"THE DANGER OF DOOMSDAY PROPHETS" - by Warren Cole Smith, Breakpoint.org, September 25, 2019; http://www.breakpoint.org/2019/09/the-danger-in-doomsday-prophets/
A 16-year-old Swedish high school student, Greta Thunberg, has become the new face of the climate change movement. She has more than a million followers on Twitter, where she has described herself as a “16-year-old climate activist with Asperger.” Late last summer she began skipping school on Fridays to travel to Sweden’s Parliament, the Riksdag, to lobby lawmakers with flyers, often containing what the New York Times described as “crude language,” that these same lawmakers she hoped to persuade were “ruining her future.”
Her blunt talk and fresh face attracted a following, not just on Twitter, but around the world. Her habit of skipping school became a symbolic gesture, and on Monday she organized a “climate change skip day” in which hundreds of thousands participated. She was also a featured speaker at a United Nations event on climate change.
As much as I admire her boldness and willingness to enter the arena, I cannot offer more than faint praise to this child. (I do not use “child” in a patronizing or condescending manner: that’s what she is careful to call herself when she speaks to heads of state and other potentates.) In fact, because she is a child, the climate change movement has cleverly managed to change the conversation from facts — where they have been unpersuasive – to emotions, where they hope for better success. By putting their often-specious arguments in the mouth of a 16-year-old with pig-tails, they have made them difficult to criticize. That’s why New York Times columnist Christopher Caldwell calls her activism “undemocratic.”
Greta Thunberg is just the latest in a long line of doomsday prophets. David Wallace-Wells’ book “Uninhabitable Earth” (which I reviewed here) is a member of this tribe. Both of them are taking advantage of the built-in advantages of doomsday prophesies. Prophets of disaster win either way. If their prophesies come true, the prophets can say, “I told you so.” If they don’t come true, they can say “not yet” or “thank God you listened!”
But it is important to consider the doomsday prophesies of times past as we evaluate the activism of Thunberg and Wallace-Wells. For example, Paul Ehrlich wrote “The Population Bomb” in 1968, saying a global population explosion would result in mass starvation and food wars by the 1970s. Not only did such crises not come to pass, but today many countries worry about depopulation.
Even we Christians are not immune from the disease of doomsday prophesies. In 1991, Larry Burkett wrote about “The Coming Economic Earthquake,” but the 1990s ended up being one of the greatest periods of economic expansion in global history. In the late 1990s, Michael Hyatt’s “The Millennium Bug” warned about the Y2K computer problem. He encouraged people to stockpile food and buy gas powered generators in case the power grid went down. The power grid survived into the new millennium.
We can look back on doomsday prophets like Burkett and Hyatt with a certain wry humor. They were wrong, but they did no real harm. Sometimes, though, doomsday prophets wreak great havoc.
Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” warned us of the dangers of the insecticide DDT. Her book motivated major policy changes. Subsequent scientific study discovered that DDT was safe when properly used, and highly effective. But many countries banned DDT because of “Silent Spring.” The result? The greatest killer of the 20th century was not war or genocide, but the lowly mosquito.Rachel Carson’s flawed doomsday predictions likely contributed to the deaths of 100 million people. Today, the direct costs of treatment of the 250 million people who suffer from this preventable disease exceeds $12 billion per year. Other economic losses, including the loss of productivity of those afflicted, are likely many times that number.
In short, flawed doomsday predictions are often not innocent or innocuous. They can be deceitful and damaging.
Science, at its best, is a search for the truth. It should also teach us to be skeptical of our own assumptions and humble about our own conclusions. Science teaches us to look closely at the world and describes what we see with as much precision as possible, but not to assert as fact that which should remain hypothesis.
Greta Thunberg is a teenager. Her worldview is still developing. She has proven adept at whipping those who agree with her into a frenzy. However, democracy requires persuading the unconvinced, protecting and providing a voice for those with minority views, and crafting policies that do not have unintended consequences more damaging than the problems they hope to solve.
One hopes that such climate change doomsday prophets such as David Wallace-Wells and Greta Thunberg might learn from Paul Ehrlich himself, who lived long enough to see the vast majority of the scenarios he laid out in “The Population Bomb” fail to come to pass.
