Greetings. This is Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church with a moment of truth, where we challenge you to think through an important issue of life and faith. And today, how settled is the settled science on climate change? Oh, we all know this is an important topic in our world because so many large sweeping actions are being taken by government and corporations in the name of saving the planet from the irresponsible actions of humans who are filling it with carbon dioxide and other pollutants, right?

And so expensive and devastating are the prospects that very few people have coolly, rationally sat down to calculate them. And the hysteria to me is reminiscent of the chicken little fable in which an excitable hen is struck on the head by a falling acorn from a tree she passes under, but not perceiving immediately what had happened. This little hen convinces herself that this is evidence that the sky is falling. And in a fit of hysteria, she runs off to tell the king the sky is falling, the sky is falling.

And on her way, she encounters many of the creatures of the kingdom whom she alarms with her hysterical rant, and that would be Rooster Booster, Ducky Chucky, Goosey Brucie, and Turkey Perky. To them, oh, she exclaims, she exclaims excitedly, the sky is falling, the sky is falling. And they all join her in her pilgrimage to the king where they meet Mr. Fox. The sky is falling, the sky is falling. And the fox persuades them to detour from their mission and join him in his lair to rest and refresh themselves.

And of course, instead they are trapped and eaten long before they could reach the king. Behold, dear listener, the metaphor for the climate change alarmists among us. Chicken littles. They take evidence the size of an acorn and extrapolate it into the vast canopy of the universe that is the sky over our heads in which the planet's climate unfolds. The climate is changing, the climate is changing, and it's our fault, right?

Ah, chicken littles. Before we charge off behind the hundreds of chicken littles like Al Gore or Klaus Schwab and Joe Biden and destroy our economies, alter our ways of life to our detriment, and then finally submit ourselves as slaves to the masters of the great reset who assert that they have the solutions to climate change. Before we do all this, perhaps we should examine a little more closely the so-called evidence for it. We already have evidence for the revelation of God's glory in creation. Psalm 19 says the heavens declare the glory of God, the sky above proclaims his handiwork.

And we are charged by God with taking proper dominion of that creation. God says in Genesis 1, 28, God blessed them, that is Adam and Eve. And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on earth. Unquote. Well, that dominion is one of care and nurture and fruitfulness, not wanton destruction or pillaging and raping of the earth.

But neither is it a worship or reverencing of that earth either, a worship and reverence that is reserved for the earth's creator alone. Rather, this dominion is a careful, knowledgeable husbanding of that earth and her resources for the glory of God, including assuring us of clean air, clean water, and food. And this includes our own planet's atmosphere too, by the way, to ensure these things. And this calls for wisdom in assessing whether global warming is in fact true and whether we can do anything constructive to alter it if there is any truth to it at all.

Well, let me begin with a succinct summary of the efforts to make the case for climate change. And this was written by a journalist and researcher, a man named David Siegel, who wrote a carefully documented essay for the journal Signs of the Times. And he is a former climate change alarmist who says in the essay that he's a Democrat, a vegan who cares for the environment, he loves animals, and he hasn't owned a car in 10 years. So he's no meat-eating, knuckle-dragging, coal-burning industrialist like me who wants to make a wasteland of Mother Earth. And I really don't want to make a wasteland of Mother Earth.

No. Yet, David Siegel became persuaded that the science behind the climate change movement, which is really global warming, rebranded and repurposed. Yes, this idea of global warming slash global climate change is just not there, the evidence for it, he says. He says, and I quote him, as I learned more, I changed my mind. I now think there probably is no climate crisis and that the focus on carbon dioxide takes funding and attention from critical environmental problems, unquote.

That's David Siegel. And he lists 10 facts that should challenge everyone's assumption about the climate change debate. Let me go through those now. Number one, he says, weather is not climate. Weather is not climate.

A very important point to make. There are no studies, he says, showing a conclusive link between global warming and increased frequency or intensity of storms, droughts, floods, cold, or heat waves, right? Now, this is a very important point, and it deserves to be number one. Chicken littles scream, climate change, climate change, every time there's a hurricane, heat wave, or snowstorm. But they commit the fallacy of confusing weather for climate in doing so.

