The Sky is Falling, the Sky is Falling!

By Pastor Steven Rowitt, Ph.D
How often have we been told that this or that is an existential threat to life as we know it? I can count my fingers the cries of chicken littles masquerading as environmental experts screaming at the public that we are all going to die, and it is our own fault.

I have had the privilege of living through several of these existential threats, and with each one of them politicians used fear mongering to the max. Let’s take a walk down memory lane, and remind ourselves just how close to extinction we have come in the last 50 years.

Nuclear Winter

Nuclear winter is the term for a theory describing the climatic aftermath of nuclear war. Smoke from the fires started by nuclear weapons, especially the black, sooty, smoke from cities and industrial facilities, would be heated by the Sun, and lofted into the upper stratosphere spreading globally, lasting for years. (Robock, A., 2022)

It was hypothesized that a nuclear war would trigger another Ice Age throwing the planet into chaos due to mass famine as well as other related catastrophes.

Time magazine used this theme of nuclear doom and gloom on over 30 of their covers over the last 45 years. We couldn’t print them all, and I stopped counting at thirty.

When it became evident that Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD-see note below) would prevent a full-out nuclear war, politicians needed the next chicken little scenario.

Say Hello to Acid Rain

During the 1970s and ’80s the phenomenon called acid rain was one of the most well-known environmental problems in Europe and North America. It appeared frequently in news features and mentioned, on occasion, in situation comedies of the day. (Rafferty, J.P., 2022)

Although this problem proved to be detrimental to our forests, it did not become the planet- ending event the chicken little’s squawked about. As with all of these planet killing scenarios, the same villains appear in every story. That right, “we have met the enemy and they are us.” The burning of forests, even though most forest fires occur naturally, and are essential for healthy forest growth, we are treated yearly to forest fire coverage that documents the devastation these fires can cause. Ultimately, the blame goes to manmade climate change, and not natural causes such as lightning strikes and/or the failure of governmental agencies to clear dry tinder collecting in known hotspots. (Healthy Forests, 2021)

The Hole in the Ozone Layer

Another of these “world as we know it ending phenomenon” was the hole in the ozone layer. Of course, like all the other impending doomsday scenarios, our depleting ozone layer was going to wreak havoc from a pandemic of skin cancers to who knows what.

Today, the ozone hole still exists, forming every year over Antarctica in the spring. It closes up again over the summer as stratospheric air from lower latitudes is mixed in, patching it up until the following spring when the cycle begins again.

That’s right, after all the machinations about this hole being irreversible, low and behold, this hole began closing all by itself. As noted above, this hole has been opening and closing with no human intervention cyclically year after year.

Welcome to Y2K

As the year 2000 approached, the Y2K bug was a computer flaw that may have caused problems when dealing with dates beyond December 31, 1999. The chicken little’s were besides themselves speculating about everything from worldwide banking lockdowns and collapses to massive power failures and worse.

What happened at the turn of the century was extremely anticlimatic compared to all the potential disasters that these doomsdayers were warning us about. In reality, most software companies created patches you could purchase to protect you from a serious hardware glitch caused by the end of the century computer clocks. We actually transitioned very smoothly from the end of the 20th century into the brave new world of the 21st century.

Global Warming

This more recent doomsday story was caused by what turned out to be a warming trend. Recently, what was thought to be a planet killing warming of planet earth was actually a normal cycle of temperature rising and falling. Because of the panic it induced, an entire industry was formed to find solutions for what turned out to be a normal fluctuation of temperature. Billions of taxpayer dollars were funneled into colleges, universities and think tanks to remedy this problem.

As it became clear that the planet was not going to spontaneously combust any time soon, Global Warming was given a new name.

Manmade Climate Change

This newest “end of life as we know it” storyline is manmade climate change. That’s right, we must place the blame solely upon humanity so that we can point the finger and demand that humanity provide a solution. The boogeyman in this newest, and most serious of all calamities, was that manmade climate change was increasing the Co2 content of our planet’s atmosphere.

