Posted Mar 15, 2019 by Michael L. Brown

I’m going out on a limb. I’m about to make a bold prediction. Contrary to the prognostications of Beto O’Rourke, the world will not end in 12 years. At least not by climate change. There. I said it.

Now, it’s possible that the Lord will choose to return in 12 years. But that’s another story.

In the age of climate change hysteria, the end-of-the-world clock is already ticking. And it’s ticking fast.

“The scientists are unanimous on this. We have no more than 12 years to take incredibly bold action on this crisis,” O’Rourke said. “Can we make it? I don't know. It's up to every one of us. Do you want to make it?”

Twelve years and counting to save the planet. Otherwise, we’re doomed.

Now, to make full disclosure, I am the opposite of a climate change expert.

I’ve never read a whole book on the subject. I’ve read only a handful of relevant articles. And to my knowledge, I’ve only had one expert on my radio show who addressed the issue (and that’s in more than 10 years of daily talk radio).

But I know enough to recognize hyperbole. I know enough to recognize appeals to mass hysteria. And this is certainly one of them.

I remember seeing a striking TV ad during one of Bill Clinton’s presidential campaigns. There was an elderly couple whose house burned down because the fire department arrived too late.

Why? It was because of the evil policies the Republicans would introduce if elected. The fire department and the police would be understaffed. The cutbacks would be deadly. Literally.

If Bill Clinton was not elected president, old people would be burning to death.

Now it’s even worse. The whole world will be destroyed if we don’t act quickly. And that means we must elect Beto O’Rourke for president. He will save the planet.

To quote him again, science has made clear that “we should do nothing less than marshal every resource in the country to meet that challenge, to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, to get to net zero emissions, which means not only must we emit less greenhouse gasses, we must plant things that absorb greenhouse gasses and carbon and invest in the technology to allow us to claim some that are in the air now.”

And we have 12 years to do it. Or else.

The scary thing is not that this new presidential candidate believes this timetable to be true.

It’s that today’s intellectual environment is such that he can say these things without being laughed to scorn. Worse still, he believes that this kind of rhetoric will help his campaign rather than hurt it. And he might well be right.

In other words, it isn’t just a radical leftist like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who suggested that “it may not be ethical to have children, given the difficulties that climate change will likely cause in the years to come.” (To quote her directly, “There’s scientific consensus that the lives of children are going to be very difficult. And it does lead young people to have a legitimate question: Is it OK to still have children?”)

Rather, as a recent headline announced, the “New ‘Birthstrike’ Movement Has Women Saying No to Kids Because of Climate Change.”

Yes, “A number of women in recent years have found a way to reduce the average carbon footprint just by doing nothing.

The research suggests not having kids is the most impactful thing we can do to decrease our carbon footprint, more and more women have begun questioning whether or not they should have children at all.”

So, we save the human race by not having children. Brilliant.

This is even more shortsighted than China’s one-child per-family policy.

Yet many believe that the end of the world is near – again, not based on biblical prophecy but based on a climate change apocalypse. And the fear-based rhetoric of Ocasio-Cortez and O’Rourke will only fuel the fires into a burning frenzy.

And can you imagine what would happen if Nancy Pelosi had her way and the voting age was dropped to 16?

I freely admit that Donald Trump has consistently used fear-based rhetoric in his presidential campaigning and presidential tenure. (In fact, politicians commonly do so on all sides of the aisle.)

And I acknowledge that there are environmental issues that deserve attention. The Book of Revelation even addresses those who destroy the earth (Rev 11:18).

But this over-the-top, apocalyptic, climate change rhetoric deserves a skeptical response. The question is: Will it get the skeptical, critical response it deserves, or will the hysteria reach a fever pitch?

O’Rourke is betting on the latter.

I sure hope he’s wrong.

That’s because right now, climate change hysteria is far more dangerous than climate change itself.

