Young earth creationist misleads about climate change

[a_haworthroberts]

I received an email from CMI that among other things was advertising this book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B06XJ34WF3/ ... TF8&btkr=1
''Some of the issues Kuligin explores as a result of rebuffing God include gay marriage, abortion, climate change, animal rights, and evolution.''
Sounded like another bigot trying to tell Christians what to think about climate change - as if the Bible was as 'clear' that any climate change 'cannot' be caused by humans as it is that the Christian God designed marriage to be of two people of the opposite sex and not the same sex. If he cares about God's created order he should be agreeing that mankind needs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - but he can't be doing that since CMI would not recommend a book advocating that.

So I searched harder online. And I managed to read chapter 6 on kindle. As anticipated, it's mostly one-sided dishonest codswallop (as well as evasion of the evidence that recent global warming of the past 150 years or so is man-caused) that fails to quote a single Bible verse to support the position taken. On human population growth, he calls environmentalists 'fanatical' and falsely suggests that they say ''every cold front, heat wave, change in sea level, blustering hurricane, torrential monsoon, drought or blizzard is our fault''. The bigot also avoids the evidence and instead attacks environmentalists again saying that have been 'unfair' to carbon dioxide, deliberately misses the point (that we are releasing additional carbon dioxide that was stored within fossil fuels) by suggesting scientists can't know that the planet absorbs ''only the carbon dioxide it [not humanity] produces'' (he deliberately ignores the measured rising carbon dioxide concentrations within our atmosphere by saying ''it is impossible to measure how much atmospheric carbon dioxide is the result of human activities versus natural activities''). And there's further nitpicking and attempts to confuse Christians eg ''when will we begin saving the planet from too much water [vapour]''. Yes - he really does write that nonsense. He then casts doubt on world temperature readings, especially questioning estimates from past centuries. And he does that normal YEC propaganda thing of questioning not only data from ice cores and tree rings but also the dates involved - in order to try and show yet more confusion about recently measured rising temperatures across the globe. And on rising sea levels, after having a bit of a go at Bernie Sanders (and Al Gore and the World Meteorological Organisation) he questions (without offering any evidence) whether melting ice at both poles might be a 'natural occurrence'. In conclusion he declares that the Evangelical Climate Initiative jumped in 2006 onto the 'climate change bandwagon' (he does not mention in his 2017 book that they are still there). He claims the 'worldview' of 'fanatical environmentalists' is based upon 'paltry data'. And he agrees with the opinion that global warming is the 'new socialism' What lying claptrap. And I didn't list all of it.

When he finally quotes the Bible (after discussing 'animal rights' which I skipped) he flourishes Romans 1:22 and claims that there is an 'implicit paganism' within much of environmentalism. So THAT'S why he lies to his readers about the problem of global warming (which affects the poor disproportionately - I don't regard myself as a 'socialist' just a realist). It's a 'spiritual' issue so for Christians to believe humans are changing the climate is Verboten and apparently 'unbiblical' Oh no it is not. Think for yourselves Christians. Man-caused climate change (in a fallen world that was originally very good and is 'still' amazing today does not look 'unbiblical' to me - unless you assume from Genesis 8:22 that God micro-manages the climate and has prevented human free will from changing anything about it whether by accident or design; incredibly these same people tend to say humans helped dinosaurs go extinct!)

Think for yourself. But I challenge you that Dr Kuligin is a DECEIVER on this topic.

There are Christians who speak and act responsibly on climate change and other environmental matters - for instance A rocha, TEAR Fund and the Lausanne Movement. People who don't, as far as I know, wilfully lie and mislead. And who aren't hardline young earth creationists. And false prophets on climate change.


PS Just seen that he does quote Genesis 8:22 very near the end to support his claims. So that YEC post-flood 'ice age' lasting centuries is also impossible and contrary to God's promise of Earth functioning 'as designed' post-flood eh Dr Kuligin (there was a rainbow in Genesis too)?

[a_haworthroberts]

I suggest that Kuligin cynically lies about climate change science not only because he sees this as a 'spiritual' as well as a scientific and political issue but also because he saw an opportunity to attack the evidence for an ancient Earth at the same time as attacking mainstream climate change science.

The man is clearly educated - but he wilfully ignores that human-caused emissions of carbon dioxide dwarf those by the planet eg the occasional large volcanic eruption, and he ignores that humans have been consistently and increasingly emitting additional carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for many decades via the burning of fossil fuels (along with cement production and deforestation). Carbon dioxide (unlike the potent greenhouse gas methane which Kuligin ignores) remains in the atmosphere for many decades. Thus he is being deliberately misleading when suggesting that scientists can't be sure that the planet absorbs ''only the carbon dioxide it [not humanity] produces'' (it absorbs both - but slowly). And he is tantamount to lying when he writes "it is impossible to measure how much atmospheric carbon dioxide is the result of human activities versus natural activities"; whilst you can't always know the original source for some carbon dioxide in the atmosphere we roughly estimate how much of the gas is being emitted by various human activities and we can be certain that for many decades it has greatly exceeded the amount emitted by volcanoes: https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... e-sceptics

The writer (because he believes in a 6,000 year old Earth) also ignores that many of the (real) catastrophes that struck Earth in the past pre-dated the human race (and some of them really did cause extinctions of other forms of life).

Whilst no doubt he can justify to himself his one-sided argumentation (aimed at less knowledgeable Christians) because of his personal beliefs about a 'designed' planet, chapter 6 of Kuligin's book is a cynical wilful attack upon perfectly good science. I also suggest he isn't even defending any clear Bible teaching on climate but misusing the Bible. And if the Bible 'teaches' that humans can't influence the climate presumably then it also teaches that humans can't otherwise harm the 'very good' planet eg that they cannot cause any species extinctions?

