the "conflict"
> narrative first and then find quotes to fill it in.
> Because of this, it should
> be noted when there is an exception and I found one here:
> http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/ap-impact-statisticians-reject-174088.html
>
> One
> controversy of the day is whether the global temperature
> is warming or
> cooling. The problem is what cognitive psychologists call
> motivated reasoning.
> We see what we want to see. Thus, the same data produces
> two grossly different
> interpretations. Instead of recycling the old conflict
> narrative Seth
> Borenstein of the Associated Press wanted to see which
> interpretation was
> correct. So he designed a clever combination of a
> single-blind protocol and
> peer review. Namely, he took the labels off and sent the
> raw data from both
> the surface data (which the climate change believers
> prefer) and the satellite
> data (which the climate change skeptics prefer) to
> statistics experts for
> analysis.
>
> Their uniform answer was a warming trend.
>
>
> Statisticians
>
> who analyzed the data found a distinct decades-long
> upward trend in the
> numbers, but could not find a significant drop in the
> past 10 years in
> either data set. The ups and downs during the last
> decade repeat random
> variability in data as far back as 1880.
>
> Their comments
> are illustrative. For example:
>
>
> Saying
> there's a downward trend since 1998 is not
> scientifically legitimate, said
> David Peterson, a retired Duke University statistics
> professor and one of
> those analyzing the numbers.
>
>
> and
>
>
> "If
> you look at the data and sort of cherry-pick a
> micro-trend within a bigger
> trend, that technique is particularly suspect,"
> said John Grego, a professor
> of statistics at the University of South Carolina.
>
>
> and
>
>
>
> Grego produced three charts to show how choosing a
> starting date can
> alter perceptions. Using the skeptics' satellite
> data beginning in 1998,
> there is a "mild downward trend," he said.
> But doing that is
> "deceptive."
>
> The trend disappears if the analysis starts in 1997.
> And it trends upward
> if you begin in 1999, he
> said. 
>
> The best-selling authors of Freakonomics have also pushed
> the cooling narrative. How did these guys miss this? They
> admitted they
> eyeballed the graph rather than subjecting it to a
> rigorous statistical
> analysis. 
>
>
>
> A line in [their] book says: "Then there's
> this little-discussed fact
> about global warming: While the drumbeat of doom has
> grown louder over the
> past several years, the average global temperature
> during that time has in
> fact decreased."
> That led to a sharp rebuke from the Union of
> Concerned Scientists, which
> said the book mischaracterizes climate science with
> "distorted
> statistics."
> [Freakonomics author] Levitt, a University of
> Chicago economist, said he
> does not believe there is a cooling trend. He said the
> line was just an
> attempt to note the irony of a cool couple of years at
> a time of intense
> discussion of global warming. Levitt said he did not do
> any statistical
> analysis of temperatures, but "eyeballed" the
> numbers and noticed 2005 was
> hotter than the last couple of years. Levitt said the
> "cooling" reference in
> the book title refers more to ideas about trying to
> cool the Earth
> artificially.
> Face it Professor Levitt, you got pwned. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/pwn)
>
> Huzzah to Mr. Borenstein. This piece should be submitted
> to the Pulitzer
> Committee. What this shows is you don't need a fancy
> degree to do science. You
> just need to follow the method. It's also not limited
> to areas of study that
> traditionally are considered "science". I will
> be addressing this topic in a
> future post about a fascinating paper in last week's
> Science.
>
>
> Rich Blinne
> Member ASA
>
>
>

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Received on Fri Oct 30 13:49:13 2009