I am as dismayed that our denomination has taken up these predominantly political issues (climate change and all involved) as these issues are scientifically, economically and politically complex.  Our denomination, even if it were to muster the full-time attention of every single member, does not have anything close to the capacity required to competently and meaningfully address these infinitely complex questions.

But let me back up and start by reflecting on the process that gets us here.  One or more persons in the CRC apparently decided on a short list of people who would purportedly investigate (study) these questions and write this report.  Looking at the bio information of persons on this commitee, I think I can pretty rationally conclude that those who created the list of study committee members were looking for peole who had long ago come to conclusions about these issues.  (Would someone please correct me if I'm wrong on that?)  I'm guessing too of course that of those appointed to this committee, few (perhaps none?) hadn't already reached firm conclusions about the questions this "study committee" was purportedly going to study.

So the report now comes out, and it is pretty much what everyone had expected.  Or did someone really expect something different?

But of course this "study committee" doesn't have the last say. It now needs to convince about 95 people (a simple majority of the 188 at Synod) who gather for a once-a-year,  one-week meeting, in which they must deal with many other reports/matters in addition to this report.  On the plus side for the "study committee," these 95 people know about zero, as a practical matter, about this infinitely complex subject. Most won't even read the whole the report.

Now, if this small group of "study committee" people can convince the 95 people who know next to nothing about all of this to agree with them, such that the 95 adopts the "study committee's" recommendations (see page 60 ...), then the 95 will have DECLARED, in a proxy kind of way for ALL OF CRC's TENS OF THOUSANDS OF MEMBERS ACROSS THE CONTINENT that certain statements are true, despite the fact that these statements are not particularly theological or "churchish," and despite the fact that the 95 knew and still know next to nothing about these issues.  These proxy declarations of truth would include:

"Climate change is occurring and is very likely due to human activity."

"Human-induced climate change poses a significant threat to future generations, the poor, and the vulnerable."

"Human-induced climate change poses a significant challenge to us all."

"Urgent action is REQUIRED [emphasis added] to address climate change.  This includes actions at the personal, community, and political levels ..."

More than than, these proxy declarations by these 95 people who know nothing about these issues would also include acquiesence to a plan (remember, "urgent action is required" and read the other recommendations as well) that would re-route tens (hundreds?) of thousands of dollars given by CRC members across the country, to produce programs and materials that will teach them, their children and others the "correct answers" that the 95 declared for them to their families and friends.  Plus, the US government and the United Nations will be told, again by proxy, what all these members have concluded, whether they have or not.  No doubt, the denominational "Social Justice Office" will also lobby the government (and the UN?) in some way, telling them that everyone in the CRC has concluded these things.

I've been personally studying "climate change" for about six years, having started out assuming it was a straight-forward question and that we had the ability to find out and know the answers.  In the course of those six years, I've increasingly become convinced that we (all the world's experts put together) really don't know very much about this infinitely complex system that God wove together so long ago, because it is so complex.  I've also become convinced that the "scientific questions" have become so intertwined with political motivations (which this study report ignores, except to bring out the ol' tobacco industry argument), that the "truth" of the claims by AGW Alarmists (those who predict armageddon because of "anthrpogenic global warming") are as much political assertions as scientific ones.

But here's my real concern.  If the CRC, as a denomination, decides, as it has been, to increasingly take up these kinds of issues--issues a church denomination is largely incompetent to take up--it will increasingly fail to take up issues it is competent to, and needs to, take up, and it will divide the CRC membership along political question lines (who needs to split over theology issues when you can do it over world and national politics questions).  In turn, the CRC will become increasingly irrelevant and anemic, at least as a church. On the bright side, it's stock as a political association will likely go up.

As for me and my house, we wish to belong to a CRC that is a church, not a political association.

My initial thoughts on the report:

The report says,

“The core concern of a significant segment of the committee was the declaration’s assertion that human activity has contributed to the degradation of creation and the potentially dangerous warming of earth’s climate.” II, p.3

This was merely one of the concerns. Other concerns of equal importance were the following affirmations of the declaration:

• That the earth’s natural systems are out of balance (undemonstrated)
• That climate change poses a significant threat to millions in the world, especially the poorest and most marginalized groups. (undemonstrated)
• That immediate action to mitigate climate change is needed to fulfill our calling as earthkeepers as well as the command that we love our neighbors. (If this were only a call to responsible stewardship there would be no problem, but there is an assumption here that we both know and are capable of responding in a way that would not exacerbate the difficulties we face in being earthkeepers and lovers of our neighbors.)