On their website, NASA defines the difference between the two like this. They say, the difference between weather and climate is a measure of time. Weather is what conditions of the atmosphere are over a short period of time, and climate is how the atmosphere behaves over relatively long periods of time, unquote. For example, meteorologists measure temperature over days and perhaps trends for the week. That's weather.

Climatologists measure temperature averages over perhaps a 30-year period as a relatively short measure of duration. That's climate. Even within that longer period of 30 years, one region can have wide fluctuations in temperature or rainfall, and yes, even carbon dioxide levels. Climate, as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says, climate is what you expect, weather is what you get. That's a good brief definition between the two, right?

Distinction between the two. Climate is what you expect, and weather is what you get. So when, for example, California Governor Gavin Newsom stood in front of one of the scenes of California's wildfires in 2020 and said, oh, that the debate was over about climate change. Well, he was committing this precise fallacy. Confusing weather, which was hot and dry for the summer in California, creating ideal conditions for wildfires, he was confusing weather with climate, in which there was no discernible change over a longer period of time in California.

But Newsom wanted to score a political point. He was at the Democratic National Convention, and he criticized Donald Trump for not doing anything about climate change. Well, this is typical. Chicken littles do this all the time, but they're wrong, and they confuse the debate. Not every hurricane, tornado, or severe snowstorm is evidence of climate change or global warming.

Weather is not climate. Well, point two that Siegel makes is a direct corollary to point number one. And point number two is natural variation in weather and climate is tremendous. Oh, that's what we have to keep in mind. Natural variation in weather and climate is tremendous.

Most of what people call global warming is natural, Siegel says. The earth is warming, but not quickly, not much, and not lately, he says. And that attributable to man and his activities, which is called anthropogenic, the climate change attributable to man, which is called anthropogenic, is almost negligible. Almost everyone agrees that the earth's climate is warming, but it's doing so in a natural cyclical fashion that should not alarm any chicken. According to NASA, the earth has warmed one degree Celsius since about 1750, the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.

Chicken littles say it's because of man's dumping of CO2 into the atmosphere through fossil fuels over that time. But sane climatologists assert that it is no more than the natural 1500 year warming and cooling cycle for the atmosphere over the last million years. And anthropogenic global warming is vanishingly small, perhaps less than 0.01 degrees Celsius. And consequently, the destruction of Western civilization to lower the earth's temperature by 0.01 degree is absolutely senseless. Well, the third point he makes is about the global climate change, so-called.

He says, number three, there is tremendous uncertainty as to how the climate really works. Oh, and that's so true. Behind all the bravado, there is tremendous uncertainty as to how the climate really works. Climate models are not yet skillful, Siegel says. Predictions are unresolved.

And I say, chicken little global warming alarmists are as confident of their faulty climate models as chicken little was of the acorn that hit her in the head. And they're as confident that they're both are true models, that the sky was falling, right? But do they have reason to be so confident? For example, the models used by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is really one of the authoritative sources for what we need to do in climate change, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, upon which the United Nations bases all of its radical recommendations for a mediating global warming, they are all oversensitive.

All of these models are oversensitive, and they overpredict global warming in response to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. And that's according to Dr. Roy Spencer, who is a former climatologist at NASA. In other words, there's a built-in bias towards global warming, which tilts the evidence towards anthropogenic global warming, man-caused global warming. And it is entirely unwarranted.

Another model of climate change used by the IPCC and Al Gore, famously in his book, An Inconvenient Truth, is Michael Mann's, hockey stick graph, which shows a dramatic rise in our climate's temperature over the period of the Industrial Revolution, implicating man's polluting influence. And of course, many scientists, however, have since proven his model an absolute fraud. As Mike Adams points out, he says, and I quote, rigged to produce a hockey stick shape no matter what data were entered, unquote. Climate modeling is a demonstrably flawed discipline. It is impossible to factor in every variable into a man-made software algorithm.

Nature is far more complex than any model man may aspire to construct, especially when that man has an agenda he's trying to set for the whole of mankind. Rather, we should look to how God has made his complex creation. And David says in Psalm 19, the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork. Number four, the fourth point that Siegel makes is that new research shows fluctuations in energy from the sun. They correlate very strongly with changes in earth's temperature better than carbon dioxide levels.

