Part One: The Great Climate Debate
Lesson Overview
The Great Climate Debate with Charles Clough
This standalone message is given by Charles Clough, a meteorologist with a master’s degree in atmospheric science and seminary training, who spent years working with the Air Force, the Army, and the Department of Defense on atmospheric effects. He addresses the climate debate on two levels, the underlying worldview and the science itself. Use this overview to review the key points after watching the full video.
Environmentalism as a Worldview
Clough argues that environmentalism is the most comprehensive competitor to the biblical worldview today, because it touches economics, politics, regulation, and science all at once. He frames the contrast around three questions every worldview must answer.
First, what is reality? Genesis 1:1 establishes the creator-creature distinction, which Clough calls the most fundamental fact in Scripture. He summarizes the contrast memorably: paganism is ultimate one-ism, in which nature is everything and humans are simply part of it, while the Bible is ultimate two-ism, in which humanity is made in God’s image and is distinct from animals, plants, and rocks.
Second, does God speak? In Scripture God creates by speaking and communicates with humanity in language we can understand. In the pagan view there is no personal Creator addressing us, so knowledge comes through intuition and subjective impression rather than verbal revelation. This also bears on whether absolute truth exists.
Third, what ought I to do? Clough argues ethics depends on the first two answers. If there is a God-given hierarchy in creation, human beings carry greater value than plants and animals. If all is one, then plants, animals, and people hold equivalent standing. He cites European regulations concerning the treatment of plants as an outworking of that logic, and argues it also underlies proposals for drastic population reduction, since on that view humanity is the enemy of nature.
Examining the Slogans
Clough then works through phrases commonly heard in public discussion, arguing that each functions as a conclusion offered without an argument.
On “the science is settled,” he recalls the claim being made during a 2008 vice-presidential debate and notes that the state climatologist of that senator’s own state disagreed. His broader point is that science is never settled, since it remains open to the next discovery.
On “climate change is the number one threat to humanity,” he cites a presidential address at the Coast Guard Academy and an accompanying paper attributing the Syrian conflict partly to drought and human-caused climate forcing.
On the widely cited claim that ninety-seven percent of scientists agree, he criticizes the methodology of the 2013 study behind the figure, arguing the surveyed literature included papers only loosely related to the question. His deeper objection is that consensus is not how science works: science is settled by facts and tested hypotheses, not by a poll.
He offers two warning signs that a consensus may be artificial: heavy reliance on personal attacks rather than engagement with arguments, and difficulty publishing dissenting research.
What Is Actually Being Disputed
Clough is careful to define the disagreement precisely. He does not deny that climate changes, and says no serious skeptic does. Climate has always changed. What he disputes is whether human fossil fuel use is the primary cause of present change. The change is the effect; the argument is over the cause.
Why Evangelicals Are a Target
He notes that evangelicals form a substantial voting bloc and describes efforts to shift their views. He points to an evangelical environmental organization that he says receives funding from outside the Christian community, and to a scientific association that obtained foundation money to establish science courses in seminaries. His summary of that reasoning is that since evangelicals are decentralized with no central bureaucracy to persuade, the strategy is to influence the pulpits.
A Historical Survey of Climate
The heart of the science section is a walk through recorded climate history.
From roughly 200 BC to 500 AD there was a warm period, evidenced by the altitude at which crops such as olives were planted. This coincided with the flourishing of Rome, so the warmth was beneficial rather than catastrophic.
From about 500 to 900 AD came cooling, coinciding with Rome’s decline and the early medieval period. Clough explains the mechanism: cooling shortens the growing season, which reduces food supply, which weakens immune systems and increases disease.
From about 900 to 1350 came the Medieval Warm Period, during which the great cathedrals were built, European population rose substantially, and Norse settlers established farms in Greenland where such settlement is not possible today.
From about 1350 to 1850 came the Little Ice Age, when the Thames froze solidly enough for fairs to be held on the ice, and when ice choked the Delaware River in the familiar images of Washington’s crossing.