In 2009, he wrote: “In honesty, the scenarios were way off, especially in their timing.” His conclusion? “We underestimated the resilience of the world system.” But because too many policy makers listened to Ehrlich in the 1960s and 70s, the world now faces a global demographic crisis that will likely cause tremendous economic hardship in the decades ahead, as the world struggles to create prosperity in an era of depopulation.
So, God bless Greta Thunberg. I hope she is an inspiration to many young people to get involved in the important conversations of our day. But when it comes to policy-making, we should also pay attention to the adults in the room.
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
PRAISE GOD for the continuing recent successes againstISIS ! Pray that coalition forces will be able to fully destroy the leadership and infrastructure of ISIS .
Her blunt talk and fresh face attracted a following, not just on Twitter, but around the world. Her habit of skipping school became a symbolic gesture, and on Monday she organized a “climate change skip day” in which hundreds of thousands participated. She was also a featured speaker at a United Nations event on climate change.
As much as I admire her boldness and willingness to enter the arena, I cannot offer more than faint praise to this child. (I do not use “child” in a patronizing or condescending manner: that’s what she is careful to call herself when she speaks to heads of state and other potentates.) In fact, because she is a child, the climate change movement has cleverly managed to change the conversation from facts — where they have been unpersuasive – to emotions, where they hope for better success. By putting their often-specious arguments in the mouth of a 16-year-old with pig-tails, they have made them difficult to criticize. That’s why New York Times columnist Christopher Caldwell calls her activism “undemocratic.”
Greta Thunberg is just the latest in a long line of doomsday prophets. David Wallace-Wells’ book “Uninhabitable Earth” (which I reviewed here) is a member of this tribe. Both of them are taking advantage of the built-in advantages of doomsday prophesies. Prophets of disaster win either way. If their prophesies come true, the prophets can say, “I told you so.” If they don’t come true, they can say “not yet” or “thank God you listened!”
But it is important to consider the doomsday prophesies of times past as we evaluate the activism of Thunberg and Wallace-Wells. For example, Paul Ehrlich wrote “The Population Bomb” in 1968, saying a global population explosion would result in mass starvation and food wars by the 1970s. Not only did such crises not come to pass, but today many countries worry about depopulation.
Even we Christians are not immune from the disease of doomsday prophesies. In 1991, Larry Burkett wrote about “The Coming Economic Earthquake,” but the 1990s ended up being one of the greatest periods of economic expansion in global history. In the late 1990s, Michael Hyatt’s “The Millennium Bug” warned about the Y2K computer problem. He encouraged people to stockpile food and buy gas powered generators in case the power grid went down. The power grid survived into the new millennium.
We can look back on doomsday prophets like Burkett and Hyatt with a certain wry humor. They were wrong, but they did no real harm. Sometimes, though, doomsday prophets wreak great havoc.
Rachel Carson’s “Silent Spring” warned us of the dangers of the insecticide DDT. Her book motivated major policy changes. Subsequent scientific study discovered that DDT was safe when properly used, and highly effective. But many countries banned DDT because of “Silent Spring.” The result? The greatest killer of the 20th century was not war or genocide, but the lowly mosquito.Rachel Carson’s flawed doomsday predictions likely contributed to the deaths of 100 million people. Today, the direct costs of treatment of the 250 million people who suffer from this preventable disease exceeds $12 billion per year. Other economic losses, including the loss of productivity of those afflicted, are likely many times that number.
In short, flawed doomsday predictions are often not innocent or innocuous. They can be deceitful and damaging.
Science, at its best, is a search for the truth. It should also teach us to be skeptical of our own assumptions and humble about our own conclusions. Science teaches us to look closely at the world and describes what we see with as much precision as possible, but not to assert as fact that which should remain hypothesis.
Greta Thunberg is a teenager. Her worldview is still developing. She has proven adept at whipping those who agree with her into a frenzy. However, democracy requires persuading the unconvinced, protecting and providing a voice for those with minority views, and crafting policies that do not have unintended consequences more damaging than the problems they hope to solve.
One hopes that such climate change doomsday prophets such as David Wallace-Wells and Greta Thunberg might learn from Paul Ehrlich himself, who lived long enough to see the vast majority of the scenarios he laid out in “The Population Bomb” fail to come to pass.
