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The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to climate change campaigner Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has put this vital subject into the headlines yet again! Even so, there are still many people who refuse to accept that climate change is a fact.

Article in The Guardian newspaper about climate change (29th September 2005)

But our lack of concern may be for a different reason. As responsible people, all of us should be seriously concerned about climate change right now, if the climate was actually within our control. But although we may have the ability to affect the rate of climate change, by changing the way we use fossil fuels for example, significantly altering the course of climate change is totally beyond our control. This is because climate change is a ‘fact of life’ on this planet and happens whether we like it or not.

An unstable climate
The global climate has never been stable. It may be difficult now to accept that, 2000 years ago, the Sahara Desert region was where the Roman empire’s food was grown, but it’s true!! Even comparatively recent history proves that climate change is a fact. When the river Thames froze hard enough 300 years ago for it to support a Fair, the event was painted by famous artists, a visible witness to that cold period in UK history.

Another, more sinister record of an event that affected all the world’s environment is also the subject of paintings we can see today. When a mountain called Krakatoa in Asia erupted in 1863, the explosion was so violent that six cubic miles of the earth’s surface was blown into the sky! Not only was the explosion heard on the other side of the world, the dust which entered the atmosphere coloured the sunsets in London and appear on paintings of that period.

But colourful skies are not all that happens when such dramatic natural events occur. Volcanic eruptions release vast quantities of dust and gas into the atmosphere, which in turn can cause changes in the climate world-wide. Similarly, when large objects from space – like meteors – collide with the earth, they are capable of changing our climate dramatically and quickly. Scientists suggest such impacts have caused the onset of global Ice Ages in the past.

In short, mankind has no control over natural events or the climate of the world. Try as we may to slow down climate change, it seems impossible for us to do much about it. Ultimately, we are not in control of the climate we now enjoy.

But facts about shrinking ice caps at the poles, unusual floods in low-lying areas and rising sea levels that threaten coasts, are all now regularly in the news. All these events are a witness to the fact that our world is changing. And unless these trends are reversed, the mild climate as we now know it may soon disappear, perhaps within our life time. Add to that the rapid changes to our climate that can be caused by natural disasters, the facts suggest that all of us could be facing a very uncertain future far sooner than we might suppose.

Fortunately, the Bible gives us hope for a future that is unaffected by such threats to our environment. The God who created this world in the beginning did so for a reason. He “made it to be inhabited” and intends to keep it so. In the Bible God has promised that expanding deserts, widespread flooding and global warming will eventually cease to be a threat and it will be a world that is as beautiful and productive as it was in the beginning:

"There shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth." (Ps 72v16)

No more deserts
Desert travellers have seen how quickly flowers bloom when it rains in the desert, after years of drought. Beneath the Sahara Desert there is a reserve of water which, if brought to the surface, would reverse the changes that have happened there since the time of the Roman empire . But such a change for the better is almost impossible for anyone to achieve, even with modern technology. However, the power that “caused the waters to flow out of the rock” (Isaiah 48v21) during Israel’s history has promised to do the same for our world in the near future, halting and reversing the adverse effects of climate change for good.

"The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.” (Isaiah 35v1)

As polar ice caps melt as a result of global warming, many people view such trends with alarm and predict irreversible changes in our climate that will damage the world beyond repair, perhaps causing the end of life itself. Fortunately, we have God’s promise that this will never happen. After the last world-wide disaster recorded in Genesis 7&8, God said:

"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease." (Ge 8v22)

As a witness to his promise he placed the rainbow in the sky. Believe it or not, it’s still there!!

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Will the future be worse than we thought?