Is global warming real? Should we sell it?
First, happy Earth Day!
Two questions for this newly re-energized holiday:
1) Should (or how should) we as Christians and Christian businessmen interact with the earth? Certainly issues like global warming have gotten a lot of attention of late. Is global warming real? Do we have a Scriptural command to do something about it?
2) Marketing adds a fun twist to our interaction with the earth. Not only do businesses today use the earth to make goods, we use the idea of preserving the earth to sell those goods (keep in mind I work in environmental marketing for "The ($40 billion) Man"). What do you think about the practice in general? Shouldn't consumers know if a company is doing good things for the earth?
What do you think specifically about Wal-Mart's new TV ads that feature "Budget-friendly prices. Earth-friendly products."? Watch them at http://www.savemoneylivebetter.com/.
Two questions for this newly re-energized holiday:
1) Should (or how should) we as Christians and Christian businessmen interact with the earth? Certainly issues like global warming have gotten a lot of attention of late. Is global warming real? Do we have a Scriptural command to do something about it?
2) Marketing adds a fun twist to our interaction with the earth. Not only do businesses today use the earth to make goods, we use the idea of preserving the earth to sell those goods (keep in mind I work in environmental marketing for "The ($40 billion) Man"). What do you think about the practice in general? Shouldn't consumers know if a company is doing good things for the earth?
What do you think specifically about Wal-Mart's new TV ads that feature "Budget-friendly prices. Earth-friendly products."? Watch them at http://www.savemoneylivebetter.com/.
posted by Matthew at 2:40 AM
9 Comments:
I especially enjoy how these Walmart commercials are set in pristine forests. I can't help but think of all the Walmart parking lots I've been to that look like they're not even on the same planet as the vistas in these commercials.
I am intensely curious to see if there is much response to this post. It is certainly one that I have a lot of interest in. I don't have scripture with me, so I will keep the theological analysis of this for a little later (if ever - not sure that I'm a theologian..).
But I would have to say that my world view (which is ideally heavily influenced by scripture) affects my thoughts on these issues. Ultimately, it seems that it is consumption that is at the heart of these things. Maybe not just consumption, but consumption to the point of incredible excess. Our society is driven to consume more. I think we've been convinced that "the best" is if we just had more. And businesses labor to sell it to us and convince us that we need it, by pulling on whatever heart strings seem appropriate.
So who cares if global warming is real? I think scientifically, it's fuzzy. But if you just take a simple look at numbers, we're going to have resource challenges. And this will occur in our lifetimes. I don't consider myself a doomsday-er. But the scenarios that do not require a lot of imagination to conjure up are not pretty - economically, politically, environmentally.
There are two key things I think we need as a society. We need a better understanding of science. We can't be running around making hasty decisions because Al Gore put together a really eloquent movie. More people need to be able to make independent, scientifically sound decisions. People must be able to think for themselves. I'm not talking rocket science here. But the level of the average scientific understanding is shocking.
The second - and I believe far more important - thing is to teach and exemplify a life of selflessness. We need to find a way for convincing the majority of people that there is more meaning and value in a life of simplicity. I believe this would directly affect consumerism. I also believe that you can't just create selflessness. People need to know God. And I'm not talking about getting butts in seats at church. To truly and authentically have the desire to lay down our lives - to our desires, comforts, etc - there must be active and intimate contact with the living God. Oh, I would not say I have this figured out. But I want to.
I really can't wait to read other thoughts on this. I know I've got more, but would like to save them for when I can pull out some scripture too.
Business ain't my thang, so I'll take on the questions that I'm more familiar with.
Responsibility as believers? I'm can't recall off the top of my head a verse or passage related to this question, but let's think about our ultimate priority - to spread the Gospel. I don't see us effectively living out the Gospel by destroying God's creation. That's not a good witness. So the inference would be that preserving and caring for His creation would be beneficial. So, if anything, I'd side on preserving God's creation. Global Warming is a different subject and I'll get into my opinion on that below.
Did Christ ever make a point to conserve His creation? I can't recall that either. In fact, I can recall him killing a tree as a demonstration of the cutting off of Israel from the promise and their damnation as a nation. I think the issue is that human souls are the major priority to a point where nature is very minor one.
