Would that he did, just before the delivery trucks arrived. Oops!
They left out Occidental Petroleum.
Ten years!
Ten years is all we have, according to Gore et Time.
Oh the humanity! And me so young and fair.
Let’s see: the oceans are already gone (10 years ago) according to Ted Danson’s clarion call of twenty years ago.
Ten years seems to be the magic number. A little longer than five years, but not so long as not to be scary.
Time, you called it right on the tobacco and Buddist Monk money. But the North Pole isn’t going to be Cuber. Not in my lifetime, not in your lifetime, not in our great-great grandchilrens’ lifetimes.
Right now, we’re looking at the real possibility of another ice age, and you’re still bleating the passe doctrine of Hansen and Gore.
That’s so twentieth century.
Gore doesn’t deal in realism, and the North Pole isn’t melting away. Rest assured, if Gore chains himself to something, it’s because there is money to be made.
Just pick up your Oscar and Peace Prize and head on down the road, Dufus!
On The Scene: Flourish Report from Day #1
These posts were authored by Michael Ferber, Assistant Professor of Geography and Director of Environmental Studies at The King’s University College in Edmonton, AB.
".....I’m in Georgia for the first ever Flourish Conference - an event dedicated to advancing the Church into the environmental movement. The first day consisted of four speakers- Rusty Pritchard, Leroy Barber, Scott Sabin and Joel Hunter with a short wrap-up by Andy Crouch. Rusty, as President of Flourish, gave a great introduction to the conference and paved a humble road for Christians to follow as we engage in a discussion that for decades the Church has refused to make central. Leroy gave a compelling account of what it is like to live in a place where “everything is in our backyard”. He runs a poverty ministry called “Mission Year” in southern Atlanta that is attempting to transform a community in a location where much of the waste and of the city is deposited. Scott Sabin is the executive director of Floresta USA. He shared about the importance of planting trees to compensate for overusing the land, and to illustrate his point he demonstrated his non-profit’s work at the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic. Finally, Joel Hunter shared about the ways Christians can make a difference in socio-political spheres.
Attendance here is much, much lower than it should be (though sadly not much lower than expected with this critical, though neglected, topic). I am here because I want to listen to the best minds America has to offer discuss evangelical creation care.
But, I am also here hoping to recruit for King’s. Leaders invited to this conference were encouraged to bring a student here FOR FREE, but so far I have not met a single potential student.
Of the 130 in attendance there are NO students??? When they could come for free!?! More disappointing, though, has been the general tone toward creation care advanced by a majority of the speakers. The first three apologized for being a Christian and an environmentalist. The only exception was a short plug by staff from the Evangelical Environmental Network who acknowledged creation care as a major gateway to envangelism, disciplship and personal stewardship. Otherwise, I did not hear a lot of positive enthusiasm about the movement - everything was shrouded in apology. In fact, the first two speakers worked as hard as possible to rhetorically separate themselves from environmentalism.
Rusty confessed some of the history of judgmentalism he has experienced, and I guess this is understandable as his approach attempts to reconcile two groups (Christians and Environmentalists) who have histroically been at odds. Yet, I am disappointed by this overall approach. Christians are not and should not simply be pragmatically jumping onto the environmental bandwagon. Creation care is at the heart of the Biblical account from Genesis 2:15 to Revelations 11:18 - it is a core value. No apologies are necessary!
For me, Joel Hunter saved day one of this conference - he made it worthwhile and took the conference to the 35,000 foot level, where I believe it belonged. He passionately argued for creation care to be deeply integrated into the core discipleship mandate of the church.
The bad news according to Joel - this movement is going very slowly in the church in America. “We should be meeting with multitudes, and you see who is here. However, the time is growing in its ripeness, so we should not be discouraged.” He shared about the phenomenal potential Christians have to turn the tide, and he rooted it in the spiritual and political history of North America. Thank you Joel! Before leaving for dinner, Andy Crouch came forward to serve as an integrator of the content of day 1. Despite a slam on academics, and specifically sociologists (not fair Andy!) he offered some key questions to discuss over dinner. I will share a couple of them here, as they are important queries. I hope you will respond in your comments!
1) We are clearly uncomfortable with being called environmentalists. What do we want to be called? What do we want to be known for?
2) How would our lives and societies be different if we were only willing to have services that we were willing to have in our backyard?
3) Do we believe that the issues we are talking about here are necessary for spiritual maturity and how do we make this case to people who didn’t get it and didn’t come?
Tomorrow I’ll post about day two of the conference…" Posted: May 13th, 2009
Comments [excerpted]:
Comment from Michael - Time May 15, 2009 at 10:56 am
"Considering 1), aside from just residual discomfort with the larger movement, there may be a good reason to dislike being called ‘environmentalists’: it reinforces the perception that the natural order is simply our ‘environment,’ the surrounding circumstances we live in, and may even suggest a fundamental division between ‘us’ and ‘our’ environment. Creation care may sound hokey, but at least it acknowledges we are part of creation like everything else.
As for 2), I can’t put my finger on it, but I feel there is likely a reason the people of God throughout the Old and New Testament worship in buildings. Certainly the early church deemphasizes how ’sacred’ the building has to be - they appear perfectly happy to meet in houses - but they don’t exit altogether. It’s also revealing how the New Jerusalem in Revelation is not described as a garden, but a garden-city. Clearly the Bible resists any pure ‘back-to-nature’ ethos.
Yet I agree, much of our construction, maintenance, and use of buildings is sinful, if not practically idolatrous. 3 is tough. I certainly believe caring for creation is a virtue; clearly others do not. [[[ WHAT is this delusional guy smoking??]]] I would suggest, though, that the first step is not to attack on this issue (if you don’t recycle your salvation may be in doubt!) but to ‘cultivate’ the desire to worship God rightly in every area of life and the willingness to re-assess how that is to be done. Then dialogue is possible.
You really owe us a “BARF ALERT”
Informational ping!
Starting at post #10
Location: Northern Va - not Thule Greenland, not Juneau Alaska
Temperature: 57 freakin' degrees
Some Doofus was on Art Bell last night telling us that the verdict is in. Global Warming is manmade and we need to stop arguing and start acting. He said he was in Antarctica and that 10% od Antarctic was melted away.
He said Antarctica has enough ice to raise sea level 240 feet.
I have to ask, if the Antarctic ice melt will raise oceans 240 feet and 10% have melted, how come the ocean levels are not up 24 feet?
Unlike Arctic ice, which is a floating ic field, Antarctica is on a landmass so water COULD rise if it all melted. Except, when the weight of th ice is removed, would not the land it sits on raise a bit because of all the weight it lost? England did after the last ice age, why wouldn’t Antarctica?
I wish these doofi would get asked some hard questions that oppose their dogma.
In other words, Algors’ 15 minutes of fame are finally over?