I am concerned as well with what appears to be the attitude that stands behind the Evangelical Climate Initiative. Its main author, Dr. David Gushee, writes in The Future of Faith in American Politics (p. 194), “We want to employ … stewardship rather than ‘subdue the earth.’”This seems, as Lynn White has been proclaiming for some years, to root our environmental problems in God’s command in Gen 1:28 to rule and subdue. To the contrary, I am convinced (and I thought there was general consensus in the CRC) that proper ruling and subduing is at the heart of creation stewardship – as is the truth that God has given humans permission not only to care for the creation, but to use its resources for the benefit of the inhabitants of creation, and particularly mankind.

Calvin DeWit has many good things to say about proper stewardship in his book Earthwise, among them: "It’s becoming clearer that instead of seeing creation as “a beautiful book … to make us ponder the invisible things of God: his eternal power and his divinity” (Belgic Confession, Art. 2; see Rom. 1:20), many people in our culture in the past couple of generations – including Christians – have tended to shift toward thinking of creation as a “bag of resources” to be used."
 
I find one phrase here to be potentially problematic. I take DeWit’s reference to "bag of resources" to be pejorative, whereas I think that creation can be seen as both "a beautiful book" and a "bag of resources" to be explored and developed to the glory of God. 

Lets not over look the gossip in these issues. We are to be brothers in understanding that in there are varieous  view points

that fall out of our own. We are all God's children think love in your decision process not positions. Other wise it is easy to get lead astry within and with out belief's systems like ours. (truth is God's system)

It's always the details that get us into trouble, isn't it.   We can agree to be stewards of creation in general terms, knowing that it belongs to God, and He put us in it, to use it and enjoy it and take care of it.   But the questions of how do we do that raise the difficulties.  

I'm with Doug VDG and Duane Niewsma on not having the institutional church make all kinds of statements on scientifically debatable and even morally debatable issues which it does not have the expertise for, nor the mandate for.   It would be better to let the  Christian colleges deal with these issues in an academically debatable context, rather than taking a seemingly definitive theological approach to a response to global warming, or to recycling, or to type of energy use, or to whether or not zoos are permissable, or whether eating meat is better or worse than vegetarianism, or whether protecting native grasslands or forests is biblically mandated.  

The document, which I've merely scanned and not read in detail, seems to be a ponderously ornate statement that goes beyond outlining an attitude towards our relationship to God's creation.   It seems to be mostly an adoption of an environmentalist position which is presently status quo, rather than a real examination of how people live in God's world.   We have sometimes made the same kind of mistakes in logic and attitude when we supposed that it was better to provide food, rather than tools and conditions to grow food, to those who are hungry in third world countries.  

People who live in colder climates live in very dangerous conditions, in danger of freezing due to lack of fuel or shelter or suitable clothing, being able to grow food only for about four months of the year, and yet they have adapted to their conditions, often thriving in the worst of situations.  We do not seem to spend a great deal of time trying to change their climate to make their lives easier or more sustainable.   We cannot always change the environment;  sometimes we simply have to find ways to adapt to it. 

We need to keep this in the correct perspective.   While there is no doubt that global stats indicate a recent increase in temperature and in carbon dioxide levels,  we are mistaken when we say we are protecting the planet by our actions.   The planet doesn't need protection.   It will be here no matter whether warmer or cooler.  It will simply look a bit different than it does presently, perhaps.   It is living conditions we are thinking of.    It is people (and possibly some animal species) we are really concerned about.   And ultimately, we are concerned about some people more than about other people. 