Now, global warming. As a geology major, I did study this extensively in college since at the time it was becoming a major issue. During my 4 years, we did not see any scientific data that could prove global warming beyond a shadow of a doubt. But much like evolution, there is two categories, macro- and micro-.
Macro-GW is a myth, that's really just a cash cow for the government. It was started by conservationists, environmentalists, and animal rights groups that saw a common answer to why their personal interests (habitats, animals, etc) were suffering or dying out. That answer was deemed as man. So they took their conclusion and turned it into a political issue, which of course made it balloon out of control. Scientists have started supporting it because it's an easy way to get grant money and funding from the government so that they can continue to work on their true, private research that's considered much less important and more risk to the govt. It has continued to balloon to a public scare much like other issues like drugs and violence in past decades. However, the data being used is being looked at like an eisegetical view of Scripture. It read into with a bias.
In fact, if you take Al Gore's book, the ice shelves and glaciers that he claims are melting away are in fact back to normal levels and/or thicker than since we've been able to confirm from ice cores.
Again, it's a cash cow for the government, local, state and national. It's helped give life back to the struggling recycling program that's still being subsidized by the government while remaining ineffective and costly (and pollutive). Take our neighborhood, if we choose to recycle, we have to purchase special blue bags in a roll of 12 for $25. That's some revenue for the city for sure.
Macro-GW is just part of a natural growing progression of scares. First it was individual habitats dying out, then species, now global warming, and next it'll be the sun dying out because of us. I guarantee it.
Now, let's talk micro-GW. Are we as humans having an effect on the environment? Of course, we are. Every living thing does. Many living organisms even poison the environment just like we do because they conflict with another organism in a certain area. But this isn't an out. We should definitely seek alternatives and limit our own poisoning or else. The else? Well, if history's show us anything it's that the earth can fend for itself. If there's a threat to her, she'll just undergo a major climate change to eradicate the threat, or cause a major/minor extinction another way.
But what about our effect, if we continue to increase our waste will we destroy the earth? As I mentioned above, history shows otherwise. There have been multiple recorded catastrophes recorded in history through the studying of strata and ice cores. Many of them were giant sulphur explosions, covering a great portion of the earth. We've had two major volcanic explosions that've covered the earth in ash as well as severely distorting the atmosphere at the same time. We've had at least 2 major asteroid collisions that poisoned the earth, one decimating the dinosaurs, one destroying Sodom and Gomorrah. The Earth recovered quickly from all these events and still produced vibrant life.
We should totally do our part to try to conserve the environment. But let's not go crazy to the point that we're wasting money on programs that don't work, and drawing poor conclusions and acting rashly on them. There are smart ways to go about it, however, they don't get the press since there's little drama.
As a final note, I love Alex's point about consumption and excess. I think he's right on.
And since Alex brought up resources, here's an interesting read on the gas shortage.
http://www.businessweek.com/lifestyle/content/
apr2008/bw2008041_945564.htm
Allow me to make some clarifications (i don't know why I don't proofread before I hit 'publish')
The point about Christ killing the tree was mostly a joke. My conclusion on that is perhaps too extrapolated to be definitive.
My explanation of how global warming developed is very general due to the fact that I wanted to stay brief instead of write pages of material. There are some gaps, but I just wanted to show that it's not a serious developed scientific theory.
A further note on my city's recycling program. On average our next-door neighbor puts out 2 bags per trash day, so 4 a week. So he's having to buy a new roll every 3 weeks. His decision to recycle is costing him over $400/year if my math's correct. With 91k people in my city, that's a lot of money if even 10% are recycling.
I wanted to cover so many things that it's inevitable some of the points were going to be lame.
Very long, but incredible article on the subject of global warming:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/
2006/05/23/AR2006052301305_pf.html
I generally agree with most everything Alex said and disagree with most of what HD said.
First, my take on global warming is if scientists can't agree on whether it is real or not, I certainly am not going to pretend to cast the deciding vote. But I don't think it matters. If global warming is real, it is at best a consequence of the root issues: consumption, excess, (and I'll add one to Alex's list): distance. We have so much crap and are so removed from the impact of our decisions, that we simply don't know and don't care about their impact.
The much bigger issue than global warming, in my opinion, is over-consumption. Curbing consumption would address both the depletion of global reserves of non-renewable resources and (if it's real) global warming.