Climate change is not simply an academic or philosophical matter to do with personal belief. It will affect the future of humanity.

[a_haworthroberts]

Clarification: the totality of natural carbon dioxide emissions well exceeds human emissions even now. But:
https://www.skepticalscience.com/human- ... ssions.htm

[a_haworthroberts]

https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/or ... e-ice-age/

''But merely turning down Earth’s temperature does not result in an ice age; it merely results in a cold Earth. To have an ice age, we need ice: glaciers.'' ''Many people have the impression that a reduction in Earth’s global temperature would naturally result in an ice age. But it won’t.''

''Warm oceans and cooler continents would be ideal for the formation of glaciers. Warm ocean water evaporates readily, and when the moist air moves over cooler land, the temperature drops resulting in snowfall, since cooler air cannot retain much moisture.'' I was going to say that he was trying to say an ice age was a greatly amplified version of lake effect snow - but it's not since with lake effect snow the unstable cold air over (still) warm seas or large lakes only produces persistent snow showers over the water and close to any exposed coastlines facing into the cold wind, but the precipitation dies out over the cold land. (But of course that's without Lisle's fictional seas that are warmer, not colder as would be the case during an astronomical ice age, than today; apparently the effect of these 'warm oceans' allowed more snow or other precipitation than now to penetrate into continental interiors. By contrast during the last real ice age glaciation it's believed that parts of eg the Middle East experienced less precipitation than today and deserts were more widespread there - and I even saw this recently:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 085406.htm)

''Our best estimate places the global flood around the year 2348 B.C. From the information provided in the genealogies in Genesis chapter 11, we know that Abraham was born at least 292 years after the global flood, and hence around the year 2056 B.C.[3] He lived to an age of 175 years (Genesis 25:7). So, Abraham lived at around the time creation scientists estimate to be near the peak of the ice age. Consequently, the climate in the area would have been somewhat different from what it is today.
We see an example of this in the account of the separation of Lot’s family from Abraham’s as recorded in Genesis 13. Recall, Lot chose to live in the valley of the Jordon near Sodom, and eventually in Sodom, because it was lush and well-watered everywhere (Genesis 13:10-11). Today, this region is a desert. But during the ice age, the cooler temperatures and mild seasons would have made it the lush land the Bible describes.''

''We have good evidence from science and from the text of Scripture that an ice age occurred shortly after the global flood and as a direct consequence of it.''

And the post-flood ice age was, although not remotely hinted at in Genesis 8 nor by any scientific evidence whatsoever, by the 'providence of God'.

And there was me thinking that during past ice ages although the climate was drier in many places, a greater proportion of precipitation fell as snow and much less of the snow melted than today - which might just might allow glaciers to grow over tens of thousands of years. There is evidence that the peak of the last ice age glaciation was on average 5 Celsius colder than today.

[a_haworthroberts]

https://biblicalscienceinstitute.com/origins/the-ice-age/

''But merely turning down Earth’s temperature does not result in an ice age; it merely results in a cold Earth. To have an ice age, we need ice: glaciers.'' ''Many people have the impression that a reduction in Earth’s global temperature would naturally result in an ice age. But it won’t.''

''Warm oceans and cooler continents would be ideal for the formation of glaciers. Warm ocean water evaporates readily, and when the moist air moves over cooler land, the temperature drops resulting in snowfall, since cooler air cannot retain much moisture.'' I was going to say that he was trying to say an ice age was a greatly amplified version of lake effect snow - but it's not since with lake effect snow the unstable cold air over (still) warm seas or large lakes only produces persistent snow showers over the water and close to any exposed coastlines facing into the cold wind, but the precipitation dies out over the cold land. (But of course that's without Lisle's fictional seas that are warmer, not colder as would be the case during an astronomical ice age, than today; apparently the effect of these 'warm oceans' allowed more snow or other precipitation than now to penetrate into continental interiors. By contrast during the last real ice age glaciation it's believed that parts of eg the Middle East experienced less precipitation than today and deserts were more widespread there - and I even saw this recently:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2 ... 085406.htm)

''Our best estimate places the global flood around the year 2348 B.C. From the information provided in the genealogies in Genesis chapter 11, we know that Abraham was born at least 292 years after the global flood, and hence around the year 2056 B.C.[3] He lived to an age of 175 years (Genesis 25:7). So, Abraham lived at around the time creation scientists estimate to be near the peak of the ice age. Consequently, the climate in the area would have been somewhat different from what it is today.
We see an example of this in the account of the separation of Lot’s family from Abraham’s as recorded in Genesis 13. Recall, Lot chose to live in the valley of the Jordon near Sodom, and eventually in Sodom, because it was lush and well-watered everywhere (Genesis 13:10-11). Today, this region is a desert. But during the ice age, the cooler temperatures and mild seasons would have made it the lush land the Bible describes.''

''We have good evidence from science and from the text of Scripture that an ice age occurred shortly after the global flood and as a direct consequence of it.''

And the post-flood ice age was, although not remotely hinted at in Genesis 8 nor by any scientific evidence whatsoever, by the 'providence of God'.

And there was me thinking that during past ice ages although the climate was drier in many places, a greater proportion of precipitation fell as snow and much less of the snow melted than today - which might just might allow glaciers to grow over tens of thousands of years. There is evidence that the peak of the last ice age glaciation was on average 5 Celsius colder than today.

Also, when the last real ice age glaciation began, glaciers already existed - like today.

Only the YECs have this problem of 'creating' glaciers (very soon after a 'global flood').