Besides this, while we know that CO2 stores and collects heat for the earth, we also know that water vapor has a much greater impact, and is more easily changed.   We know that atmospheric dust also has a much greater impact, and is also much more easily changed and variable.   We too often assume that a uniformitarian approach will always rule the day, in spite of apparently knowing that various greater spikes in global temperature have occurred in the past without the influence of human industrial activity.    So sometimes in our language about impacting global temperatures, we are assuming a certain Tower of Babel posture, that if we all work together we can achieve a demi-god status of manipulating the strings of our small global universe on terra firma.   More humility is warranted.

Compared to a global flood, and compared to a multiplicity of volcanoes, our efforts are pretty inadequate and feeble. 

(As a side note, it is also ironic that so many "environmentalists" who are also evolutionists, are fighting the very substance of changes in the environment that apparently led to the mutations and adaptations and evolution that are the necessary conditions for the supposed evolution of the human species.)    

(And, another side note, it is amusing how for many people,  'saving the planet'  means reducing the human population to reduce emissions and ecological degradation.   As if to suppose that the earth is not inanimate, but itself cares about whether it has 385 ppm of C02 instead of 300 ppm, or whether it cares whether its icecaps are frozen or melted, or whether it has ten more or less mammalian species.   We need to remember that we are imposing our expectations on the planet, and that those expectations are subject to our own needs and desires and preconceptions, ie. our expectations are subjective.) 

Walking the talk

So starts section "D" on page 57 of this report.  But here's the irony.  James Hansen, the world's Expert-inChief for all who adopt the same views as the authors of this report, believes anyone who doesn't realize and support a push for a lot more nuclear energy production is taking a view "equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy."  At any other time, on any other point, the AGW Alarmist community is cheering on Hansen as if a queen knighted champion for their cause.  But when Hansen starts talking about the need for nuclear, a lot of nuclear, the entire Alarmist community, worldwide, goes dead silent in unison. 

As do, effectively, the authors of this report.  Do your own word search of this report for "nuclear" and see what you find.  On page 47, 'nuclear' is mentioned in passing and then dismissed--with one whole sentence.  It's mentioned again on page 53 in the context of describing the Chernobyl disaster.  It's also mentioned on page 91, in an appendix, to describe pro-nuclear people as bad guys like the tobacco company executives.  And finally, the word 'nuclear' is mentioned on pages 51 and 97 as promoted by declarations of the Corwall Alliance, which declarations this report dismisses with a goodly bit of disdain.

So, do the authors of this report know more about climate change than James Hansen?  Do they know more about what needs to be done in light of climate change--the talk that needs to be walked, so to speak--than James Hansen?  Or do they think James Hansen is in the pocket of the big energy companies? 

If the authors of this report would answer "yes" to any of the above, I'd really love to hear them explain themselves.

If the authors of this report would answer "no" to the above, I'd really love to know why they aren't also pushing for nuclear energy?  After all, the world's most revered AGW Alarmist, the guy who really brought all of this global warming stuff to the world's attention, and still occupies the nation's top position (at NASA) on all of this, says we will get effectively nowhere avoiding global warming armaggedon issue if we don't insert a great deal of nuclear energy into the world's energy equation--and soon.

So when these authors say we need to walk the talk, and given what they say is indubitably the factual case about global warming, I doubt their sincerity.  I don't mean that disrespecfully.  Especially when people buy into political propositions, they tend to characterize their positions--even to themselves--as other than what they really are.  (Al Gore bought a condo in San Fransisco that will be under water if what he predicts about sea level rise actually happens, and his own "carbon footprint" is perhaps among the world's top 1%).

I think the writers of this report are, more than anything else, reflecting a current zeitgeist, spirit of the age, the origins of which I regard as not particularly biblical.  Sort of like CRC members picking up too much "materialism" just by living in a wealthy country that produces/buys/sells a lot of stuff.  Again, I don't mean to suggest these authors believe they are being less than biblical, but rather that, knowing it or not, they are joining up with, and mirroring to a remarkable degree, an essentially political wave of thought (worldview even) that regards the world, people in it, and God, in a very unbiblical way.

Lest anyone misintepret, I do NOT think the CRC should even entertain the question of whether to push for nuclear  energy.  I personally think our government should become much more "nuclear friendly," and I personally join with Hansen in his push for nuclear (its a common ground point that we have), but that's for me to decide and push for, not my church denomination.

