climate change, the fossil record and the bible


A few days ago. I was half listening to some talking head on a news show - the TV was on in the background as I was preparing for work.  He was on about the “rapid” heating of the Earth and the “catastrophic” effect it is having on our fair planet.  It started me thinking about the good old days, no not back in the 70’s when the parents of the current crop of talking head, were crowing about the coming “disaster” of global cooling.  Back when I was in high school we were facing a certainty of the polar ice cap enveloping the world.  We were doomed to freeze to death, and the path we were on was apparently unstoppable. I was relieved to find 40 years later we did, in fact ,survive that certain death  only to be confronted by a new and  even more terrifying crisis, global warming.  Oh wait, that didn’t pan out either, a decade of some of the coldest winters on record put that in the dumpster, so now it is just called climate change.   That, I can relate to.   I live in the Rockies of Colorado, and the typical weather forecast calls for a nice warm sunny day the 70’s with about 14” of snow, later in the day some thunder showers and lows in the 30’s.  They are not sure what will happen in the afternoon.  Spring time in the Rockies is awesome.  

No, I was thinking of the very old, very good days back just after God created the universe. Apparently, in those glorious days, and we know this from both God’s Word and the fossil record, the earth had a far warmer and more stable climate than we currently live in.  The Bible tells us that there was no rain, which means there was no wind.  No wind means no temperature differential, and that means a very stable, humid, rather warm climate.  Plants would thrive and be very large, reptiles, who grow until they die, would be huge.  We would expect a very dense, very heavy, water vapor canopy covering the earth shielding us from ultra violet and other harmful radiation from the sun.  The vast amount of water in the air would cause the air pressure to be far higher than it is today.  Many scientists say perhaps or more today’s 14.7 pounds.  It would be like living in a hyperbaric chamber. Cuts would heal in hours or days. Our life spans would be in the centuries, not decades.  

 When we look into the fossil record that is exactly the picture we find.  Imagine if you will asparagus forty feet tall.  Wooly mammoths living in what is now called northern Alaska with blooming poppies in their stomachs. Tree sloths that were twenty feet tall, even humans 13 feet tall, and reportedly living many hundreds and hundreds of years.  Huge bird like creatures unable to lift off in our existing environment, but would be kings of the skies with 30 pounds of air pressure. The fossil record is full of these sorts of things.  The record of a place the likes of which we can only dream, and yet the fossils are all there.

 We are left to wonder what happened?  How could things change so fast that entire mammoths were quickly frozen before the food in their stomachs digested?  What caused the massive water born sedimentary layers across entire continents, the huge volcanoes and shifting tectonic plates?  Any honest geologist will admit that an unimaginable flood transformed the earth that then was, into the earth we now know.  The water vapor canopy collapsed, and the “fountains of the great deep opened” flooding the earth, burying billions of creatures in layers of sediment and mud; many to be found thousands of years later to provide a glimpse of what once was.  An event of this magnitude would spawn weather patterns that would last for thousands of years.  The computer models predict rain, a new thing, winds circling the globe, hurricanes, tornadoes, all manner of unstable weather.  We would expect the poles to freeze and the equator to heat.  We would expect to see giant rivers carved out of soft and drying sediment like the Colorado River cutting geological oddities like the Grand Canyon.  There would be flood plains, coal fields, fossils, lake bottoms, like we see between the Rockies and the Appalachians, great drainage basins like we see to the west of the Rockies.  

 As much as I like to consider the truth of the Biblical account of the flood, and the supporting proof that is found everywhere on this planet, I was captivated by what the talking head was saying.  He was claiming a fraction of a degree in the average worldwide temperature would cause significant damage to the earth.  Several degrees would wipe out all life on earth entirely.  Interesting.  The earth was originally far warmer than it is now, far warmer, perhaps 10 degrees or more. How much warmer I can’t say, but I find it amusing that this man claims a fraction of a degree will destroy our way of life.  Our way of life was better when we walked with God in the Garden, and as it happened, it was warmer then.  

