Episode Transcript
[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Think Deeper podcast. I'm your co host, Will Harrie. I'm joined by Jack Wilkie, Joe Wilkie, and a very special guest who I will introduce in just a second. I'm going to keep everybody waiting. Before I do, I want to bring up some things, things that are really exciting happening at Focus Press right now. Some new things that we're launching and releasing, the first of which being Jack's new book. Figured it was about time for Jack to put out a new book. Does so about every couple of months it feels like. And so the latest from Jack is one that I'm personally very excited to read. Jack, I think I have read everything that you've put out. So faithful fan over know. I know this one. I'm extremely excited to read, but it's called Sunday school catch up. We've been talking about it for a while, but essentially for anybody who feels like maybe they missed out on some things as far as general basic Bible knowledge stuff, maybe you became a Christian later in life, maybe grew up in the church, but didn't pay a ton of attention to Bible class, whatever it is. His book covers the basics. Know biblical terms, biblical people, maybe some timeline stuff of this is kind of what you need to know less on the doctrine end. We have a starting line from focus press that does a little bit more of that stuff. This one is more just kind of again, basic Bible. I'm not going to call it trivia, but like facts and again, names and general people and things like that. And so again, really good for anybody who maybe feels like they missed out on some stuff growing up. Or maybe you just want to deepen your Bible knowledge on more of a basic level. Maybe you know the plan of salvation and you know why the church set up the way it does, but you don't know much about the Old Testament or you don't know much about some of the stories and things. I'd highly recommend Jack's book. It is out. Ready to order focuspress.org Sunday school catch up is the name of it. Again, really excited about that. I encourage you to take a look at that. The other thing I'll mention and then we'll get rolling is we got a new video series that is coming to focus plus for all of our focus plus subscribers called brains and brew, it is featuring Dr. Brad Hare, my dad. I'm going to be tackling various topics in video form and that is going to be available to those who subscribe to focus plus our Patreon and we'll probably release a couple here and there for free, let everybody get a taste of it. But those will be coming out every single week on Focus plus, one of our latest editions in an ever growing library of things that we're going to be offering on focus plus. So brains and know, check that out. We'll be releasing the first one here very shortly.
But that is all I'm going to say as far as promotional things go. And with that, let me go ahead and introduce our special guest. It is Dr. Brad Harrif. My dad has joined us for another episode. We had him on for a, I think, back to back episodes at the end of 2022. And I'm sure he's very pleased with the fact that those are still, I think, our highest rated episodes. Those are the ones that got the most views, the most listens were the ones that he was on. And so we are going to try that magic again and bring him back for another episode. So, dad, welcome, welcome.
[00:03:03] Speaker B: You had to wait a whole year.
Wow.
[00:03:06] Speaker A: I know. Wow. I know. You were so booked we couldn't get you before them.
[00:03:10] Speaker C: We should have brought him back for every episode. Just permanently bumped the numbers.
[00:03:14] Speaker D: Yeah, you're out third man.
[00:03:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
[00:03:18] Speaker B: You don't know how hard it was for me to remain silent when y'all talking about Jack's new book. I was going to just throw a lobby in about. Yeah, Will's got a sleeping problem. He needs material to help him sleep. But no, in all seriousness, Jack does an excellent job. And let me encourage every single person out there, grab this new book. It's a good one.
[00:03:37] Speaker D: Appreciate it.
[00:03:39] Speaker A: But with that, Jack, I will hand it to you. Dad, again, welcome to the show. We're happy to have you for this episode on climate change is what we're talking about. We have a different one than what we've been talking about lately. So, Jack, I'll let you kind of intro why we're doing this episode and what we're going to be.
[00:03:52] Speaker D: Yeah, it's. I almost said it's a hot issue. Sorry, I don't want to start off on that foot.
It's an issue that just comes around. You're always being told about know, they've got those climate summits and all that where all the big wigs fly all over the world to talk about it and christians, where we kind of sit with. This is an interesting spot and so we're going to get into that. I want to start you off on the terms. This is one of the questions that it was global warming when I was a kid. Now it's climate change. Why that shift? And there are a lot of claims, and then people will make counterclaims or say that's not true, but that before I was a kid, way back in the ancient days when Brad was a kid, that they were talking about an ice age. And so is that true? What is kind of the history of the development of this over the last 50 years or so?
[00:04:40] Speaker B: Yeah. So before I was actually even born, back in 1968, they were pushing really hard this coming ice age and how it was going to affect basically everything from the human population to crops to all kinds of different things.
1975, Newsweek came out with a major story on the cooling world.
And so, as you can imagine, garnered loads of attention and also loads of research dollars.
Everybody was shoveling money, research was being done in that direction, and they rode that wave for several years. Then things kind of quieted down and suddenly, instead of everything cooling off, we're now warming up. And as Jack pointed out, we've had a little bit of a vocabulary change from global warming to climate change, which is the most ridiculous thing in the world because, yeah, every day you wake up, there's a change in the climate. And so nobody can really argue against it.
