On one side is the religion of man. Man is the current pinnacle of evolution and can control the planet, even its weather. No God need apply. It seems almost like a modern-day replay of the tower of Babel, only this time the planet is the tower, which they have all intentions of “building back better.” On the other side is God and everything He has created.
The heretics were never dishonest men; they were mistaken men. They should not be thought of as men who were deliberately setting out to go wrong and to teach something that is wrong; they have been some of the most sincere men that the Church has ever known. What was the matter with them? Their trouble was this: they evolved a theory and they were rather pleased with it; then they went back with this theory to the Bible, and they seemed to find it everywhere.
—Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Studies in the Sermon on the Mount (as quoted by Marsha West)
A new religion – if in 2022 it can still rightly be called “new” – has established itself in Western culture and seems now to be the official religion of the Federal Government of the United States, and our mainstream media, along with Wiccan and pagan groups – and popular culture. Although its government adherents do not call it a religion, it certainly carries all the earmarks of one. It is now lavishly funded by taxpayer dollars and enjoys mandated obedience through the power of Federal legislation. The priests of this mandated religion are climate change activists. We do not doubt that many of them are well-intentioned, deeply believing in the rightness of their cause, regardless of how this religion places heavy burdens upon ordinary citizens, who may or may not believe in their religion and certainly do not wish to destroy their children and grandchildren’s futures over their apocalyptic fervor. They followed a similar route to those Martyn Lloyd-Jones described concerning former religious heretics, but with a slight twist. These new religionists “evolved a theory and were rather pleased with it: they went out and seemed indeed to find it everywhere.” They have turned their theory into an iron-fisted belief system and have managed to establish authoritarian rule over entire nations and cultures that would make old-fashioned religious cults like the Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, Scientology, and others jealous.
Mark J. Perry might call this new religion an eco-pocalyptic religion. Its apocalyptic vision is slightly different from those of the past. Instead of preaching about God bringing judgment on humans, human beings are seen as wantonly destroying the goddess of the climate change activists – Mother Earth. The core doctrine is that humans are the thermostat that controls the climate of the planet on which we live. This strikes us as odd. When we were younger, changes in climate were normal; they were called “seasons.” We had summer, fall, winter, and spring. Some summers would be warmer or rainier than others. Some winters were much colder or snowier than others. We could sometimes witness quite a few years in a row when the climate was cooler or warmer than in past years. It varied depending on what was happening within the planet’s interior and solar activity.
Unknown to some people, there was a Mini-Ice Age from the early 14th century through the mid-19th century when “mean annual temperatures across the Northern Hemisphere declined by 0.6 °C (1.1 °F).” Part of that period was “The Year Without Summer” in 1816:
The weather in 1816 was unprecedented. Spring arrived as usual. But then the seasons seemed to turn backward, as cold temperatures returned. In some places, the sky appeared permanently overcast. The lack of sunlight became so severe that farmers lost their crops and food shortages were reported in Ireland, France, England, and the United States.
What had human beings done to cause such a catastrophic event? Was it coal-fired plants, diesel, gasoline-powered vehicles, or flatulent cattle? No, the culprit seems to have been a natural planetary occurrence:
The dust from Mount Tambora, which had erupted in early April 1815, had shrouded the globe. And with sunlight blocked, 1816 did not have a normal summer.1
There were likely many such devastating eras of climate change throughout the countless centuries. Around the 1970s, or perhaps a bit earlier, a new belief was germinating in the minds of some climatologists. The habits of human beings cause climate change! We were personally exposed to their claims in the 1970s with dire warnings of a soon coming ice age that would cover the North American continent. Virtually everything North of Florida would be covered in ice! (Now, it should be noted that those of us who live in northern Illinois may occasionally feel as though winter will last forever, but evidentially, that is not what they meant at all.) In 1971 the Washington Post published “U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming,” predicting the New Ice Age would arrive by 2020 or 2030:
The world could be as little as 50 or 60 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts. Dr. S. I. Rasool of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and Columbia University says
Newsweek, April 28, 1975, published “The Cooling World” warning:
that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production – with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now.
As it turns out, these are but two of what are many false prophecies concerning the climate. In “50 Years of Failed Doomsday, Eco-pocalyptic Predictions; the So-called ‘experts’ Are 0-50”2 Mark J Perry notes: