There's been an over-abundant coverage of COP26 – the 26th United Nations Climate Change conference – in the media this week. It's been hailed as the most significant climate event since the 2015 Paris Agreement and is the biggest summit that the UK has ever hosted.

Climate change crescendo

No one should lightly dismiss any genuine attempt at addressing the planet’s serious environmental problems. But world leaders sought hard to outdo one another in their apocalyptic-style attempts to express the urgency required in halting climate change. Boris Johnson said it was “one minute to midnight on that Doomsday clock”. Another delegate said, “we are digging our own graves”.

Yet, the hypocrisy of the conference has not been lost on the public at large. A staggering 400 private planes flew in delegates from all over the world (most of whom left after just two days), spewing out 13,000 tonnes of CO2 in the process. On top of this, some top leaders deployed massive motorcades; Joe Biden’s exorbitant parade while on a detour to Rome reportedly consisted of no less than 85 gas-guzzling vehicles (his own armoured car generates ten times more carbon-per-mile than normal cars).

Climate change cult

Few would deny that climate change is serious, but while it is generally accepted that there is a man-made element to changes in the earth’s climate, the incredible complexity of the earth’s climate means that uncertainty abounds. The ideology of climate change, however, is regarded as utterly sacrosanct. Anyone who dares challenge any aspect of it is termed a climate change denier, and instantly ‘cancelled’. To many, climate change has become an idol of the modern age.

Climate change sceptics (or rather, anyone who cannot accept every detail of the climate change narrative) are rarely if ever given airtime on mainstream media.

More than one social commentator has suggested the reality of a ‘climate change cult’ in western society, given the tendency of cults to be apocalyptic, to attract the young and well-educated middle classes, and to have an unshakeable faith in their own doctrines, never allowing them to be questioned. Even many TV dramas – Casualty, Coronation Street, Doctors, EastEnders, Emmerdale, Holby City and Hollyoaks – have been caught up in the media hype.

Climate change censorship

Climate change sceptics (or rather, anyone who cannot accept every detail of the climate change narrative) are rarely if ever given airtime on mainstream media. When TV newbie GB News dared to interview one such sceptic two weeks after launching, it was heavily criticised. The BBC stopped giving air-time to climate change sceptics years ago and now overtly pushes the climate change agenda. When Michael Shellenberger – whose best-selling book Apocalypse Never has been praised by many of the world’s leading climate scientists and scholars – wrote a scientifically accurate article on ‘The Climate scare’, he was quickly censored by Facebook. All of this draws remarkable similarities to how those who dare to challenge medical ‘experts’ on the efficacy or safety of Covid-vaccines are quickly excluded or scorned.

Internet search engines are a deeply worrying part of the censorship problem: a Google search for sound articles on climate change or vaccine scepticism is unlikely to yield satisfactory results. What you will find instead are derogatory posts belittling the scientist or journalist who made the challenge. Those who think that media censorship is the domain of China or North Korea need to waken up. It is already very much part of western culture.

Those who think that media censorship is the domain of China or North Korea need to waken up. It is already very much part of western culture.

Climate change science

A great many climate change researchers are fully aware that ‘the Science’ on climate change isn’t nearly as ‘settled’ as is often claimed. Essential questions ― about the way the climate is responding to our influence, and what the impacts of these will be ― remain largely unanswered. The climate is changing, they insist, but the why and how aren’t as clear as we’ve been led to believe.

Remarkably, an article in the journal Natural Science debunks the greenhouse effect equation – which lies at the very core of the climate change agenda – claiming that it is “based on physically irrelevant assumptions and its results considerably disagree with observations”. And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), in its latest report, found little reliable evidence that floods were becoming more frequent due to human activity. This was also the case for hurricanes, tornadoes and strong winds.

This confutes climate change being the go-to explanation for all of the world’s problems – as with Channel 4’s Jon Snow, who recently blamed climate change for the fallen tree that delayed his train getting to the COP26 summit.

Steven Koonin, a distinguished American scientist, and a former top science advisor to the Obama administration, is well aware that sea levels are rising faster now than during the latter half of the 20th century. But around 1940 they were rising almost as fast as they are today. Additionally, Greenland’s ice sheet is not shrinking any more rapidly today than it was 80 years ago; rather it is highly variable.

Koonin firmly believes that the role of science is to inform, not to persuade, because the decisions we have to make are particularly complicated and are about more than the science alone.

Climate change clarity

Sadly, there has been little or no acknowledgement of God at COP26 (although some churches and organisations such as TearFund have been allowed in as ‘observers’). There has been no crying out to the Lord for mercy for the damage we have done to our world (2 Chron 7:14). Instead, there is the proud determination that we can fix any mess we’ve made in our own strength (despite the unrealistic and extortionately-priced goals set).

The role of science is to inform, not to persuade, because the decisions we have to make are particularly complicated and are about more than the science alone.

Nor has there been any respect shown for the Scriptures at the Glasgow summit. That’s a pity, for the word of God has something significant to teach us about the future of our planet. Peter tells us, for example, that “the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgement and destruction of the ungodly” (2 Pet 3:7).

Paul tells us further that “the whole creation is groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time” (Rom 8:22). “For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it” (Rom 8:20).

Yes, humanity has a duty to care for the beautiful world that God has formed (Gen 2:15). But let us remember that we worship the Creator and not his creation. Yes, climate change is real. But let us be aware of the feverish cult that has formed around it, of the strict media censorship that safeguards it, and of the plethora of scientific arguments that challenge it. 

Most of all, let us look forward to the day when “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Rom 8:21).

For Further Reading
Melanie Philips, ‘The Tragi-comic Climate Doomsday Cult’ 3rd Nov, 2021
Tony Pearce, ‘Global Warming or Cooling? Or End of Days Sign?’, 2nd Oct 2021
Brendan O’Neill, ‘The Elites are Laughing in our Faces’, 3rd Nov 2021
Jessica Stewart, ‘20 Easy Ways to Help Save the Environment Every Day’, 20 July 2021
Steven Koonin, 'Unsettled: What Climate Science Tells Us, What It Doesn’t, and Why It Matters', BenBella Books, 2021
OpenBibleInfo, '100 Bible Verses about Weather’