They realize global warming. Hey, there's some data out there that show this is garbage, so let's change the name.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: I don't know. I mean, I'm just going to say it right off the bat. I think people know where we're going to fall on this. There's just a lot of shady and a lot of back and forth on this. I know we're going to get to this in the outline, but it's the same people as, like Al Gore who want to beat us over the head, or Leonardo DiCaprio beat us over the head for these things, and then they're flying their private jets. There's just such a double standard to this and there's such a shadiness to this. And you see this initially, it's okay, it's too cool. Okay, it's too warm. Well, it's climate change because we can't really decide to what end, for what purpose. Why do you continue to change these things and why can't you just stick to, no, it really is warming. Yes, it's a little cool right now, but it really is warming. No, they just changed the phraseology, which seems to keep people at this constant, like we're all going to die mentality, when literally we've seen three different changes of this since you've been alive in the last 40 years or whatever. To me, if you were serious about the data, wouldn't you just stick to the same thing?
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Well, on that note, I mean, you just think about, at least for me, maybe I'm unplugged, how little you hear about it, at least right now. Remember there for a while, it was all the rage, and, man, this is the biggest deal in the world, and now nobody really talks about it. Now it's just another thing that, again, I think gets kind of flooded out there by the media, thrown out there by the media as this big deal, right alongside with the racial injustice stuff and the riots and the COVID I'm not trying to be conspiracy theorist, but it seems like there's always something new that's going to destroy the planet, and that should be at the forefront of everybody's mind right now.
[00:07:44] Speaker D: I don't think that's the biggest deal in the world.
[00:07:46] Speaker A: Right. And then three years down the road, nobody's talking about it anymore. It's like, funny how that works out every single time. So, yeah, that's just my two cent.
[00:07:54] Speaker D: On it, I think with the terminology thing. The other thing that drives me crazy is when you make it climate change, as you said, it's always changing. That means everything that happens is evidence for them. You get a really snowy, cold winter, not climate change. You get a dry winter seat. Climate change, heavy hurricane season. This is climate change. Never happened before. You get a dry hurricane season.
That really is convenient. Like you said, it's very nice that it works that way.
We're kind of tipping our hand right off the top here that we do think it's garbage, but there's reasons for christians to talk about this. And so we're going to get to the biblical concerns. We're going to get to christian environmentalism. There is a good way to care about the environment. So we'll get to that in a little bit. Let's talk about the warming effect. That is the claim that it's kind of the big doomsday by 2030, or they keep pushing it back, of course, but what's going to happen, I guess.
Yeah.
[00:08:49] Speaker B: So the basic model that they're teaching kids is you've got solar energy coming in from the sun, it is hitting the earth, and then a lot of that is bouncing back out into space.
What they say is happening is basically you've got the atmosphere around the earth that traps some of that solar energy in.
And of course, their doomsday model is, hey, if there's too much man made co2 and stuff in the atmosphere. Then what happens is solar energy hits the earth and instead of enough being flicked back out into space, it actually gets trapped by this atmosphere. And now we're warming up and everything is horrible and we're all going to die. And there's nowhere for polar bears and icebergs are melting and we need to take away gas appliances and air conditioners and go back to amish buggies, I guess.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: So, dad, let me ask you this. When it comes to, and sorry, I'm going to call you dad. I'm not going to say Brad, that's going to be kind of weird on this podcast. So, dad, what do they say is kind of the end result, I guess, the effects of global warming? Obviously, the doomsdayers are like, well, the planet is going to burn up.
I think most people would probably see that as potentially a problem way down the road. But as far as the immediate effects, the effects that they say we're going to see in our lifetime, maybe our kids lifetimes, what are some of those, again, for those that would advocate for global warming or say that this is a big deal, what are some of those effects that they say is going to again, that maybe we'll see in our lifetime or see in our kids lifetime?
[00:10:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:35] Speaker B: So the things that they've been pointing to, especially in the last 1520 years, definitely during the time you guys have gone through school and have started listening to the news, the rising sea level is one. Oh, no, all these coastal cities are going to go away.
I could pull a joe and take a hot take and say, so what? The coastal cities, let's get rid of some of those. But I won't.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Apologies to our coastal city listeners.
We do thank you for listening.
[00:11:11] Speaker B: You've got increased temperature, obviously, and that would vary depending on the data, how much it's going to increase.
Habitat damaged. So where the polar bear is going to live, you've got glaciers that are supposedly calving off and all of a sudden all these different species are going to be affected.
A lot of folks are saying, hey, there's going to be a massive change in the water supply because we're going to have droughts in some areas and massive amounts of rain in others.
And so collectively, what is happening is they're painting this major doomsday picture. And one of the things we need to make sure that listeners understand, because I see this every weekend when I go out, is they've already indoctrinated our kids.
If you don't think textbooks are green friendly and all about mother earth and recycling and all. I'm here to tell you, you need to wake up and look at the textbooks because I've seen them. I've had conversations with students, teachers, parents, and it is absolutely ridiculous. And I'm not talking about science textbooks. I'm talking about all branches of textbooks are now feeding this warning to kids.
[00:12:42] Speaker C: I've got a budy who's a public school teacher, and he was telling me he was working with five year olds and was telling me about their curriculum before they can read. He's like, yeah, we're talking about ocean levels and protecting sea life and things like that. Okay, you're putting this on. And the reason why I have such a problem with it is these kids are five. What are they supposed to do about it? Well, we need to train them up. Like, they don't know how to read. They can't read, they can't do anything else. And you're putting this on them as though we're all going to die. And you get the Greta Thunbergs of this, of the world where we're scaring people. It's fear tactics from that early of an age. So you're exactly right. From five years on, maybe even earlier, all the way up, you're getting this indoctrination.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: Well, to give them credit, though, that's the smart thing to do, right? I mean, that's what we see the trans agenda doing right now is like, hey, if we can disciple up all these little five year olds that by the time they're ten years old, twelve years old, and they can somewhat think for themselves, if we've indoctrinated them with this stuff for seven, eight years, there are little disciples. They can help carry out our agenda. Again, it's exactly what the trans movement is doing right now with drag queen story hour and stuff. And so I definitely see the parallels there of like, we want the next generation to really be, to carry out our agenda here. So again, when I say credit to them, I'm saying, because it's kind of the smart thing to do in the sense that they want them to be advocates for climate change. They want them to be advocates for the trans agenda or whatever it is. Start them young, and that's exactly what they're doing.
I was going to ask this kind of next section on our outline that I think is going to be an interesting discussion.
I want to flip two things here. So let me ask this, and dad, I'll ask you, and then maybe we can open up the other two guys kind of already somewhat revealed this, but is there anything to this as far as the global warming, as far as maybe the climate change, is there anything to maybe not the doomsday level of concern, but is there anything to a level of concern as far as, like, should we really be talking about this? Is it legitimate? Is it a hoax? Is it a conspiracy theory? We try to avoid being political on this podcast, but it's kind of wrapped up in this whole episode in and of itself. And so I'll just ask that, is there anything to it? Is it legitimate in any way?
[00:14:53] Speaker B: So I'm going to hedge my answer first and say there are years or decades where we see very small incremental increases, but then there are also decades where we see very small incremental decreases in temperature. And if somebody were intellectually honest and really looking at a long span of data, what they're going to see are kind of these cyclic trends of warming and cooling. And bottom line is, as a scientist, is this something that I spend a great deal of time worrying about? Absolutely not.
To me, it is extremely arrogant for us to even think that we can use enough Aquanet hairspray to damage something that God himself has said, hey, he's going to be the one to destroy this thing. And so the short answer is, is there anything to it? No.
Do we see incremental, slight changes here and there? Absolutely.
Is it something you need to lay awake in bed at night worrying about? No.
[00:16:06] Speaker C: What do you make of the ocean levels rising? That is a big one. You mentioned it, right? Rising sea level. They will say the coastal flooding that has taken place in the Philippines, things like that. Lots of people died.
They would say, well, this is undeniable science, that the sea levels have risen. And it does seem to be like, if you google any of these stats, it's always going to show, of course, that we're all going to die. But back to 1950, they're saying that the temperature has risen by two degrees and that the sea levels are actually rising a little bit because of the melting glaciers. Everything else is there anything to the temperature level rising, making sea life uninhabitable basically for a lot, where we're going to have mass extinction of several species, things like that. What are your thoughts on that?
[00:16:55] Speaker B: So here's the problem with that. And most folks who are climatologists, they really understand this dilemma, and that is, if things were warming up, then there should actually be more snow because cooler air carries less moisture, which means less snowfall. Thus the glaciers would shrink during colder periods. And so if there really is this global warming trend, glaciers should be getting a whole lot bigger, more snowfall, more precipitation, and so basically more moisture, you're saying, right, yeah, they're arguing in the wrong direction. If they're saying, hey, we're getting a rising sea level, they should be saying, that proves that there's an ice age coming, because we've got more moisture in the air, more snow, et cetera. And that's not what we're seeing. It's actually the inverse.
Do I worry about rising sea levels? They've been saying that my entire life, and yet I look at places like Miami and other very much coastal, at sea level kind of places.
They've always been the same. They're the same. Things aren't changing.
I can remember very vividly in elementary school them talking about how the Statue of Liberty was going to be underwater one day and how we would be able to measure the massive effects of climate change on the Statue of Liberty as she was covered up. And yet, as everybody knows, guess what? Statue of Liberty has not been covered up.
[00:18:53] Speaker C: This is what's fascinating to me and Jack, I'll let you get in. Sorry, but what's fascinating to me is the fact that old people can get behind and. Sorry, I'm calling you old.
[00:19:02] Speaker A: I know.
Older.
