Brad Alles

The topic of climate change is everywhere–news, blogs, TV shows, commercials, etc. In the last blog we examined Scripture and climate. God has promised that seasons will continue until Judgment Day, the day Jesus returns. Genesis 8:22 says, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.” On the other hand, some humans have prophesied climate catastrophe. Here are just five of them.

1. Air pollution requiring gas masks by 1985. Life magazine (Jan., 1970) said: “Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support … the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution [and] by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half.”

2. “Population bomb” & global famine by 2000. In 1970, Peter Gunter, of North Texas State (now University of North Texas), said: “Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions. … By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” Here is good news: according to Human Progress: global hunger has decreased in the past decades.

3.  Entire nations wiped out by 2000. The Associated Press in 1989 reported: “A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000.”

4.  Ice caps will melt away by 2016. In 2009 former Vice President Al Gore said a scientist predicted a “75 percent chance that the entire polar ice cap during some of the summer months could be completely ice free within five to seven years.” Here is good news: between 2012 and 2016, Arctic ice increased from an average of 2.2 million square miles to 3.3 million square miles, according to The Telegraph.

5.  The coming Ice Age. Between 1973 and 1977 Time magazine had covers like: ‘The Cooling of America,’ ‘The Big Freeze’ and ‘How to Survive the Coming Ice Age’ (with a subhead: ‘Things You Can Do to Make a Difference.’

There are others, but you get the idea. God has promised seasons like summer and winter will continue to the end. What will you do with the time He has given you? Make climate predictions or make Christ known?