HD, you referenced an article that says there is no gas shortage. As proof, it makes a simplistic comparison between production and demand. There are a litany of errors with that assessment but I'll just mention two:
1) Time -- taking an issue like the consumption of non-renewable resources (material that takes millions of years to form) and assessing the level of global reserves based on the production and demand in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of one year is intellectually insulting. There is not a sane person on the planet who would argue that oil can be replenished at a rate equal to or greater than its consumption. Hence its label as a NON-renewable resource. There is absolutely no argument that, without the discovery of new oil supply, we will run out. President Bush says we should drill in Alaska and many are hanging their hopes on the Canadian oil sands, which leads to point #2...
2) The environmental impact of production -- to boil the oil issue down to simply supply vs. demand is not only incomplete, it is irresponsible. Look into the plans to extract oil from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the Alberta Oil Sands and you will be astonished to learn that not only are massive amounts of water and natural gas needed to get to this oil, but acres of pristine forests and habitats are being destroyed to serve our energy addiction. So yes, we could probably make sure supply meets demand for a bit longer, but at what cost?
HD,
I want to quickly address two of your other points:
1) You said, "...let's not go crazy to the point that we're wasting money on programs that don't work..." -- I'm all for economic responsibility, but let's be careful not to prioritize money over obedience to God's command to be stewards of His Creation.
2) You said, "Recycling is ineffective and costly (and pollutive)." You then cited an example from your neighborhood -- First, recycling does use energy but its net impact is a significant reduction in total energy (and raw materials) consumed. For example, recycling aluminum is 95% more energy efficient that mining and manufacturing new aluminum. So your claim that recycling is pollutive is inaccurate.
Second, your point that recycling programs are costly may be true in your neighborhood but I think it's a mistake to measure the economic viability of a waste management program like recycling based on one suburb of Dallas. Your next-door neighbors (Plano and Dallas) both have single stream recycling where residents can place all recyclables in a single bin they receive for free. In other places in the US and in Canada where landfills aren't as abundant as they are in Texas, recycling and composting are essentially mandated as necessary waste management processes. And, again, regardless of the cost, I'd encourage us to look first at the impact we are having on God's Creation.
Matt,
How dare you disagree with my points and present more well-reasoned and well-supported arguments!
From what I've read, recycling is pollutive and costly. Consider this quote from the US Office of Technology Assessment: "It is not clear whether secondary manufacturing [i.e., recycling] produces less pollution per ton of material processed than primary manufacturing."
About curbside recycling: LA and other major cities have doubled (at least) their waste trucks because now they have one to pick up the recycling and one for the regular garbage. The main difference is that the recycled bag on average weigh 10% of the non-recyclable material. The extra trucks mean more iron ore and coal manufacturing, more steel, and the need for more gasoline, so more oil.
I think one of the main things we can do with recycling is develop ways to recycle the higher dollar items as well. To recycle all of our country's lowest cost items over and over is not cost effective in my book when estimates put curbside recycling costing 30-50% more than simply dumping it in the trash.
Here's the real problem though: we're divided split down the middle on every issue our country faces (which is good sometimes). I can find arguments that use scientific data to prove how recycling is great and then find another argument that uses the same data to show it's a waste. You can do this on every issue and it's maddening. Who do we believe? Which interpretation of the data is correct?
As believers what is our responsibility to coming to correct conclusions on such issues? How much time do we spend on such things? When does it become unfruitful? I'm not sure of any of the answers, but we've been given a book that shows us how Godly men and women have walked and God's response to different behaviors and activities and somehow we've got to derive from Scripture where this stuff we're debating lies in our lives. Obviously, that should be (and is intended, I think) the starting point of several of these discussions. But it's so freakin' hard to find some of this stuff in Scripture.
HD,
You're right, the Bible doesn't say anything about recycling...just like it doesn't say anything about fair trade coffee or adopting children. There are a million examples of individual issues for which we don't have explicit Biblical direction. But with all of these issues there are deeper themes that are addressed by Scripture.
On the recycling debate, I would argue that deeper theme is stewardship of Creation. Recycling is a great way to reduce our impact on Creation but it is far from the best solution. The definition of conservation is to never take without giving back...so if we are truly acting as stewards, we would generate zero waste.
I'm not sure what everyone's theological reading level is, but I found the following article great:
www.geocities.com/moreheadd/Inwardness_and_Commodification.pdf
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