[00:19:07] Speaker C: I'll add that little er. That little er on there. Older people, of course, they get the morons, like our age, we haven't been around, so it's like, well, these things could happen. You're going, boy, I'm 20, and it seems like it's gotten worse in my lifetime. And you're looking at it, sitting here going, okay. But I remember being in elementary school and my dad and anybody that's in that Gen X and maybe a little bit into the boomers, like on the latter end of the boomers, and the boomers as well. You remember being taught all of these things, and so you can look at it critically and go, yeah, but you've been scaring us since I was five, six, seven years old, none of those things have come true. I understand how you get us. What I struggle to understand is how they get people of the 45, 55, 60 generation who vividly remember being in school, being taught the Statue of Liberty is going to be underwater, going, okay, that didn't happen. That's what I don't understand, how you duped all of those people. My generation, sure, we're dumb. And public school has been indoctrinated for a long time. That generation is difficult because there's just.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: So much against know. You got to think about it, Joe. They've got pictures in textbooks with the sea level going over, know parts of North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida shrinking dramatically. Like they know for certain this is where the water is going to be.
And those images are exceptionally powerful in the heart and the mind of a kid. And so kid looking at that is going, man, if we don't do something, we're going to lose all of this stuff. And so suddenly, guess what? They've got warriors, little greenies that are willing to carry the banner and shame their parents if they don't recycle a bottle.
[00:20:54] Speaker D: I was just going to point out on this same note, one of the national parks in 2020, it might have been glacier, one of them where there's a bunch of ice, they had to go in and change out the signs because it said these aren't going to be here by 2020. And literally the government had to buy new signs to put up. And nice to me with that and the other examples you gave, Statue of Liberty, whatever, shouldn't that give you pause to Joe's point of, like, if you've been around long enough to see the claims fall flat on their face, then maybe you should rethink some things. If our models are that far off, if everything we claimed, I mean, Al Gore had, was it 2006 that an inconvenient truth came out? And I mean, claims that he made in that which is less than 20 years old have already flopped. I mean, just totally, totally wrong. But I mean, how many kids got shown that in school? How many people got indoctrinated with that? I mean, it was like the gold standard for this whole movement. And so there really is that question. But I wanted to switch gears a little bit.
I was reading and researching for this. There was an LA Times article from last year about Christianity and global warming and christians deny or climate change, I'm sorry, christians deny climate change because of shoddy theology. And essentially it's this idea of, well, the planet's not going to be around any longer and so we don't have to worry about this. That is not what we're saying. I want to say right now that we're not doing the whole, like, oh, well, the rapture is any minute premillennialism thing. We could be here another 10,000 years and we're still going to hold to this. But what is the christian duty on this? You brought up a little bit earlier about God and man's hubris here. But let's talk about that side of it of man's duty to the planet, what the Bible has to say about destruction and all that.
[00:22:41] Speaker B: So I personally feel like Genesis one teaches very much that we are to be good dominion keepers and that God has put man over everything.
So do I think that as his dominion keepers, we need to take care of this planet that he has given us? Absolutely.
Do I think that we should, if we have learned, hey, recycling helps or taking care of this particular chemical, getting it out of the environment helps, do I think we should do those things? Absolutely.
But do I think that man can destroy this amazing creation, that God has basically put a built in way to recycle and clean itself?
Folks, don't really think about the fact that just a few short years ago we were watching video of an oil spill out in the gulf and just seeing gallons and gallons of this oil leaking out into the ocean. Of course, all the environmentalists were just freaking out. Guess what? The oil is not there anymore. The reason it's not there anymore is because God created a system in which bacteria and the waves, everything that he has put forth, actually took care of it and reabsorbed it. It wasn't us going out and sprinkling dawn out there and detergent and washing the ducks and everything that fixed the problem. It was God's creation. And so, yes, I think we should be good dominion keepers. Yes, I think we should do what we can to help. But folks, there's a major problem when we're raising up kids who are more worried about mother Earth than they are father God. And that's where we are today.
[00:24:33] Speaker C: I think this whole thing is about alarmism.
We're not saying that there aren't changes in the environment. Again, as you said, I think they're cyclical. We're not saying that maybe the ocean is warming slightly. I think it's cyclical. But at the same time, it's not something to be alarmed about in terms of the long term approach because God has designed all of these things. That's really what we're saying. And the problem is in alarmism. We go out and we make a lot of changes that ultimately will be horrible. You look at, they think we're going to burn down the entire Amazon forest and what happens there? We're going to have to burn it down for wood.
Industrialization and capitalism, honestly, is what saves us from those things. Well, these are christian principles of us growing technologically and getting much better at yielding back to the land. And you look at when man gets in and tries to conserve all of these different areas, well, we're going to save all these species. We're going to save the animals. The animals are overrunning crops and killing tons of people because they're dying of starvation and famine because you didn't allow us to do what we've been doing for a long time.