In 2009, he wrote: “In honesty, the scenarios were way off, especially in their timing.” His conclusion? “We underestimated the resilience of the world system.” But because too many policy makers listened to Ehrlich in the 1960s and 70s, the world now faces a global demographic crisis that will likely cause tremendous economic hardship in the decades ahead, as the world struggles to create prosperity in an era of depopulation.
So, God bless Greta Thunberg. I hope she is an inspiration to many young people to get involved in the important conversations of our day. But when it comes to policy-making, we should also pay attention to the adults in the room.
[italics and colored emphasis mine]
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PRAYER MATTERS:
"To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising
againstthe disorder of the world. - Karl Barth
againstthe disorder of the world. - Karl Barth
"Prayer is inviting God into a seemingly impossible situation and trusting/resting in His love and grace to accomplish His perfect will in His perfect time and for His greatest glory. Intercession is one of the great privileges AND responsibilities for EVERY believer."- Stan
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“INTERCESSORS ARE THE RUDDER” – A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT - Wanda Alger, June 28th, 2017; https://www.getamericapraying.com/blog/I was recently given a word by my good friend, Bill Yount. His word greatly encouraged me as an intercessor. Working for Intercessors for America
James 3:4 talks about the power of a small rudder to steer a large ship. In this scripture about the power of our tongue, consider the power of prophetic intercession! In the Forerunner Commentary on this verse we read, “…rudders manipulate the course of immense ocean vessels with a slight movement of a pilot’s hand. Since it is underwater and aft, the rudder of a ship does its work UNSEEN. A passenger is ignorant of its movements most of the time. Yet, when it is in proper working order, the rudder holds more power over the ship than the wind. The wind will blow, toss, even destroy the ship’s rigging, but the rudder guides the ship exactly where it directs.”
This is God’s promise to the intercessors in this hour of national turbulence. Don’t stop praying! Your prayers have great power to turn the ship! Continue praying, interceding, and discerning the workings and movements of the Holy Spirit, being faithful to God’s commands. As we come together to declare God’s faithfulness, this nation will, once again, head in the direction that God intends. Don’t give up and don’t give in. Regardless of the winds of adversity and the fires of the enemy, God’s people have a power that cannot be matched. Let us join in faith and continue to pray and speak of God’s faithfulness in order to bring God’s people and this nation into the fullness of God’s plans. Note this additional encouragement from God’s word:
Colossians 2:15 – “He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him” (ESV).
Psalm 33:8-11 – “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm. The Lord foils the plans of the nations; He thwarts the purposes of the peoples. But the plans of the Lord stand firm forever, the purposes of his heart through all generations.”
Wanda Alger, IFA Field Correspondent
PRAY FOR AMERICA : THANK GOD for His many blessings on America AMERICA America "but instead "God be merciful towards America
PRAY FOR OUR LEADERS: 1) Pray for President Trump and his advisers, that they would select Godly leaders at the federal level who will be accountable to do an excellent job (or be fired!) ; that he would seek God's wisdom and be enabled to lead our country effectively in the years ahead; and 2) Pray our leaders at every level of government will Spirit-filled, leading us with Godly wisdom and integrity; that they will only pass legislation and enact policies that will benefit Americans today as well as future generations and NOT do any lasting harm.
SUPREME COURT: PRAY that the justices will only hand down decisions that are Constitutionally sound and in the best interests of our country now and for future generations.
World-Wide Prayer Requests:
PRAISE GOD for the continuing recent successes against
*For believers in Syria
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Praying Through the Open Doors World Watch List for persecuted believers:https://www.opendoorsusa.org/take-action/pray/monthly-prayer-calendar/
Monthly Focus | INDIA - For the first time, India entered the top 10 on the 2019 World Watch List. Research indicates that in 2018, more than 12,000 attacks on Christians were reported (many go unreported). This month, we invite you to pray with our fellow Indian believers.
October 1 | NORTH KOREA- Lee Joo-Chan*—now a pastor—is one of thousands of North
Koreans who grew up unaware of his family’s faith. Please pray with Christian North Korean parents as they, in turn, pray that their children will meet Jesus.
Koreans who grew up unaware of his family’s faith. Please pray with Christian North Korean parents as they, in turn, pray that their children will meet Jesus.
*Names changed to protect identities
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