Global Warming Has Slowed: Is This Good News?

This falls under the “This is not good news, but at least it’s not really bad news” category. Some of the latest research finds that global warming has slowed in the last ten years or so. Apparently the ever increasing temperatures of the nineties have leveled off, at least for a while. No one knows the cause of this slow down. The sun’s activity may have changed, or a lot of that heat may have gone into the ocean. It could very well be a combination of factors.

            This seems to be giving us a bit more breathing room to mitigate carbon emissions and make adaptations to warmer weather and higher sea levels. On the other hand, this leveling off could be temporary, and warming could resume to that rate that we experienced in the nineties. Or, in a worse case scenario, the earth could experience a “rubber band” effect, in which the present period of relatively slow warming gives way to accelerated warming as the atmosphere catches up to what has been predicted.

             The link where I found this news is from Scientific American, a publication that understands that science is complex and often comes to conclusions and observations that cannot fit into a simplistic model. It will be interesting to see how this discovery might play out in the popular press and the “think tanks” that do the PR work for energy companies and big business. I imagine that the narratives that these folks will give to this scientific work may vary from “Scientists Find That Global Warming Has Stopped” to “Climate Scientists Still Confused As Ever.”

            And that could be considered part of the “Bad News” of this story.

OK, Temperatures are rising more slowly. It's still hard to argue with the science. graph from NOAA

Poll Finds Young Clergy Bucking Trend, Don't Believe in Global Warming as Their Peers Do

The results of a poll conducted by LifeWay Christian Resources, a Southern Baptist organization that specializes in Bibles, church literature, books, and music, finds that most pastors don’t believe in global warming.

            “I believe global warming is real and man-made,” was affirmed by 43 percent of pastors, a figure up from 36 percent in 2010 but lower than the 47 percent of respondents in 2008. The majority of pastors, 54 percent, disagreed with the statement. The number of those disagreeing with the statement was higher than in 2008 (48 percent). That figure was 60 percent in 2010.

            The demographics of the poll are unsurprising. GOP pastors denied global warming at a far greater rate than those identifying as Democrats (49 percent to five percent). Northeast pastors believe in global warming at a greater rate than their southern counterparts. Pastors in larger cities acknowledge global warming at a greater rate than pastors form small towns. Lutheran, Methodist, and other mainline Protestant ministers believe in global warming at a greater rate than Evangelical preachers.

            The survey results I found to be a bit surprising is that older pastors believe in global warming at a greater rate than younger pastors. The survey found that 32 percent of pastors 65 years and older believed in man-made global warming, while 20 percent of pastors 45-54 and 19 percent of the pastors between the ages of 18 and 44 believe in global warming.

            What is going on here? A Gallup poll on global warming from a year ago found that younger people are more worried about global warming than older folks. A PewResearch poll in 2009 found similar results. It seems that young pastors are bucking a generational trend.

            We can take part in a lot of armchair speculation here. The young persons going into the clergy, do they have a more conservative mindset than their peers? Is the training now being offered in seminaries and bible colleges shaping the worldview of their students as they train them in the spiritual guidance of their congregations? We can’t tell from the statistics of the poll, but this is a curious finding.