[00:25:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:25:35] Speaker C: So they run in and the alarmism actually is killing way more people than this, than global warming because they're projecting that within ten years we're all dead or billions of people will die. Well, yeah, it's a fear based tactic and you look at that. So we're not saying that as you correctly said, plastic in the ocean can be a problem. Like don't litter in the ocean, don't litter at all. Obviously we want to take care of what God's given us. We want to be good dominion keepers of the earth. We're not saying anything otherwise. And I think that's the most unfair accusation we get as christians, is we don't care about the planet. We're not conservationists. And what I would throw out there is, you know, some of the best conservationists are hunters. You know, most hunters are very conservative. We take care of the land better than anybody else. I mean, all of or go green people, they gather in DC and you look at their rallies, trash everywhere. After like, hold on a second. If you're the go green people, wouldn't you be the ones to do it? Who are the people taking care of the environment legitimately? Most of the time it's conservatives and a lot of them are christians who recognize we have been given a gift by God. Let's take care of it. So, man, I hate those accusations from everybody else of you don't care about the planet. No, we're not falling prey to your alarmism that ultimately will kill way more people than if we just stay the course and took care of what God's placed us in charge of. Sorry, as my brief soapbox.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: No, that's a great point. I want to go back to the arrogance point that dad brought up a second ago. Just kind of the idea that through actions of human beings we can somehow destroy the creation that God gave us. And I agree. I think that's an incredibly arrogant position to take, especially for all the people that within the next 20 years, like Jack brought up about the glaciers being melted away in 2020, it's just an arrogant position to take. And it's something that I guess the question that I'll pose is, what do you guys and maybe not just data. I'll open up to everybody. What do you guys think a responsible Christian's duty is to the planet in the sense of how much should we be thinking about it?
Should christians recycle? Should we do x, y and z?
I've heard people bring up the worshiping the creature rather than the creator portion in romans one. When it comes to environmentalism and stuff like this, I think that can apply. I don't think that's exactly what Paul was talking about there, but I think it can, I guess, apply.
But what does, we got this question on here. What does being a good dominion keeper look like? What does a responsible Christian's actions toward the environment look like?
[00:28:14] Speaker B: I'll let you guys jump in.
[00:28:17] Speaker D: Well I wonder about recycling in that you read about like a lot of times it's a net energy loss and all that. On the other hand, I think there's a really good reason to avoid plastics as much as you can. I mean it's something we don't get rid of. I know they do the recycling thing but there's just so much waste and all of that and it's not good for you to eat out of plastics, to drink out of plastics, whatever. I'm not going to go down that rabbit hole right now, but things like that. This is a thing that mankind came up with for convenience that really isn't great for the planet we've been given. And so being conscious of, I mean you can't avoid it because look at the world that we're in. But being conscious of things like that to where you can I think is not a bad thing. Taking care of your own land, I mean gardening, things like that where you're cultivating what you have and it gives you a gratitude for it to treat it well. Animals, whether it's keeping animals I think you guys have had and maybe do again, I can't remember, have chickens and things like that. It really gives you a sense of what is good and what is healthy and what is needed and all that. And I really think that a lot of this ideology is anti human and some of the more extreme ones will talk about us like parasites.
The planet doesn't need us and it's going to be here after us and all that. Well no it's not.
And so by really grounding yourself in it, by being know again, taking care of your property well and things like that, you really see what's good and what's bad.
[00:29:51] Speaker C: I would add to that, appreciate nature. This is one of the things that I hate most about moving from Colorado. From Colorado I love so much about Tennessee. But you walk outside and you look at the mountains, and it would do two things. It take your breath away. The second thing is it humble you quite a bit. You step out in nature, and it's just awe inspiring. Man needs to deal with the dirt, deal with the clay. I mean, I think this goes all the way back to the very beginning. We need to be people of the earth, in my opinion, in terms of gardening, and, yeah, that speaks to me. Steps on my own toes. But gardening and everything that you just said, get out in nature, appreciate nature. And what you do when you appreciate nature is you realize, I'm not throwing that coke can out the window. I appreciate nature. I don't want to be looking at the coke can. I want to be in. I know I already mentioned littering. That's just one of many things I think we can do. If you're more intentional about how you view nature and how you take care of your own house. The biggest issue with this is it's slacktivism. So everybody gets on Twitter and wants to change who everybody else lives. It's like, take care of your own property. Take care of your own house. Make sure that you're gardening and landscaping and trying to do everything you can to help the earth function and grow at your house. If you can do that, then you can come talk to others about how they might be able to take care of things.
[00:31:05] Speaker B: I do appreciate what Jack was saying. Know, we don't need to just fill up this world with a bunch of plastics and things like that.
There are chemicals out there that obviously we don't need to just pour on the ground or put in a bomb and blow up in a city.
Here's things like DDT that we now know. Hey, that messes up more than just foliage. Agent orange obviously really messed up. Not just foliage, but people's dna. So there are things out there that I feel like we need to avoid or not just pollute the earth with.
But I think using common sense goes a long way in this whole argument. And I think, unfortunately, the vast majority of people have drunk the koolaid, and they are allowing some of these policymakers and activists to absolutely just wreck the way that we do normal things.