To repeat my baseline position: The CRC, as church, as denomination, should recognize these questions are outside its jurisdiction (sphere) and area of competency.  The CRC, as church, as denomination, should not attempt to be my proxy, nor the proxy of other CRC members, whatever they think on this subject.  Respectfully, those 188 synodical delegates that gather for one week in 2012 (half of them pastors) to take up the recommendations in this report (and many other issues) are nowhere close to qualified to decide for me or other CRC members the answers to these enormously complex questions.  Their doing so will do little more than further divide the church.

Patrick Moore, former president of the Greenpeace Foundation, and of Greenpeace Canada, and director of GreenPeace International, also promotes the use of nuclear power, at least to the extent of suggesting that it needs to be part of the answer to our energy needs and reducing carbon emissions.

Creation Stewardship Report: X. Recommendations ...  B.
Does it really say it that way?

I had to read this three times before I decided I could not affirm this without some heavy clarifiers. This is Recommendation B:

That synod declare that both Scripture and continually emerging scientific
knowledge are necessary and valid ways of knowing that should guide
our response to creation stewardship issues, including climate change.

At first glance this looks reasonable and obvious. But read it again. Doesn't this imply, or at least leave open the possibility, that emerging scientific knowledge carries equal authority as Scripture?

Sure, creation is God's 'second book' of revelation, and it speaks reliably - at least to a degree. But that's not what is recommended to us here. What seems to be put on a par is the Bible and 'continually emerging scientific knowledge.' That is God's unchanging, Word, along side of and on a par with a "continually emerging" human understanding of God's creation.

Now, if the recommendation were to equate Scriptural interpretation with "emerging scientific knowledge," we would be talking about something close to parity. Or if we were to talk about both Scripture and Creation as valid sources of knowledge, we would be talking about something close to parity. But the parity suggested between Scripture itself and "emerging scientific interpretation" of data from creation is not just an 'apples and oranges' sort of comparison, it's an 'apples and origami' sort of comparison.

As written, the recommendation appears overly confident regarding the reliability of human, and/or displays a lack of confidence in the reliability of God's Word.

I would hope that the synodical pre-advice committee would suggest some rewording here. Included in that rewrite should be a clear and firm statement that since the Scriptures are both inspired by God and perspicuous, its authority always takes precendece over a fallen human understanding of a creation that is still under a curse (Gen 3:17) under which it still subject to frustration (Rom.8:20), implying that creation is both imperfect itself and therefore an imperfect (though sufficient - Rom.1:20) revelation.

Glacier Girl * & Climate Change

Due to bad weather and errors in navigation, 6 P-38's and two cargo aircraft landed on a glacier in the southern part of Greenland on July 15, 1942.  The aircraft were abandoned and the men rescued.  In 1992 one P-38 was retrieved from its icy tomb by Roy Shoffer whose first trip to Greenland ended in frustration as none of the aircraft could be found.   Armed with more sophisticated devices, a second trip located all  8 aircraft one mile south of where they had first landed 50 years earlier.  Each aircraft was buried to a depth of 268 feet beneath the ice.  To retrieve Glacier Girl, they had to melt their way down through 268 feet of snow and ice using a device nick-named "the Gopher".

With 268 feet of ice and snow over the aircraft how many degrees did the temperature increase in southern Greenland between 1942 and 1992?  I will assume 0 for the above report confirms that this was one glacier that was neither melting or retreating.

Given the foregoing, what is the actual threat that Global Warming/Climate Change poses to you and me?  Again, I will assume 0.

However, CO2 did increase during that same period.  And since it did, the question can be asked: what is the harm, for CO2,  like garlic, is apparently  'goot' for you?   Consider the following statement:  "Goethite retains CO2 when it forms.  Goethite buried very early in The Flood confirms a world with 15 times more CO2 in its atmosphere than today"   (Source:  God's Global Warming Worked Just Fine....by Russ Humphreys, 8/11/09).  If it works for God, it works for me.

At Creation, "God saw all that he had made and it was very good".   Genesis 1:31

*I  first read of this account in a Toronto paper in 1994; it can also be found via Google.

