www.byzcath.org Forums General Discussions Town Hall fasting as a response to global warming

In another thread, which the Administrator locked because he disagrees, I posted that there is a new study that indicates that global warming could be twice as bad as previously forecast.

I am not a scientist; but the people at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) are world-renowned scientists; and they are the ones who conducted the study [telegraph.co.uk].

So, whether you disagree or not, it is a subject of genuine scientific concern.

And, it is a subject that calls for an orthodox Christian response. And I suggest that response should be: Fasting.

By fasting from meat according to the Tradition of the Church --at least twice a week (Wednesdays and Fridays) and at least during Advent, Lent and the first two weeks of August -- three good things would result:

1. There would be less demand for meat, and thus there would be less production of meat, and thus there would be less destruction of the environment that (allegedly) contributes to global warming and climate change.

2. Health would improve, as people ate less meat (especially red meat) and thus had less risk of heart disease from cholesterol and fat in meat.

3. Self-discipline would improve. And that self-discipline could then be applied to many areas of lifestyle that need improvement.

The Church has a golden opportunity to be at the forefront of reforming lifestyle in order to save and improve the quality of our civilization. I do hope that more leaders in the Church will emphasize fasting as a pragmatic way to be green, to be healthy, and to be spiritual -- and to learn thereby that all three things are related.

-- John

I am aware of the bickering back and forth on global warming, and have refused to take sides on the issue. However, as a vegetarian, giving up meat would obviously be irrelevant. To fast, I have to find something else to fast from. Too much of the global warming debate is founded on everything but verifiable science. It seems that proponents and opponents are quite passionate about their politics and subjective feelings, but neither constitutes hard evidence.

There are lots of excellent reasons to fast, the most salient being to gain mastery over the passions. Fasting in response to global warming is not on my list, not the least because there is no such animal as global warming in the apocalyptic AlGorean sense of the word. Climate changes. Did so before man got here, and often in very rapid and radical ways.

We are presently coming off of a "Little Ice Age" that began in the 14th century and did not begin to end until the middle of the 19th century. A thousand years ago, we entered what is called the Medieval Warm Period, during which temperatures averaged 2-3 degrees higher than they are today. Some 1500 years ago, the earth entered another cold period that saw widespread crop failures, plagues and famines that aided in the collapse of the Roman Empire and the beginning of the so-called Dark Ages. Go back some 2100 years, and we're back in a warm period that allowed the Romans to make wine on the borders of Scotland.

And so it goes. The earth's climate is a complex phenomenon, influenced by all sorts of cycles--the migration of the earth's axis, solar activity, volcanic eruptions, changes in oceanic currents. Human activity is rather inconsequential in the grand scheme of things: one moderate sized volcano puts out more greenhouse gas in a month than all the cars, all the factories and all the cows on earth.

Scientists do not understand it very well, and climactic models are all just very elaborate guesses that have a poor track record of describing past climate change, let alone predicting future ones. To blame human activity for global warming (note that this term is sooo 2008--the preferred one is "climate change", which allows one to blame man whether temperatures go up or down) strikes me as a radically secularist form of hubris. It denies the sovereignty of God over nature, and assumes that man, in his self-contained majesty, has the power to alter the very forces of nature itself.

Our respected Administrator probably should not have locked the other thread, but he is right in his description of global warming hysteria as fueled by junk science and secular religion. Harmon's article is a good example of that. In fact, for the past several years, scientific evidence is pointing in the other direction: the earth ceased warming as long ago as 1998, and is at this point cooling down. Solar activity is approaching a low point in its cycle, ice packs and glaciers are actually growing in most places.

The current debate on "climate change" (please get with the times, folks!) is not driven by science, but by the desire of certain politicians to extend the control of government further into the economic and social lives of ordinary people (see recent speeches by Czech President Vaclav Havel). In the 20th century, there was Communism, the God That Failed. But those who cannot accept God now have erected a new religion called "Environmentalism", one which considers man not the pinnacle of God's creation, but a blight upon the planet, whose numbers need to be culled (no surprise that those who accept anthropogenic climate change also accept the need for contraception and abortion), whose creativity needs to be curtailed (the state will tell you what kinds of technologies you can develop and use, not to mention what you can eat), all as a sacrifice on the altar of Gaia.

If you want to fast, go and fast. Don't pretend you are saving the environment by doing so. That just moral preening, which is the antithesis of fasting.

I will note to John that what makes the news is not sound science but hype. Find and post the actual scientific data. Anything else will be deleted without comment. That MIT or someone says something does not make it Gospel. But even here one must look to see what is being said because others may take evidence (temperature change) and attach cause to it falsely (there is no evidence that man has anything but a localized, transitory effect on weather).

Please do not waste our time with such silliness. Future posts of this nature will be removed without comment.