Yes, it's the sun that's the driver, in other words, of increases in earth's temperature. And it only makes sense. What the science shows is that the sun, that, you know, big hot fireball in the sky, the sun is the driver of global warming and cooling, even being the factor in the production of carbon dioxide. For example, the waning and waxing of sunspots using just one factor, the waning and waxing of sunspots have far more to do with global warming and cooling than anthropogenic activity.

But just as chicken little would have you believe that an acorn is evidence that the sky is falling, so climate chicken littles would have you believe that anthropogenic CO2 is the cause of global warming. Don't be fooled, dear listener. Never forget that God gave us the sun as the driver of our planet's life. As Psalm 19 says again, it's rising, that is the sun, from the end of the heavens and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat. Number five, the fifth point that Siegel makes is that carbon dioxide has very little to do with global warming.

Yes, in the end, at the end of the day, carbon dioxide has very little to do with global warming. All the decarbonization we can do isn't going to change the climate much, right? For example, what's the largest greenhouse gas contributor in our atmosphere? Is it carbon dioxide? No, no, it's water vapor.

While carbon dioxide accounts for only 0.04%, 0.04% of the atmosphere, water vapor accounts for as much as 4% of it, making it the chief greenhouse gas, water vapor, not carbon dioxide. And the Herculean effort it would take to meet the UN's climate goals, that is, lowering the temperature, average temperature of the Earth by 1.5 degree centigrade by 2050, by decarbonizing all human activity. That would require multiple trillions of dollars and the destruction of modern industrial civilization to do it. And for what? A minuscule effect on the environment.

And many scientists as well believe that even then, the goal is really impossible of achievement. And Dr. Chavid, in an article he did for Science Bits, does indeed confess this. And then, even if we were able to pull it off, would have very little effect on the environment. And yet, the chicken littles among us persist with their hysterical plans to get the king to acknowledge that the sky is falling and do something about it, right? The sixth point, then, that Siegel makes is that there is no such thing as carbon pollution.

There is no such thing as carbon pollution. No. Carbon dioxide is coming out of your nose right now, he says. And it's not a poisonous gas. Carbon dioxide concentrations in previous areas, eras, excuse me, in previous eras, have been many times higher than they are today.

That's what Siegel has to say. Well, the chicken littles of climate change have done a masterful job of convincing the rest of us that carbon dioxide is a dangerous gas and pollutant that must be eliminated from the atmosphere. How silly, how silly. There's a great exchange between flora and fauna on the earth that involves oxygen and carbon dioxide. Remember from high school biology, plant life takes up life-giving carbon dioxide as a life-giving nutrient and exhales oxygen as a waste byproduct.

And animal life, on the other hand, inhales, if you will, oxygen as a life-giving nutrient and exhales carbon dioxide as a waste byproduct. This is a mutuality. In doing so, each kingdom serves the other, the flora and the fauna. In fact, there have been periods in earth's history when carbon dioxide levels have been far, far higher, resulting in not only flourishing plant life covering the planet, but also due to a consequent higher oxygen level in the atmosphere, a more flourishing animal life and population.

For example, during the Jurassic period, about 250 million years ago, carbon dioxide levels were five times higher than they are today. And the dinosaurs flourished. The species of plant life were wild and numberless and extensive. Higher carbon dioxide levels made the earth warmer and moister, encouraging life, not killing it. Oh, the Lord is good to his earth, dear listener.

The Lord is good to his earth. Let us not arrogate its control to ourselves. Oh, Lord, Psalm 104 says, Oh, Lord, how manifold are your works. In wisdom have you made them all. The earth is full of your creatures.

Here's the sea, great and wide, which teems with creatures innumerable, living things both small and great. When you send forth your spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. From Psalm 104. Well, the seventh point indeed that he makes is, that David Siegel makes in his essay is number seven, sea level will probably continue to rise. It's going to happen whatever we do.

Sea level will probably continue to rise. And he goes on to say, not quickly and not much. Researchers have found no link between carbon dioxide and sea level. Yes. Oh, so dear listener, I discovered that scientists have observed that there is a global mean sea level rise is what they call it a global mean sea level rise, but it is due to factors like volcanic activity and glacier mass loss and groundwater depletion and reservoir impoundment forces as they interplay with each other.

