Under The Sun

With rising tension in Iraq and Iran, the IPCC report on climate change and, for us in Britain, bird flu in a Norfolk turkey farm, Michael Spencer has a timely post on Christian anxiety about the “End of the World”

Christians should be a community who looks at any apocalypse with hope. Not just hope that there is a resurrection beyond, but hope that Christ gives us victory over fear in the here and now. The likelihood of a nuclear detonation, viral epidemic or environmental catastrophe may be real, but Christians have always been able to minister, serve and love in the midst of the worst of times precisely because they believed all these events were under the control of the Lord of history and could not, ultimately, take anything of real value away from us.

Among climate change skeptics, this article by Steve Camp is possibly the most willfully ignorant, scientifically illiterate and uncharitable piece by a respected Evangelical writer I have been embarassed to read.

Update: Steve has revised his article, as he explains:

I like using humor and sarcasm in driving home a point–it is an effective tool in communication especially when dealing with issues like this. BUT, after receiving some off-forum (and a few on forum) comments from those whose opinions I do value, I have decided to update this article calming down the sarcasm significantly, but still dealing with the heart of this important issue. Please forgive me for the needless offense my original entry caused any of you. 2 Cor. 6:3-10

I still think he’s wrong on the science, but I respect his application of Christian principles to the argument.

Incidentally, an unofficial “Steve Camp Page” demonstrates the potential for embarassment when using hosting services with context-based advertising. I doubt that either the website owner or the eponymous subject would approve of the advertisment that the Yahoo software decided was a good match for “Christian” and “Camp”!

I think sea-level rise is going to be the big issue soon, more even than warming itself.

A satellite study of the Greenland ice cap shows that twice as much ice is going into the sea as was previously thought, with serious implications for rising sea levels.

The BBC is organising the “world’s largest ever climate experiment” using distributed computing to harness idle time on thousands of PCs around the world. Anyone can join in by downloading an application which can double as a screensaver.

Twenty countries plan to go smokefree

At least 20 countries around the world are working towards smokefree public places and it is time for the UK to provide a strong lead, Cancer Research UK’s Chief Executive declares on World No Tobacco Day (Tuesday).

I think the time will soon come when the thought of ashtrays in public places is as disgusting as spitoons.

Organisms are disappearing at something like 100 to 1,000 times the “background levels” seen in the fossil record. Scientists warn that removing so many species puts our own existence at risk. It will certainly make it much harder to lift the world’s poor out of hardship given that these people are often the most vulnerable to ecosystem degradation, the researchers say.

Earth’s species feel the squeeze — These are scary statistics.

RollingStone.com: The Long Emergency

The few Americans who are even aware that there is a gathering global-energy predicament usually misunderstand the core of the argument. That argument states that we don’t have to run out of oil to start having severe problems with industrial civilization and its dependent systems. We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion.

– via Slacktavist

Every week in the world a million new people move to cities. In 2007 50% of our 6.5 billion population will live in cities. In 1800 it was 3% of the total population then. In 1900 it was 14%. In 2030 it’s expected to be 61%. This is a tipping point. We’re becoming a city planet.

Stewart Brand argues that this is a Good Thing.

He has more such Environmental Heresies.

Wired News: A Plan to Torpedo the Trawlers