A climate study released this past week from the U.K. Center for Ecology and Hydrology found that human breathing is allegedly contributing to global warming.
And no, this isn’t an excerpt from our friends at the Babylon Bee.
Researchers suggested that some of the blame in any increase can be attributed to “shifting diets” of the population.
Again, this is not parody.
“Converting from high meat and protein content diets to higher fiber vegetarian options to mitigate greenhouse gases from meat production potentially results in higher production of gases in the human gut, and an element of pollution swapping could occur,” cited the report.
In other words, veggie burgers aren’t just a poor substitute for a good old-fashioned hamburger – but a problematic one, at that.
We can be forgiven for growing weary of the endless litany of climate claims, finger-pointing, and downright dire predictions that the end is near unless we ditch our gas powered cars and shutter our factories.
Back in 1970, Harvard biologist George Wald suggested, “Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.”
Paul Ehrlich, who wrote The Population Bomb, a woefully irresponsible scare book that warned we’d collapse as a civilization because of too many people, continues to be quoted despite the fact he’s been spectacularly wrong for over half a century.
As we’ve long pointed out, our problem is not too many people, but too few.
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” he stated in 1970. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”
Not only was Ehrlich wrong about the coming deaths – but food production and availability have increased significantly.
Christians care deeply about the environment and see it as a gift from God which we need to manage and enjoy. We read in Genesis, “God blessed them and said to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground’” (1:28).
Much of the cataclysmic prognostications served up over the years ignore God’s plan for man’s dominion over the earth and instead suggest we’re the problem standing in the way of the planet reaching its full potential.
Everything would be wonderful, so they say, if we didn’t chop down the trees, or mine the gold, or pump the water.
Or breathe.
Climate activism has become a religion for many of the entrenched. Back in 2019, New York’s Union Theological Seminary tweeted out this gem:
Today in chapel, we confessed to plants. Together, we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt and sorrow in prayer; offering them to the beings who sustain us but whose gift we too often fail to honor.
Indeed, many activists worship at the altar of bad predictions and shifting statistics. They’re also historically unrealistic and seemingly detached from the way things actually work.
Just yesterday, when discussing opposition to fossil fuels, Southern Baptist Seminary President Dr. Al Mohler acknowledged that alternative sources of energy should be welcomed, but he also observed:
The reality is that when it comes to many of these so-called alternative energy sources, it turns out that it takes an awful lot of traditional energy to create this alternative energy. And so fossil fuels and almost all these things are still very much in the picture somewhere. Or to put it another way, you can create a giant solar energy farm as they are called, but the solar energy panels don’t get there by solar power. They get there the old-fashioned way, fossil fuels. I’m not saying that to celebrate the fact. It’s just a matter of reality. Every once in a while it’s good to make sure we are in touch with reality.
Climate alarmists don’t let facts get in the way of their claims. For example, readers of The New York Times have been told for years that because of human irresponsibility, summers are getting hotter than ever before.
Yet, to cite just one example among many, you might be surprised to learn that between July 7th and 31st of 1915, temperatures inside Yosemite National Park were over 100 degrees every day. It was 115 degrees on July 20, 1915. This past summer? The warmest day was 92 degrees.
When it comes to assessing and discerning the claims of climate activists, it’s wise to be skeptical, especially when the narrative would seem to contradict truths found in the Bible. Scripture may be silent when it comes to specifics regarding our changing climate, but it also makes clear that man, while sinful, is not the villain in God’s grand story. Any suggestion that the simple presence of more men or women breathing is somehow bad for the climate is downright absurd.
At the risk of triggering all those who fear a coming catastrophe brought on by man’s action, I have five (now controversial) words of advice for those who worry the worst is coming:
Take a big deep breath.
Image from Shutterstock.
