The Tribune

EDITOR, The Tribune.

To Prime Minister Philip Brave Davis, climate change and global warming are both massive issues worth addressing. True to his word to the Bahamian people, Davis addressed this issue at the recent CARICOM Heads of Government Meeting in Belize, although I cannot recall climate change being front and centre in the Progressive Liberal Party’s (PLP) campaign platform in 2021. In fact, I cannot say if the subject was addressed at all on the campaign trail. I stand to be corrected. However, I am not too certain how important climate change is to the average Bahamian, who is mainly concerned about skyrocketing food, medicine and gas prices, in addition to the high cost of utilities, rent and mortgage. Moreover, how many Bahamians that voted in 2021 did so with climate change as a motivating factor? The ongoing subject of climate change is for wealthy and famous people like Bill Gates, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jeff Bezos, Prince Charles, Katy Perry and former US Vice President Al Gore. The wealth of these people affords them the luxury of addressing mundane issues that is of little relevance to John Q Public.

Gore, who has a net worth of $300 million, claims to live a carbon-free lifestyle. His 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, is mainly responsible for the hysteria over global warming among celebrities and other wealthy elitists. According to Gore, human activity is mainly responsible for the huge amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which has led to global warming. Gore and other climate change activists are arguing that there is strong scientific consensus (among evolutionary scientists) for this theory, which says that, left unchecked, global warming will lead to a catastrophic deluge similar to Noah’s Flood in Genesis chapters 6-9, with ice caps and glaciers melting away in the North and South Poles; rising sea level; the expansion of deserts; more killer cyclones; species extinction and the threat of pestilence. Gore and the global warming camp want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and to reduce tree harvesting. They argue that rain forests are the largest reservoir for storing carbon dioxide and generating oxygen, according to evangelical science writer Rod Martin. In an ideal world for these people, the oil and lumber industries would come to an abrupt end. According to a 2010 Answers Research Journal article titled A Proposed Bible-Science Perspective on Global Warming by the aforementioned Rod Martin: “Global warming advocates are concerned that certain “greenhouse gases” (GHG), principally CO2, are being generated by mankind in quantities sufficient to adversely affect the long-term climate of the earth. They claim that since the start of the industrial revolution, the burning of fossil fuels has unnaturally increased the atmospheric content of CO2. This in turn is retarding the earth’s emission of long-wave radiation and artificially increasing the earth’s surface temperature. This is called the GHG.”

According to a study done by Oxfam, the richest one percent of the world’s population will account for twice as much carbon pollution as 3.1 billion poor people. The goal of global warming elites is to cut emissions by 97 percent among the wealthy, in order to keep global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius-- a goal that was promised in the 2015 Paris Agreement. And according to the Institute for European Environmental Policy and the Stockholm Environment Institute, wealthy Chinese are causing the most carbon dioxide pollution with wealthy Americans coming in second. On the other hand, the poorest emit less than one ton of carbon annually, which would include many Bahamians, if this data is indeed accurate. According to Worldometer, The Bahamas ranks 134 out of 209 countries regarding carbon emissions, with just over 4.4 million tons. Its CARICOM ally, Trinidad and Tobago, is ranked 72 with 34.974 million tons. Trinidad and Tobago has a lucrative oil industry. Jamaica is 107 with 8.9 million tons. Anguilla is ranked 205 with just over 30,000 tons.

China emits over 10.4 billion tons while the US emits a little more than five billion tons of carbon. In the grand scheme of things, Davis is prioritising a matter that should really only concern the industrialized nations, such as the aforementioned nations, along with India, Russia, Japan, Germany, Canada, Iran, South Korea and Indonesia, to list a few. Granted, The Bahamas has had to contend with the major Hurricanes Francis, Jeanne, Matthew, Irma and Dorian in recent years. But in light of this country’s carbon dioxide emissions as compared to the US and China, Davis’ perceived preoccupation with climate change seems to be disproportionate at best. There are far more important issues in The Bahamas that must be tackled. Maybe the PLP is feeling subtle pressure from the Biden administration and the United Nations’ 1997 Kyoto Protocol to act. President Joe Biden participated in the COP26 Climate Change Summit in Glasgow in late 2021. Also in attendance at COP26 were British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison, Al Gore; former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Bill Gates, French President Emmanuel Macron, Prince Charles, Jeff Bezos and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Along with Bezos’ $65 million Gulf Stream jet, some 400 private planes flew into Glasgow and Edinburgh airports ahead of the summit, which raised the ire of global warming deniers and environmentalists alike. Contrary to global warming doomsday prophets, the Earth will not be destroyed by a global flood. Genesis 8:21-22 and 9:11-15 says that “the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.”

Furthermore, climate change proponents seem to be ignorant of biblical eschatology, which states in 2 Peter 3:10 that the Earth shall be burned up. Ecclesiastes 1:4 says that the Earth will abide forever, which would then mean that the fiery judgment Peter alluded to will serve as a purification process that will not completely incinerate the planet (Romans 8:20-22 and Revelation 21:1). This can explain why God promised that the meek shall inherit the Earth, while the wicked will be permanently expelled on Judgment Day (Psalm 37:9-11). It is indeed ironic that Davis is concerned about the Earth that will forever outlast his PLP and the opposition Free National Movement (FNM). Both parties will be done away with in God’s own timing. Consequently, Davis need not worry about the Earth. It is in good hands. I can understand the paranoia of American and British atheistic evolutionists. But not a Bahamian theist such as Mr. Davis or the American Baptist Gore, who is, oddly enough, an evolutionist. For the atheistic evolutionist, however, the here and now is all he has.

And finally, God mandated that man should have dominion over the Earth and its resources and other inhabitants (Genesis 1:28). What I gather from global warming advocates is that the Earth comes before man, while animal rights activists place animals ahead of man. Both are wrong. Modern science was birth in the Medieval church in Europe. Yet the secular scientific community has all but monopolised it; dictating the narrative in the process. As an evangelical, I must confess that I am a Young Earth Creationist. If the Earth is 4.5 billion years-old, according to the secular scientific community, that wouldn’t rattle my faith in God and the Bible. In fact, I tend to agree with Francis Schaeffer that Yahweh may have created the Earth in an advanced state. Moreover, the apparent age and decay of Earth is largely due to the catastrophic Fall of Genesis 3. In any event, I mentioned the Earth’s age because none of us was here hundreds of years ago when the planet may have experienced climate change. After all, science is based on observation. My point is this: the current global warming situation could very well be cyclical. To Davis, there is no consensus among scientists concerning global warming, as confidently asserted by Gore. I believe Gore and Co are simply over exaggerating the situation.

In closing, I wish to reiterate to our Bahamian leader that both the PLP and FNM will pass away; but planet Earth -- the planet that he and other global warming activists are so concerned about -- will abide forevermore.

KEVIN EVANS

Freeport, Grand Bahama

March 7, 2022.