As every grade school science student is taught the O2-Co2 interaction is absolutely necessary for life. In fact, slight increases planetary Co2 is actually good for the planet’s vegetation. Co2 is necessary for photosynthesis to take place, thereby creating more vegetation on the planet. In turn, these plants provide us with life sustaining O2 and the God-designed cycle continues to replenish and balance our planet’s atmosphere.

That does not bode well for those who want to manipulate and control the masses with fear. So, carbon dioxide had to be renamed a dangerous “greenhouse gas.” Now they could characterize Co2 as a poisonous gas, and that is what they did. Knowing that any chemical inhaled or ingested in toxic amounts becomes poisonous to life, doesn’t mean we can rename oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide or other naturally occurring, non-toxic substance as a poison just because we can artificially manipulate the chemical composition to make it toxic.

Our own government’s National Institute of Health has decided to characterize carbon dioxide as a toxicant, because in high concentrations it can kill you. But is that a fair characterization of this essential chemical compound? No, it is clear distortion of the facts in order to justify their attempt to make this into yet another chicken little, life as we know it ending crisis.

In fact, other news sources have pointed out this latest form of manipulation by noting this.
Lately, the beneficial natural substance Co2 (Carbon Dioxide) has been maligned by some politicians and major media outlets as a “dangerous toxic gas.” As if Co2 were somehow harmful to plants and animals at anything near its current atmospheric concentrations. (Gaul, 2014)

The question that remains is “why are we so easily manipulated by fear-based lies?”  I believe most people who do not know the Creator are susceptible to placing their faith in politics, and political leaders, while they look to the government to solve all of our problems. Being ignorant of the Word of the Creator leaves you susceptible to all kinds of fear.

Some people place their faith in science to give us solutions to the ills of the world. We call that faith-based worldview Scientism. That is what describes a belief that the accumulation of knowledge (science) replaces faith in the Creator Who became our Savior according to Scripture, Is.7:14, 9:6, 53:1-12. Science is good, it is a search for knowledge. Scientism is not good, because it replaces our Creator with scientific knowledge. It looks to “science” to discover all the answers to the important questions in the universe. Science is not the Savior.

At Creation Studies Institute, we stand on the veracity of the written Word of God as given by the living Word of God, Messiah Jesus. We aspire to be Bereans, so we take God at His Word. We are waiting for the return of the King of glory, Psalm 24.

We understand that placing your faith in any person, place or thing like government or science is a form of idolatry. CSI does not believe that these people, places or things can possibly bring a lasting cure for these ills of our present world. What we do believe is that the cure for what ails humanity is the gospel of Messiah Jesus. Only He can cure for a sin-sick world, only He can transform sinners into saints. He promises to restore each individual human being to their rightful condition He originally intended us to experience in a personal relationship with Him through His Son, the Messiah.

References

Gaul, B. (2014).  Co2: Dangerous Toxic Gas or Beneficial Natural Substance. Liberty Voice at the Guardian.com.

Healthy Forests (2021). Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities, July 21, 2021. Online at https://healthyforests.org/about-healthy-forests-healthy-communities/

Kirtley, D. (2022). The 1970’s Ice Age Myth and Time Magazine Covers – by David Kirtley as as published online from a blog by Greg Laden.

Rafferty, J.P. (2022). What Happened to Acid Rain? Online at Britannica.com.

Robock, A. (2022). Forty-three journal articles on the subject of Nuclear Winter published solely or in collaboration with others from 1984-2022.

NOTE: MAD is an acronym for Mutually Assured Destruction. This nuclear war limiting concept is derived from the understanding that nuclear superpowers such as the United States and the USSR would be completely annihilated after an exchange of nuclear weapons. This is thought to be a serious deterrent to nuclear war. This doesn’t eliminate the threat from rogue nations, and other terrorist entities from using their nuclear arsenal to trigger World War III.