[00:32:08] Speaker D: Joe, you use that word, selectivism. I think that when we're talking about things you can do, meaningless gestures, like to look good, paper straws.
That's not doing anything. It's not helping at all. Again, I'm Mr. Anti plastic, but you don't need paper melting into your soda or whatever.
[00:32:27] Speaker B: Yeah, that one drives me crazy.
I'm going to use a paper straw.
[00:32:34] Speaker A: Drink out of my plastic starbucks cup.
[00:32:36] Speaker B: Right, exactly.
[00:32:38] Speaker D: Or that thing where they made a plastic lid for the Starbucks cup that was supposed to cut down, but it was more plastic actually, with the new one that they did to keep from using straw. I mean, this is the stupid thing is it's all gestures, it's all trying to impress somebody.
[00:32:53] Speaker A: On that note, this is the cynical version of me coming out. But I do think a lot of it, for people that are real vocal about this, is it makes them feel good about themselves in the sense of like, let me get all up in arms for the sake.
Virtue signaling, essentially. Let me get all up in arms for the sake of the planet. Because that makes me feel better about the stuff in my life that I don't have nailed down. It makes me feel better about my own moral unrighteousness, the fact that I'm for those in the world living however they want to, sexually carousing all those things. But hey, I take up for the planet and so that it makes them feel better about themselves. For those in the church, obviously, hopefully that they're not living the way that they want to. But I do think it can be similar in the sense that, again, makes them kind of have the moral high ground in a way of like, well, I take care of the planet, what did you do? Type of thing that I don't. You're muted, Joe, by the way. So I'll let you unmute and then you can jump back in.
[00:33:48] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a religion, is what I was saying. It's a religion.
And that's what people don't understand is they look at and go, oh, well, they're just either well meaning or, yeah, maybe they're alarmist. Like this is a religion and this goes back to them. Yeah, romans one, like you said, maybe it doesn't directly apply, but in a lot of ways it does, is they've set up what they find to be their God, which is the planet. They have a set of morals, set of laws and values. As you look at how a religion is constructed, that genuinely is the case. What drives me nuts is why are you brow beating Americans? We are the most conscious of this stuff in the history of the world. You look at China, you look at India, you look at a lot of other places around the world, the pollution know fish farms and everything else that we just. I can't believe we would do this. Go talk to them. Their plastics, everything they put in the ocean, all the issues that they have, and go talk to them. Once you fix them, you can come back and talk to us. But our zero carbon emissions does virtually zero compared to what they're putting out every single day. And yet we're paying millions and billions of dollars. And it's not just about the money, it is for them, but we're paying billions of dollars to try to offset things that within one day, an entire year of us offsetting it is done. So don't come brow beat me. Go deal with the people that are actually doing this.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: And we've totally tiptoed around what I consider to be the most idiotic part of this whole discussion. And that is they're claiming co2 levels. If we increase it, we're going to kill everything. And doomsday folks, let me just take you back to elementary school when you learned that plants take in co2, they use co2 to grow, they give off oxygen. So if by chance we were actually producing more co2, you know what we would have? We'd have healthier plants that would produce more oxygen.
Their whole argument is ridiculous. It's stupid. And it all goes back to what Joe was saying originally. That is money. This thing is a massive funnel for money.
[00:36:03] Speaker D: I want to steer this to two things before we get out of here. And it's partially that the fear based media thing will brought up every few years, or there's just a new thing to be afraid about, to be mad about. And then more than anything, I want you to get a little more into this thing of them whipping up young people into foot soldiers for it. I mean, this thing where you got these kids, teenagers over there in Europe, trying to destroy priceless paintings, you got the thing where they're gluing themselves to the road to protest climate change. I mean, just these ridiculous things. And it's like, how do you get somebody that feverishly angry about this to.
[00:36:44] Speaker C: Get to do that?
[00:36:45] Speaker D: And I don't know the implications of that generationally and what christian parents need to be doing and essentially how you can channel that kind of energy for activism into good things. But let's start with the fear based media thing.
Just christian discernment, I guess. Talk about that a little bit.
[00:37:05] Speaker B: Yeah, if you stop and look at what's going on in mainstream media, these two are really kind of tied together. Jack, if you start teaching a kindergartner that, hey, we're destroying the world, and you teach them that for twelve years, and then you also, at the same time, you're simultaneously feeding them all this media that is fear driven, that, hey, look at what we're doing. Look at how this is affecting this. Then, yeah, what you're going to get out of that equation is warriors and activists who are angry at normal people who don't actually have a major stake in the game. And so that's what we're seeing. We're seeing the media feed this frenzy so that more policies will be passed, so that know issues will happen, more money going into research, and it's all built on a house of cards, the whole thing. I mean, when you look at actual data, it's absolutely ridiculous. I know, Joe, you've read a book about some of the craziness of what's going on.
