For those who reside in the North-West of England, I would like to direct them to what may be a very informative event on 7th May. Sir John Houghton, ex-IPCC Chair, will be talking about climate change in Rawtenstall on 7th May. Also speaking will be Dave Bookless – author, theologian and director of Christian environmental charity A Rocha and Paul Cook, Advocacy Director of Tearfund, the aid charity of the UK Evangelical Alliance.
It is something that I would like to attend, as this might help clarify some of my own questions.
- How can small changes in air temperature or air pressure influence the pressures and temperatures many times greater at 10km to 30km beneath the Earth’s surface?
- How do we distinguish the true scientific forecasts from false prophecies, such as the Himalayan Glaciers, the Amazon Rainforests, or extreme sea level rise?
- Within a Christian context, should those who know the truth about climate change being reaching out to those who live in denial rather than marginalising them?
ManicBeancounter 
Ian Laidlaw
/ 28/03/2011Dear Mr Bean-Counter,
It may be of interest to you that I attended a similar, church based, presentation on the 12th March 2011 in Leeds. This was a one day event entitled Climate of Hope.
After the prayers and a hymn Sir John made his presentation. Nothing earth shattering and no hint of criticism of climate models.
However it would require someone more hard-hearted than me to give him a difficult time in Q & A as he very firmly links his religious beliefs to his belief in CAGW in his presentation. To attack one is to attack both, which in a church might put a large proportion of the congregation on your back.
I would be happy to discuss constructive ideas. Good luck.
Ian
klem
/ 28/03/2011I think a good idea would be to reflect on whether CAGW is a religion unto itself. Many people refer to anthropogenic climate change as a new religion (ACC) because there are parallels which most people do not recognize right away. In the old days, preachers were the only people who could read and folks revered them as the only ones who understood the bible. You had to follow their statements and opinions and could not question them, If you did you were called an heretic. Today Climatologists are the keepers of the new faith, they are the new preachers and folks revere climatologists in the same way; if you do question the science folks respond by saying that only climatologists can understand the science, and you can’t question their opinion either. Today’s climate skeptics are also known as climate heretics. If you asked a preacher for evidence for the existence of God, they could find it everywhere, they would claim God was responsible for everything, God explains everything. Similarly if you ask a climatologist for evidence of ACC they can find it everywhere, and they blame ACC for everything, ACC explains everything. Even recently people claim the quake in Japan can be explained by ACC. Science today has become very lazy in this regard, ACC explains everything like God does. The new climate Pope is Al Gore and every country in the world has its top ACC guy, they are like neo-apostles.
Many of the proponents of ACC are not religious, however they have found a new religion and a new god in ACC. The parallels between old time religion and ACC are astonishing.
There is an old phrase which goes something like “if you stop believing in God, you’ll still believe, but you’ll believe in anything”. I think this is the case for the ACC believers. It’s time for people to rethink and examine deep down just what ACC really is.
I think that sometime in the future many of today’s believers in ACC will be embarrassed to admit that they fell for this new religion.