Christians Should Not Be Climate Alarmists
Once upon a time, our culture settled disagreements through debate.. Now the people with institutional clout simply call ideas they don’t like “misinformation” and paint anyone who believes them as dangerous.
It’s a masterclass in manipulation — and also plain lazy.
Nowhere is this sad slide towards demagoguery more obvious than in the climate debate.
Christians are right to care for creation. The Bible affirms that nature has intrinsic value because God made it and owns it (Genesis 1:1, Psalm 24:1). He commissioned the first couple as caretakers of the planet (Genesis 2:15) and then extended this mandate to the rest of us (Genesis 1:26, Psalm 8:6). Moreover, loving our neighbours as Jesus commands (Matthew 22:37-40) entails caring for the environment on which they depend for survival.
With all of this said, Christians should be deeply wary of climate alarmism, which might pose as the global consensus today but can be traced directly back to the radical fringe politics of the 1970s counterculture
Servants of Christ are deceived if they think the only two options are bowing the knee to a neo-pagan cult or being shouted down as dangerous dissidents who want the world to burn. Yet that is the false dichotomy our culture demands we accept.
Climate: The Movie
Fortunately, the more alarmist our institutions have become, the more pushback we are seeing from sober-minded people.
A great example is the feature-length, free-to-air documentary Climate: The Movie (The Cold Truth), released earlier this year.
Climate the Movie: The Cold Truth
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) March 20, 2024
The final nail in the coffin for the "human-induced climate change" scam. An absolute MUST-WATCH!
Directed by Martin Durkin (@Martin_Durkin), director of 2007's 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'. Produced by Tom Nelson (@TomANelson).
Please… pic.twitter.com/bkCrGZhIlt
Written and directed by British television producer Martin Durkin as a long-awaited sequel to his 2007 television special The Great Global Warming Swindle, Durkin’s latest offering shines a spotlight on the corruption and censorship plaguing climate science and the global ‘Net Zero’ project.
Having collected millions of views across X, Vimeo, Rumble, BitChute, YouTube and other social media sites, Climate: The Movie examines both the science and the politics of climate alarmism, and features a wide variety of eminent scientists who dissent from the popular, fear-filled narrative.
If you’re interested in a longer review of the film, see one I authored here. If you’re curious about how Climate: The Movie can help Christians navigate the noise and nonsense of climate alarmism, read on.
A False Consensus
Proverbs 12:22 declares that “Lying lips are an abomination to the Lord, but those who act faithfully are his delight.” It should greatly concern believers, then, to learn that the supposed consensus on climate science is fake.
It is often claimed that 97 percent of climate scientists believe humans are heating up the planet to concerning levels. Not only have detailed analyses found this number to be severely exaggerated, but as Climate: The Movie explains, ideological gatekeepers in the scientific community, the universities and the media have already decided that dissenters — even the most qualified of them — don’t belong.
Of course most climate scientists are alarmists if all non-alarmists are locked out of the journals, TV interviews and top academic posts.
The billions of dollars now flowing to the climate industrial complex also contribute to the false consensus. According to the film, countless careers, companies and nonprofits would shutter overnight if the alarmist narrative were proven false.
This also applies to research, where scientists and academics routinely set out with research goals unrelated to climate but are now choosing to mention climate change in order to access lucrative funding grants offered en masse by governments.
Money is a powerful motivator — and it will only keep flowing if the public remains convinced the world is ending.
The Least of These
Passages like Matthew 25:35-40 are often used to convince Western Christians to accept the climate gospel for the sake of the poor. Yet, as Climate: The Movie ably documents, it is the poor who are most harmed by climate alarmism.
While rich countries can afford some zealous experimentation with new technologies, the masses in the Global South still live on the edge of survival. Western banks are now refusing loans to African and Asian nations that want to mine their coal and oil and use it for progress. And solar panels and windmills can hardly power a steel industry or cover continents in rail tracks.
While progress tarries, the world’s poor continue to cook over dung and wood fires, contracting lung diseases and blindness. Agriculture suffers from insufficient tractor power and fertiliser. Western health agencies send pills to cure diarrhoea and other preventable diseases while refusing to address the underlying cause: locked-up natural resources that helped make our hemisphere prosperous.
It is a well-documented fact that as societies are lifted out of poverty, their people can afford to turn their focus from immediate necessities like food and sanitation to caring for the environment.
A Rival Worldview
Not covered in the documentary, but relevant to every follower of Christ, is that climate alarmism ultimately posits a worldview that undermines biblical teachings. As I have argued elsewhere:
At best, it is increasingly difficult to separate climate alarmism from neo-Marxism. At worst, far from being motivated by Christian concerns for the environment, today’s climate alarmism springs from an ideology deeply hostile to Christianity. Sadly, many young and naive Christians are being seduced into a movement that will do little for the planet but will almost certainly shipwreck their faith.
Australian cultural commentator Martyn Iles describes climate alarmism as a “fully integrated ideology” that seeks to displace Christianity in a post-Christian world:
When you scratch below the surface, this is not merely about climate change. This is an entire worldview. It has its own theory of human rights, of justice, of the nation state, of immigration, of humanity, of democracy, of good and evil… It is an anti-West, anti-capitalist system… Climate change alarmism is one of the many suits of clothes that is being worn in the modern West by Marxism.
I would caution Christians viewing Climate: The Movie to practice discernment. In providing historical context for today’s temperatures and CO2 levels, the filmmakers unquestioningly indulge in some of their own false assumptions, including those related to evolution and deep time.
All the same, it is a film that deserves attention from Christians and non-Christians alike.
While there is room for Christians to disagree on the role humans play in Earth’s climate and how the climate might change in the future, buying into the secular apocalypse cult will only bring disappointment, disillusionment, and damage.
Let’s care for creation and still keep our wits about us.
As Psalm 37:3 puts it, “Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.”