You can't get around the fact that the data is not there. In 2018, there was a study that was actually released. It's actually published in Nature magazine by researchers from Princeton and University of California, San Diego. And in that particular study, they were saying, hey, we've been wrong, that the real model shows the oceans are retaining 60% more warming, or they're showing 60% more warming than previously thought. And so what did they do? They immediately sounded the alarms. They basically said, hey, this study has implications for policy changes.
And every news media got onto it and just hammered it until a few months later when they discovered, oops, there was a literal, simple math error in their results, totally invalidated their whole study, to the point that nature magazine actually had to retract this article, which is a pretty big shame game in the science field.
But the damage had already been done. They had gotten the message out there. And this kind of thing you can point to over and over. Oops. Math error, oops. We selected data that really gave us the thing we wanted, even though we got rid of data points that may have shown a more equilibrium rather than warming.
[00:40:03] Speaker D: Well, and they always shout the conclusion and whisper the retraction. I mean, it's just ridiculous. And why I wanted us to talk about this is, I think too many christians are way too deferential to the media and to science. And it's things like this that it's like, look, pay attention. The bias, the agenda is obvious.
You've got to realize, don't fall for this stuff. Be incredibly skeptical. And I've seen stuff journalists within the church, even preachers within the church, say, I just don't know why christians are so untrusting of journalism.
This is why, this is why they lie all the time. They don't correct themselves with the same kind of energy that they lie. I mean, they get away with this stuff. And it's okay for christians not to trust them. In fact, it's important that christians have a skeptical eye towards this stuff and you're viewed as a bad guy if you do. No, I think we really need to be teaching that to christians of pay attention. Just start with skepticism and then see if they can prove themselves right.
[00:40:59] Speaker C: Because these lies are not know, these are big deals. And I don't even know if this is the same one. This is the book, Brad, that you had referenced. For those that are watching, they already saw it. Apocalypse never from Michael Schellenberger. Fantastic book. He really breaks down like, almost every part of their agenda, whether that be from whales and I mean everything. He goes into everything, wind turbines and whatnot. But he has one 2019 report that they had 150 leading international experts on behalf of 50 governments in 1500 page report saying that it shows earth could lose 40% of all amphibians, 30% of marine mammals, 25% of mammals, and 20% of reptiles. And this is all in pretty quick succession. They said that same thing. Whoops. We were off on our model. So again, on the lie.
That's a really big lie. Imagine you're reading this. You open the New York Times or you open something nature magazine, right? Like you said, a journal. You're opening something that you expect to be prestigious. You expect to be 1500 page report that they're reporting on and 150 leading experts on this, and we're going to lose 40% of all amphibians. And how quickly, of course, you're going to get alarmed. But here's my question. Getting back to your question, Jack, on like, okay, what about how do we harness this almost for Christianity? But it's almost the carrot or the stick that I struggle with.
We have the carrot, right? We have the reward of heaven. We're looking toward being more christlike. It's a very positive, driven reward as to why we do what we do. We want to take care of the planet because God's given us something amazing. And we want to make sure that we're conservationists as much as possible in making sure we're taking care of that. Theirs is all fear based. It's a stick. And you're always going to get more people fired up from a stick. Now, is it sustainable in the long term? No. We see this in parenting. You beat your kids, they'll do what you want them to, but they're lifelong effects of, like, that's not good. And I think that's what we're seeing here is the stick is taking place where it's fear, fear, fear, fear. You're going to run people ragged on this. And I think this is why they recruit new army members, so to speak, at a young age, is it keeps the young generation rabid, where by the time they hit your age, as you're talking, Brad, like 45, 50, 55 years old, they're going, I've seen this one, so maybe they're not near the foot soldiers that they were. There's a lot of people that still believe it, and I'm still shocked by that at your age, where again, they're looking at it going, you've been telling me this since I was five and none of these things have happened. But again, I think that's why they come for the youth is they continue to just feed this fear and people take it. My question to that. Sorry, long response to get to this question, can we as christians ever whip up that level of not fear per se, but like a desire to follow Christ and such?
[00:43:47] Speaker B: That's a great question. And realistically, it shows the amount of indoctrination that they are able to do versus how little Christianity is teaching.
Because there is going to be a global warming when Jesus comes back. Okay? And if kids want to get fired up about something, if we want our kids out there being activists, it ought to be over the fact that Jesus is real. Jesus is coming back. And, hey, by the way, a lot of you guys are going to hell and it's going to be a really hot place, and you're going to be worried about some serious warming at that point. Can you imagine if we put forth the effort to teach our kids the truth about Christ, heaven and hell starting in kindergarten, just like they do go all the way through 12th grade, so that they're warriors for him rather than warriors for mother nature. Man, talk about turning the tables and actually seeing a total paradigm shift. That would be awesome.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: This is where I also see the importance of not just teaching them kind of, well, what's coming next, which we obviously should the afterlife, heaven, and striving for that, but also teaching them how to live on this earth. Because that does blend the view of like, this is how a Christian can handle environmentalism. This is how a Christian can teach their children about taking care of the planet. You don't want to have the well, it's all going to burn, so do whatever you want mentality anyway. You don't want to have that mentality. And so, you know, going right along with what you said there, dad, about making sure, and what you said, joe, about kind of whipping them up into a frenzy almost for the sake of following Christ, I think we have to include in that this is the optimal way that you live in the world. You do take dominion in everything that you do in your job, your marriage, with your kids, but also, like we've been saying for the whole episode in nature garden, grow some of your own food. And just really teaching them, God meant for us to use this earth and take dominion over this earth for our own good. This is. We talked before about how so many of you. Well, this world is not my home, so it doesn't really matter. This world is not our eternal home, but it is our home right now. And so there are ways that we need to live in the world. There are ways that we can take care of what God has given us. And I think teaching kids that, because, again, if society is going to try to disciple them into this. Got to save the planet. Got to save the planet. Got to save the planet.