All of these forces rather than carbon dioxide levels, especially those created by man's activity. Well, the eighth point that he makes in his essay, David Siegel makes an eighth point where he says, the Arctic experiences natural variations as well. Yes, the Arctic experiences natural variations as well, with some years warmer earlier than others. And he also says, polar bear numbers are up, not down. They have more to do polar bear numbers, that is, have more to do with hunting permits than carbon dioxide.

Well, I discovered, dear listener, for example, that researchers have found that the early ice breakup in Hudson's Bay Arctic region, and that has been happening, an early breakup of ice in Hudson's Bay Arctic region was due to an increase in warmer southwest, southwest winds, rather than carbon dioxide levels, as the environmentalists like to say. And while Al Gore sought to tug at the heartstrings of Americans, and is an inconvenient truth, tug at our heartstrings by saying that the polar bear population of the earth was declining because of shrinking polar ice sheets. Well, and Time magazine, too.

Maybe you remember that Time magazine cover, featured a distressed polar bear on the cover of its global warming issue. Oh, the facts are that the polar bear, their numbers are increasing and not decreasing, dear listener. Dr. Susan Crockford of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, who is no enemy of the idea of global warming, but even she had to conclude. Dr. Susan Crockford says that there are some 30,000 polar bears as of 2020, up from 26,000 in 2015, a net increase of 4,000 in the polar bear population. Well, indeed, as Psalm 104 says, the earth teems with creatures, innumerable living things, both small and great.

And that does include the polar bear, dear listener. And number nine, the number nine point that David Siegel makes in his article is that no one has shown any damage to reef or marine systems. Yes, despite the claim, especially in Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, despite that claim, no one has shown, demonstrated any damage to reef or marine systems in the oceans. Additional man-made carbon dioxide will not likely harm oceans, reef systems, or marine life. So just get this out of your pretty little heads, you chicken little alarmists.

Fish are mostly threatened by people, Siegel says, who eat them. Yes, fish are more threatened by the carnivores amongst us than they are by carbon dioxide. Then finally, number 10, the 10th point that he makes, and I want to camp on this one probably more next week. But number 10, Siegel discovered in his investigations, in his research, he discovered that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that is once again, the authoritative, the powerhouse of policy for what to do to remedy global warming. This is the broad and expansive intergovernmental panel on climate change, the IPCC.

These and others are pursuing a political agenda and a public relations campaign, not scientific inquiry. That is so important to underline with you, dear listener. The powerhouse, the authoritative voice on what to do to change things and to ameliorate global warming, is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. And they are pursuing a political agenda and a public relations campaign, not scientific inquiry, so says David Siegel in his piece. He goes on to say there's a tremendous amount of trickery going on under the surface.

That's a very polite way of saying corruption. For years now, the United Nations and leaders associated with the IPCC, men like Klaus Schwab and his World Economic Forum, they have employed the IPCC to redistribute wealth under the guise of mitigating carbon dioxide for the planet. One Dr. Atmar Edenhofer, who is perhaps you've never heard of him, but he's a giant in this field. He was the co-chair of the IPCC from 2008 to 2015. This Dr. Atmar Edenhofer is an authoritative spokesman for that panel.

And what did he say? He says at the conclusion of his reflections, we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy. Unquote. It's a very important disclosure. He goes on, he says, we redistribute de facto the world's wealth by climate policy.

That sounds like communism to me. It gets much closer to the truth of what is going on with the chicken littles of the world who are trying to scare us into the fox's lair. And even more on this next week. Suffice it to say that the science of climate science is by no means settled. In fact, it strikes at the heart of the mission and methodology of science to say any of this is settled.

Science by its very nature questions the status quo and thereby grows and increases knowledge. It tests theories and models. It doesn't shut up skeptics and critics and call them climate deniers. So do not be threatened or intimidated, dear listener, by the chicken littles of climate change. Know for a fact that indeed God has made all things for his glory and for our good, including the environment.

As Psalm 8 says, when I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him and the son of man that you care for him? Oh, God has given us creation to husband and to bear fruit. Excuse me. Let us do so with humility and wisdom, including our approach to the climate. This has been Pastor David Bass at New Geneva Orthodox Presbyterian Church.

New Geneva meets for holy worship on Sunday at 10 a.m. Come visit us and cross our threshold. See who we are. We meet for worship at 10 a.m. on Sunday. Call us for more information at area code 208-523-0196. 208-523-0196.