Knock Me Over with a Butterfly Wing

The science of meteorology is far from an exact science. That is something we have all experienced firsthand. For example, a few weeks ago, every meteorologist in town was predicting the biggest snow event of the season for us. And then, it didn't happen. Some places got a few flakes, but it was closer to the smallest snow event of the season than the biggest. It is very hard to get a good idea of what the weather is doing in one location, let alone the whole world. This is at least in part due to what is popularly called "the butterfly effect," which is the idea that a seemingly innocuous and impossible to measure event such as the flutter of a butterfly's wings in Asia might be the initial condition in a set of dependent events that results in a storm system off the west coast of North America. And yet we are being told by some people that they know for certain that there is global warming occurring and that it is a result of mankind's activities.

That's not really news, the global warming thing has been kicking around for a little while now. But what surprised me today every bit as it surprised the Associated Press was this story that says several Southern Baptist leaders, including President Frank Page, signed a document stating that Southern Baptists have a Biblical duty to stop global warming. Although it acknowledges, in slightly dismissive terms, both those scientists and those Southern Baptists who do not accept mankind-caused global warming, signers of this document "resolve to engage this issue without any further lingering over the basic reality of the problem." Setting aside the common sense of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it," this document states in no uncertain terms that we don't care if it is true or not, we need to do something. I guess we can be thankful we didn't issue a similar statement about global cooling during the 1970's - think how foolish we would look now.

I'm sure I will have more to say later about both this document and the global warming issue, but let me say now that I do agree with some of the guiding principles involved. Christians do have a duty to take care of this world, and especially to be responsible for our own activities like littering and recycling. But we also know how it is going to end.