I guess my overall point is we need to teach them the why, not just the what. We need to teach them why it matters that. Sure. It matters that we don't litter and throw plastic in the ocean.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: It matters that for this reason, and making sure that they understand a lot of that does have to do with living in this world. And I think if we make everything too heaven focused, which sounds bad for me to say, but if we make everything too heaven focused, then they can just say, oh, okay, well, I guess it doesn't matter how I treat this rental home. So to that, God has given us. No, we need to teach them, this is how you need to live in the world, be a conservationist, get out in nature, all these things. I think that's what's missing in a lot of christian homes.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: And let me jump back in on that and kind of circle back around to question.
I know Joe is probably familiar with Josh McDowell's big study on pornography. He did the largest study that's ever been conducted, and in that study, he asked teens and young adults to rank different behaviors as how wrong they were.
Things like stealing, cheating on a spouse, they were way up there.
Interestingly, pornography came in at 32%. 32% said viewing pornography was wrong. But here's what I want you to think about, and here's what I want parents to just wake up and get a clue about. So 32% of the kids out there say viewing porn is wrong, 56% say not recycling is wrong. So in their minds, not recycling, not being green, is actually worse than viewing pornography. That's where they're winning this battle. And that's why this should matter to every christian parent out there.
[00:48:01] Speaker C: And let me say this, this is where we as christians, to Jack's point of discernment, to your point on the parents, we have to speak up against climate change. Well, does it really matter? Yes, it does. For this purpose, the truth matters. The truth matters. And anytime where we shy away from the truth and we go, look, gospel things, it's not really a gospel thing. You have this nonsense that comes in where now we have an entire generation where more than one in two kids think that it's a sin basically to not recycle more than pornography.
That's the problem with us kind of going quiet on these things and just kind of this gospel only approach. You need to be talking to your kids about the hoax that this is. You need to be waking up from it. Interestingly, when we had a fear based tactic in the church that we called the purity culture movement, everybody came out of it and they were just the worst thing of all time. And it's so traumatic. Where is that for this? You get whipped into a frenzy and in your go, that was a hoax. Well, okay, I guess it's not that big a deal. Like, you people are leaving the church because of the fear based purity culture movement. And then when they did the same thing and pull the wool over your eyes with this, it's kind of like, well, what's done is done. Where's that same level of forgiveness? You know what I mean?
[00:49:16] Speaker D: We need to come literally that list the weather as a reason for their depression, right?
[00:49:21] Speaker C: It's unbelievable. It is unbelievable.
This is why we have to stand up and speak out against these things. This is why we're doing this podcast is enough, is enough. Everything matters. And the truth matters. Ultimately, the truth matters here. Everything matters. When it comes to God's creation of where christians ought to be taking dominion, this is one of those areas. So if you're looking at it going, why are you doing an episode on this for this reason? Because we have half of our kids thinking that recycling is wrong and only 36% or whatever, 34 36% of kids are saying that pornography is wrong. As you said. Wake up, wake up. We have to take a stand against these things and realize the truth on these matters. It matters. It matters. And so teach your kids, stand up against the ridiculous alarmism of what's taking place and realize that God's in control of all. We shouldn't give into the fear, but we also shouldn't be afraid of standing up and speaking out against this ridiculousness.
[00:50:14] Speaker D: Absolutely. I think it's a pretty good place to wrap. I want to thank Brad for being here with us. Get your comments in. We'll have a deep end on this as well. And I don't know, I have no idea how this one's going to be received, so I'm pretty interested to see what comes out of that.
But yeah, again, I'll go ahead. Brad, did you have something?
[00:50:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I was just going to leave all your viewers with one verse to chew on. And that is Genesis, chapter eight, verse 22 says, while the earth remains seed, time and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night, shall not cease. That was a promise from God to Noah. And that promise is still very valid today, folks. We're not going to do something that's going to change that particular promise.
Yeah, there's going to be global warming when Jesus comes back. But until then, seed time, harvest day and night, cold winter. They're not going to change. They shall not cease. Thanks.
[00:51:09] Speaker D: That's a great point. All right, we'll talk to you guys next week.