  From my observations, climate change is moot to these arguements. If it were possible to have a cleaner earth every one would agree. Climate change is always happening due to myriad of reasons. Those I would assume are agreed emperical facts. The question is masn influencing a rise in temperature. Well have lots of evidence of floating debris in oceans,reduced fish stocfks, no buffalo likr they were, city hot zones from concrete,burning rivers, almost no egles are national bird, dust storms from poor land management etc, etc etc . We definitly affect our earth on a large scasle. remember the 1952 Lonon fog?It killed 4000 people due smog from a temperature inversion. There is ample evidence., but people are concerned about the possible (not realized) economic consequences that could occur if we don't be careful. If there is a way to make cleaner power why not due it? We will remain a oil/coal based country untill something better comes along. The people that think climate change is very serious are worth listening to and it makes since to plan for the future. I don't believe climate change believers are out to ravage the economy that they depend on too. That doesn"t have any logic in it . This should be a win/win equation not a credibilty dicussion. I don't think there are the kind of intents for a scientist to create a hoaxto gain What? There is no upside for them if they are right! 

The other interesting question is how old they would have estimated this ice to be before they found the airplanes at the depth of 268 feet, which accumulated over about 50 years.  This is a rate of 5 feet per year.   The estimate for the age of the ice sheet is 110,000 years, for 2.5 miles or 4km depth of ice.  This equates to about 13,000 feet of ice, at about .12 ft per year.   So the rate of ice accumulation in those fifty years was apparently 40 times as fast as the accumulation in the previous centuries.   In spite of the fact that it was a period of accumulation of CO2 and global warming? 

Or would it be more reasonable to assume that the ice sheet accumulated in about 2600 years, at about 5 feet per year?  Anyway, we seem to have some problems with the theory of uniformity, or perhaps things are not quite as old as they appear? 

It seems our north american lifestyle is consuming more of the earth's resources than what can be considered a fair proportion. With a rise in ocean levels, communities close to the water will dissappear. Many poor could loose their livelyhood. 

It is natural to protect one's lifestyle by attacking the ones who are pointing a finger at us. 

Greed is a vice clearly probited by scripture. But who of us would admit our lifestyle is collectively one of greed?

What are we doing to these prophets?  How should we respond??

August Guillaume

Re Greed:

I would not presume societal or individual sinlessness in the matter of greed. But are you saying that consumption should be the same for all people? I say that the mere consumption of resources is not proof of greed. For resources may be consumed to produce valuable and necessary products. Let us be as conservative as possible with nonrenewable energy resources, etc., but as regulations are mulitplied and energy costs rise, the poor will typically be hurt more. I'd say that the "developed" world has made tremendous strides in the matter of reducing pollution and becoming more efficient in the use of resources, and that societal and environmental costs associated with the popular rush to solar and wind, etc. are often underestimated.

John, your reference to "things" possibly being much younger is consistent with Luke 3 which, as you know, traces the lineage of Jesus back to Adam, a time period assumed to be approximately 6000 years.  This time frame is in stark contrast to the position of the evolutionist who must by necessity talk in terms of billions of years in order to give mankind sufficient time to emerge from the primordial swamp.

With reference to time, my wife and I recently took a rafting trip through the Grand Canyon.  I mentioned to the young man steering the raft, that we had heard an interesting lecture earlier that morning from a geologist who had stated the earth was approximately 18 billion years old, but that the Grand Canyon was relatively young, being only 5 million years old.  He smiled and said that during the last three summers he has taken about 20 geologists along with their students through the Grand Canyon and never heard the same explanation twice.  Everyone it seems has his/her own idea, yet the Bible is quite clear on 6 days of creation occuring 6000 years ago.

With respect to Glacier Girl, it is of particular interest to me since the facts confirm 268 feet of ice and snow accumulated over the 8 aircraft during a 50 year time period (1942 - 1992).   These entombed aircraft provide some key evidence that Global Warming may not be the threat Al Gore would have us believe, and also brings into serious question the reliability of the data recently gathered and broadly disseminated, with study committees formed  thereafter to evaluate "data."

