Presentation on Climate Change
Dr. Katharine Hayhoe’s presentation yesterday on global warming was fabulous.
Of particular interest was her position on her Christian faith as it affects the role she plays as a scientist and advocate for climate change mitigation. She says she’s often asked if she believes in climate change, to which she replies no, and uses this paradoxical response as a springboard into this conversation: I believe God created the Earth and sent His son to make a sacrifice that provides a path to salvation. That’s belief. That’s religion. Science is something else entirely. It’s learning about what God created, it’s the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. That has nothing to do with belief at all; science and faith are two entirely different things. They are not competitors; they complement one another. If a person jumps off a bridge he will fall, regardless of his belief in gravity.
She ended with a short discussion of the choices we have in front of us: mitigation, adaptation, and suffering. The less we have of one, the more we’ll have of the other two. Mitigation means phasing out fossil fuels and reforming our land use. Adaptation includes things like using scarce water resources more efficiently, improving building codes to deal with future climate conditions and extreme weather events, building flood defenses, and developing drought-tolerant crops. Suffering needs no explanation; it’s the natural and unavoidable product of fires, hurricanes, floods, and droughts.
The talk was entirely non-political, except for her comment that the U.S. is the only nation on Earth that isn’t participating in the Paris climate accord, to which she added, “This actually may not be true. The U.S. is not officially out until a week before the 2020 election, and even then there is a mechanism to postpone the withdrawal long enough such that it doesn’t have to happen.”
Dr. Hayhoe received quite a round of well-deserved applause.
Craig,
I’m glad you enjoyed Dr. Katharine Hayhoe’s sermon.
Her contribution and advocacy provides a valuable contribution to pubic discourse. However, her preaching is far from non-political ! Like most advocacy, it’s inherently political and biased.
Her sermon is aimed at the faithful and those who don’t wish to challenge the orthodoxy of her newly found “faith”.
Once she starts advocating social solutions, see immediately becomes involved in the political process whether see likes it or not.
Your claim “Mitigation means phasing out fossil fuels and reforming our land use”, is disingenuous and deliberately vague. Once put to put to explaining the detail of how you intend to achieve these objectives, you either become strangely silent or reveal an ideological agenda of a very political nature.
I’m sure Dr. Katharine Hayhoe is an entertaining and charming speaker, but she’s just a preacher sermonizing. If you’re one of the faithful, it’s time well spent. On the other hand, if you are serious about the environment, Dr. Katharine Hayhoe’s cheesy little sermons are of little practical value.