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A._catholic posted a comment · Mar 23, 2019
Whether or not the world will end in 12 years, really isn't the point. That human existence on this planet is threatened by materialism, greed/love and service of mammon/wealth/profit is. It isn't only climate change- but also loss of biodiversity (species extinction), acidification of the oceans, pollution of ground water and the air. All that comes by reducing the creation/environment/geo-biosphere that sustains ALL life to something that is only valued to generate human material wealth in opposition to Mat 6:24 and 1 Tim 6:10. And it is mammon/wealth/profit that Pres. Trump has served his whole life, and he continues to serve now. We must act- now- to turn from love and trust in money to create a humane, environmentally sustainable and just *economy*.
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yeshuais4me posted a comment · Mar 22, 2019
The way understand this event is the end of our world will not come until all prophecy that needs to be complete are complete, Matthew 5:18. One that sticks with me is Isaiah 17 which is the destruction of Dammesek (Damascus) where only animals will roam the streets which could mean chemical or nuke weapons cause the destruction.
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Dad3boys posted a comment · Mar 21, 2019
Climate has been changing, science confirms this. What is not science, however, are the models projecting future climate change (my apologies if someone else noted this, I did not want to go through 68 pages of comments to find it). Thus, Al Gore could famously claim that the polar ice cap would be gone by 2014, and be completely wrong. But these 'claims' get swallowed hook, line, and sinker.
Deancooper posted a comment · Mar 16, 2019
Hi Gerald, Presuming they are indeed making fraudulent adjustments to the temperature record (and it does seem that they are), that only means that they are exaggerating the severity of the problem. But the problem still exists nonetheless. Everybody can agree that we are burning unprecedented amounts of fossil fuels. Everybody can agree that burning fossil fuels adds CO2 to the atmosphere. Everybody can agree that CO2 is a greenhouse gas that warms the planet. Thus, everybody can agree that humans are contributing to Earth’s warming. The question is how bad is this (will it lead to real catastrophe), and what can we do to prevent that catastrophe from happening. Even one of the UN reports on climate change estimated that the global warming on the whole will be good for the planet until around 2074. At that point they believe the negative effects will begin to outweigh the positive effects. But nobody ever talks about that how good the warming currently is! Nor do they mention that there are relatively cheap ways to solve the problem. One is having planes dump sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere, which is what happens when a volcano cools the planet. Another is dumping soluble iron into the oceans, which causes the entire ecosystem to grow (plankton populations go up with more iron) and that results is the consumption of CO2. What is really interesting is that we would presently be in another ice age if it wasn't for mankind causing more CO2 to be in the atmosphere. The ice age cycle has been temporarily stopped because of three main factors. One, a meteor hit near Greenland right before we reached the peak of the last cycle, and caused a massive melted ice lake to flow off of Canada and into the North Atlantic, thus stopping the warming. This was important because unconstrained warming triggers a massive shift in the climate. The theory here is that sufficient warming of the North Pole results in a lot of precipitation (its normally a desert up there) which causes lots of snow and that changes the albedo of the surface enough to start cooling the planet (white snow reflects more sunlight). The second factor was that mankind invented agriculture and began deforesting massive areas of the planet to grow crops. Less trees resulted in more CO2. The third factor was that mankind domesticated animals like cows that give off methane which causes further warming. It's because of God's intervention with the meteor and mankind's technology that the last 9000 years have had a more stable climate than at any other time in Earth's history (that we know about). But over the last century, our CO2 output has gone way up, and this will eventually cause real problems. God doesn't want us to destroy the planet, but neither should we follow the Left that believes the only solution is completely stopping all CO2 output.
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gerald a posted a comment · Mar 15, 2019
The planet is likely not warming at all. It probably did warm some in the 20th century. The temperature data on which the claim we keep hearing "we just had the warmest year on record" is based on fraudulent "adjustments" to the temperature record. https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/04/science-vs-dogma-on-climate.php https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2019-2-24-the-greatest-scientific-fraud-of-all-time-part-xxi Furthermore, the claim that each successive year "Government-funded warmists at NOAA and other agencies have systematically altered historical surface temperature data by lowering temperatures that were recorded decades ago, and raising temperatures that have been reported recently. The surface temperature record has been so badly corrupted that it is doubtful whether it can be used to prove anything at all. Yet government-funded warmists rely on it to the exclusion of the transparent satellite data". Two sets of satellite temperature data (RSS and UAH), which do not have these continual "adjustments", do not show each successive year is a new record high and show no statistically significant trend for some 18-26 years now.
Deancooper posted a comment · Mar 15, 2019
For me, I fully agree that the planet is warming, and I fully agree that man has contributed to this warming. I’m even willing to assume (or concede) that man’s contribution has been significant and that the warming will lead (eventually) to catastrophic results. What I don’t agree at all with is the proposed solutions. They are all Left-wing, high tax and wealth-redistributionist solutions. To me, those are a much greater (and more immediate) risk of producing catastrophe. What is needed are alternate solutions that don’t cost near as much. And amazingly they are already here. I’ve read how the former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, was very much interested in one of these. I first heard about that solution through a Ted Talk video. Watch this Ted Talk video on a cheap solution to climate change (https://www.ted.com/talks/david_keith_s_surprising_ideas_on_climate_change/up-next), and ask yourself why are people proposing solutions that will cost many trillions of dollars instead?