Again with respect to time, the author of an earlier referenced book, THE FLOOD (Rehwinkel-1951) ably demonstrates that a conservative estimate of the world's population at the time of the Flood was about 5-6 Billion  people, or close to our population today.    At one time in my younger years,  I was of the opinion that the earth was sparsely populated.  Not so it seems. 

THE FLOOD is a most informative scripturally reliable book which, among other things, clearly demonstrates the extent and effects of the destructive powers of water, earthquakes, volcanoes as planet earth was reshaped when "all the springs of the great deep burst forth, and the floodgates of heaven were opened"  (Gen. 7:11).  It is no longer available in print, but a friend advised me this morning that he located a copy through Amazon.com.

There are some interesting questions that Walt Brown's book, "In the Beginning" (448 pages) raises on page 404-405.   A couple of examples:  

- Which came first, DNA or the proteins needed by DNA, which can only be produced by DNA?  

-   Why are there more than 155 lakes unfrozen today in Antartica?  One lake is the six largest in the world, with the volume of Lake Michigan. 

- Why is the earth's magnetic field 2000 times larger than the combined magnetic fields of Mercury, Venus and Mars?

- Where is the 3,000 cubic miles of dirt removed from the Grand  Canyon?   Why no delta at the mouth of the Colorado River? 

(You can read this book online for free.) 

Your comment about the earth's population is pertinent:   if people existed as long as evolutionists claim, then they need to answer the question of why it took so long for the earth's population to get to where it is today.   Normal population dynamics over that time period would have resulted in such a population many millenia ago.   

The following quote from a published research paper illustrates that not all scientists agree with the climate modelling presently in use.   This also demonstrates the risks of non-scientists such as institutional churches making edicts about environmental predictions of this magnitude.   We remember the general scientific consensus of global cooling that was prevalent only 40 years ago. 

"Using 20-year moving averages, the measured data offer a full explanation of warm and cool climate periods related to the scale of our observation of recent climate. Neglecting the secondary, smaller oscillations in this discussion, we count 9 main peaks of warm periods with temperatures at least 1 °C above the recent average temperature. Among the 9 peaks were 3 peaks having temperatures 2.6–2.8 °C higher than the recent average temperature. The atmospheric CO2 concentration derived from VOSTOK was in ranges from about 255 ppm for the temperature peak around 7800 years BP to 275 ppm for the temperature peak around 3300 years BP. There was no indication of CO2 intensive change close to and around the warm peaks, as this distinct warming would require if the GHG hypothesis were valid. It follows that the GHG gradient did not cause the significant change of the temperature. Except for its recent rise, the atmospheric CO2 concentration during the entire Holocene ranged from 250 to 285 ppm. Interestingly, and with unanswered curiosity except for a few scenarios made for the last millennium, there has been no serious attempt to test the otherwise broadly used climatic models against the great majority of Holocene maxima and minima. "

Miroslav Kutílek , 

Received 20 July 2011; revised 25 August 2011; Accepted 26 August 2011 

George Bush had it right all along by not signing Kyoto in 1997

The National Post, Nov 29, 2011, article by Terence Corcoran

It would appear that Canada is quietly dropping the Kyoto Agreement for a number of reasons, which include the following:

Activists, warmists and leftists-who have a perverse fixation on climate change as a vehicle for tearing down what they refer to as the capitalist system-are trying to maintain the fiction that global warming is based on immutable science.  But it is getting harder and harder to keep up the facade.

A new release of emails from the world's leading climate scientists adds more evidence that the science is at best a work in progress.  Canadian officials have yet to acknowledge that the science looks increasingly shaky, based on hyped-up climate histories, unreliable climate models and a consensus manufactured by repression and hype.

Climate-change policy, set on a global scale, is going nowhere and theatre is all that's left to play out in Durban South Africa.

Now, lets get back also to the unquestioned reliability of Genesis 1 and all that follows thereafter.

I've been thinking about a couple of overtures, one in response to the Task Force Report, and another dealing with the more general topic of defining the task of the church. I've also been in communication with one person in particular who is planning on presenting an overture (on the former) to his Council (and hopefully then, his Classis). My question: Would it make sense for me to present the same overture to my Council (and Classis) since we can't really be sure of the respective receptions to be given to these initiatives.