His key observation is that the warming which followed began around 1850, before widespread fossil fuel use. If comparable changes occurred without fossil fuels, he argues, we cannot simply assume fossil fuels are the primary driver now.
The Complexity of the Atmosphere
Clough spends considerable time on why he believes confident conclusions are premature.
On carbon dioxide itself, he grants that it causes warming, estimating that doubling it would raise temperatures somewhat over one degree Celsius, which he does not consider catastrophic. The alarming projections, he says, depend on models in which that modest warming is amplified by water vapor, which is a far stronger greenhouse gas. But water exists in three states, and every change of state involves heat exchange, making the thermodynamics extremely complex. Clouds compound the difficulty, since low clouds shade and cool while high clouds trap outgoing radiation and warm.
He notes that global cloud observation depends on satellites, giving a relatively short record, and that upper-air balloon measurements began only after the Second World War and were concentrated over developed nations rather than oceans or less developed regions, so the data sets are not uniform.
He also cites the UN panel’s own detailed chapters, which he distinguishes from the executive summary that journalists and policymakers actually read, noting the summary is prepared by officials rather than the scientists. From those chapters he quotes findings of no significant observed trend in global tropical cyclone frequency over the past century and low confidence regarding changes in the intensity of extratropical storms. He similarly notes that the same reports attribute Arctic sea ice loss to human forcing while expressing low confidence in understanding the simultaneous increase in Antarctic sea ice.
His conclusion is that models containing millions of variables are not a sufficient basis for sweeping policy, and he notes that the acknowledged limits of ordinary weather forecasting illustrate how difficult atmospheric physics really is.
The Biblical Ground for Confidence
Clough closes the scientific portion theologically. Science is possible at all, he argues, because God created an ordered universe that behaves consistently; if nature were erratic, no equation could describe it.
He then points to Genesis 8 and 9, where after the flood God enters into what the Hebrew calls a berith, a covenant or contract, with humanity and with all air-breathing creatures. A contract creates a trust relationship between the parties. Clough reads this as God placing stable constraints on the earth’s geophysical system. That does not license abusing creation, but it does mean believers need not panic that the system will spiral out of control.
He ends with a warning about what is sometimes called post-normal science, meaning science made subservient to policy goals, in which findings that conflict with the desired policy are excluded.
From the Question Time
Asked how to prepare young people, Clough recommends genuinely rigorous science education rather than the survey-level environmental courses many students take, and argues the Bible itself supplies the foundation for the scientific method. He cites Proverbs 25:2, that it is the glory of God to conceal a matter and the glory of kings to search it out, describing science as a kind of divine hide-and-seek in which discovery should be an act of worship.
He also offers four questions he encourages students to ask any teacher making a confident claim: How do you know that to be true? Where did you get your information? May I see your bibliography? And, on ultimate matters, what if you are wrong?
For further reading he points to his own free lecture series at bibleframework.com and to organizations and researchers working on the skeptical side of the question.
Key Terms
Creator-creature distinction: the biblical division between God and everything He made, which Clough calls foundational.
One-ism and two-ism: his shorthand for the pagan view that all is one nature versus the biblical view of Creator and creation.
Anthropogenic: caused by human activity, the specific claim under dispute.
Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age: historical climate swings Clough cites as occurring before fossil fuel use.
Berith: the Hebrew word for covenant or contract, used of God’s promise in Genesis 8 and 9.
Post-normal science: research conducted in service of predetermined policy goals.
Verses to Know
Genesis 1:1, in the beginning God created, establishing the creator-creature distinction. Genesis 8:21-22 and 9:8-17, God’s covenant with the earth and every living creature. Proverbs 25:2, the glory of kings is to search out a matter.
Takeaway
Clough argues that the real question is not whether climate changes, since it always has, but whether human activity is the primary cause, and that the underlying dispute is a worldview question about whether humanity is simply part of nature or is made in the image of a God who has bound Himself by covenant to sustain the earth.