 When we consider this climate change issue, it all boils down to a tax.  The government wants to charge us for our “carbon.”   I am confused.  On one hand they are claiming we will destroy our world and every person on earth will suffer or die.  So the solution is to give more money to the government?  Will all that money be stored in some special devise that will somehow magically transform this global climate change back to the halcyon days of global cooling, or even back farther to the times when no one really cared about the average global temperature and just went on with their daily jobs?  No seriously, what is the money going to do, what is the plan?  I understand that an oppressive tax can, and certainly has been used in the past, to control behavior.  Is that the plan then, to make it unpalatable for the majority of us to continue to live as we normally do?   To pour trillions of dollars into the government coffers so they can continue to live like Al Gore does?  Like they all do?    While providing no mechanism to actually do anything about this so called climate change? It is really a great plan, because history tells us that in 40 or 50 years the cycle will swing back, and then they can claim a great victory.  They will have broken the backs of the majority of working people, and the government will have far more power than they have now AND the climate will be a fraction of a degree cooler. Awesome. 

 Even a cursory viewing of the Bible, by any atheist, Christian or Jew, will reveal the word restore.  God will restore everything.  His mission is one of restoration.  The earth is groaning awaiting that restoration, the Word tells us.  We are waiting for that restoration.  We understand that restoration, correctly I might add, to be one of spiritual restoration, and as believers we long for it.  We long to be with God, we long to be in place where those that make and enforce the rules are actually for us and not against us.  The Word reminds us that God will profit us, not harm us.  I wish the same could be said about our government.  It was true once, but no more. 

 But what does that mean for our talking head?  The earth is headed for an upgrade, a complete restoration.  Does that mean the planet will be getting warmer?  Perhaps, but this place is going to be rolled up like a scroll and burned.  We are headed to a better place.  Will it be warmer?  I can’t answer that, but I can with some authority tell you it will be better. Will our talking head be there?  I hope so, but I cannot tell you that with any authority whatsoever, it utterly depends on his willingness to accept God’s offer of salvation.  His words on the TV might cause me some concern for him in that area.  

 The most common and universal area of discussion on earth is “…How’s the weather?”  It is the most asked question in the world because the weather always changes.  Here in the Rockies it changes about every five minutes.  It is brilliant to make the universal condition of changing weather the source of concern to the people.  Describing an everyday event as a disaster waiting to happen is a sure way to divide and control the people, change the argument from a loser to a winner. Make the murder of babies about rights, make the weather an enemy, divide people from the true God, outlaw His Words as intolerant, make those that follow Jesus the enemy of the people. 

 Think for a moment who would do this?  Think for a moment who is in control of the earth, and why it needs restoration?  Did the same name pop to mind?  To blindly follow a government that is no longer in league with the Creator of the universe is a mistake for all eternity. Jesus has proven over the last 2000 years to be all that is good and honest and pure.  The world, including our own government these past 200 years, has proven to be the exact opposite.  Given the history of both, it is unfathomable to me why anyone would chose to follow this, or any, government?  The ridiculous arguments they give, the godless practices they follow, the lies, and cover ups, the misleading and divisive information they spew.  

 If you knew of a horse racing handicapper who has been correct 2,500 times in a row and another who has never been correct once, to whom would you go?  Jesus is always right, the 2,500 or so prophecies that have come to pass exactly as written are a track record unmatched or unmatchable. Jesus and His Word provide the only accurate source of wisdom and information, and certainly the only path to this restoration.  I don’t know who this talking head was, or what his relationship is with his Creator, but at the very least he seems confused, at worst, eternally lost.  Don’t let the current scare or disaster or event cause you to move your eyes from Jesus for a moment.   He is sovereign.  He is on the throne.  He cares for you, He can provide for your eternity.  Is climate change real?  I personally doubt it, but it doesn’t matter if it is real or not. Will the earth come to a tragic and sudden end? I personally believe it will, but not due to the scare de jure.  It will come when God has determined it will come, and in exactly the way He has told us it will come.  The only real question is, are you ready?  Do you know Him personally, or have you allowed the wiles of the enemy to separate you from the only thing that is truly important. Grab on to Christ and don’t let go.   Look into His eyes, heed His commands and you will be fine.  Your personal restoration is promised and on the way, look for it, embrace it, and don’t let the talking heads get yours spinning. 

 CB