"Global warming is a reality… The repercussions of melting glaciers, disruptions in the Gulf Stream and record heat waves edge toward the apocalyptic: floods, pestilence, hurricanes, droughts… Almost all of the twenty hottest years on record have occurred since the 1980s." (Scientific American, September 2006, p. 24)

Investigator's editor owned two vacant allotments on Kangaroo Island, one barely above high-tide level, the other higher up. I advised, "Sell the low-lying one." My advice was guided by Bible prophecy.

The Bible similarly guided a land-purchase I made in 1971. The area was low-lying but I picked the most elevated property available.

In Investigator 60 & 68 I interpreted several Bible passages as predicting the flooding of the world's coasts by rising ocean levels. I return now to one passage for additional comment.

Jesus said:

And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting with fear and with fore-boding of what is coming on the world… (Luke 21:25)

In 1971 I took this literally. Jesus' prophecy had to guide the Church through at least 2,000 years. Its importance, therefore, demanded literal, plain language.

Some commentators quote Isaiah – "the wicked are like the tossing sea" – and claim that by "sea and waves" Jesus meant wicked people. However, Jesus' prophecy doesn't mention Isaiah. In the Gospels "sea" is always literal and mostly means the Sea of Galilee. In Luke 21 the sea causes "distress of nations" and so must mean the "sea" everywhere, not just in Galilee.
 

In 1971 I read Wilderness and Plenty wherein Sir Frank Fraser Darling refers to rising carbon dioxide levels warming the climate:

The warming oceans and atmosphere would mean a recession of the polar ice caps. The Greenland ice is 9000 feet thick, so if that were to melt, the level of the oceans would rise con-siderably. Our ports would go under quite literally, and with them vast tracts of fertile soil. What happens then to the swarming human population? (p. 63)

In 1973 I retained a news report about "Crazy Weather World-wide" thinking it might be early evidence of things to come. (The News, January 8, 1973)

In 1984 I wrote a 9000-word university essay on "Air pollution and the World's Climate. Several pages speculated about the icecaps:

Another circumstance, potentially so important as to place qualifications on everything discussed hitherto, is the possible instability of the West Antarctic Icesheet. An area of 3,000,000 km² is held in place by submerged mountain ranges in some areas at levels below 1km. Instability is evidenced by the generally concave surface, basal melting and decreasing glacial area (Hughes, 1973). Changes in the ice volume, if for example temperatures rose 4^oC, could lead to surges in the ice followed by disintegration and collapse into the surrounding oceans. Schneider and Chen (1980) estimated that a potential 7.6 metre ocean level rise would inundate 2.1% of the USA land area ousting 16 million people. If the collapse occurred quickly, say 1-week, the destruction of coastal cities and harbours by tsunamis would be comparable to damage wrought by a nuclear war…

I wrote a page on "God and the Greenhouse" for Investigator 6 and more in #60 and #68.
 

Parts of Antarctica have warmed 4.5^oC in 50 years. Temperature records are being broken the world over. Other indicators of climate change include:

• North America's Lake Superior is dropping and has warmed by 2.5^oC since 1979. (New Scientist, 2 June, 2007, pp 8-9)

• Rapid melting of Arctic Ice has opened the north west sea route from Europe to Asia decades earlier than scientists expected. (The Australian, September 17, 2007)

• Air temperature over Antarctica has increased 0.5-0.7^oC per decade for 30 years and extends 10 kilometres into the tropos-phere: "it is the largest warming of its kind found anywhere on Earth…" (New Scientist, 8 April, 2006, p. 7)

• Earth's cloud cover has increased so that 3% more sunlight is now reflected than in 1985-2000. The International Satellite Cloud Climatology Project showed that: "the proportion of high-level cloud to low cloud has been climbing. Low-lying clouds help cool the Earth by reflecting sunlight, while high clouds act predomi-nantly as blankets, trapping heat. So although the total cover has increased, the change in the type of cover has compensated, allowing temperatures to rise…" (New Scientist January 28, 2006, p. 5)

• Satellite measurements of gravity-changes confirm the Antarctic ice sheet is shrinking. From 2002 to 2005 it shrank by 150 cubic kilometres annually which contributed 0.4 millimetres to global sea-level rise yearly. (New Scientist, 11 March, 2006, page 18)

• Fresh-water input from melting Greenland ice is changing the Atlantic Ocean: "…oceanographers reported a sudden and shocking slowdown in the currents of the North Atlantic, a critical part of the vast system of ocean circulation that influences temperatures and weather around the world." (New Scientist, 15 April, 2006, p. 43)

The Old Testament links wide-scale rejection of God to drought. We may study that another time but, for the present, note that drought is also a consequence of global warming:

In a joint Climate Change Report (2007) the CSIRO and the Bureau of Meteorology estimated that Australia's average temperatures may rise 3.4^oC by 2070, and had risen 0.9^oC since 1950.
 

The water "crisis" in southeastern Australian cities has been imposed by cash-hungry state govern-ments that failed to adequately plan for the risk of a changing climate. (The Australian, November 23, 2006, p. 4)

In 2006 the River Murray had its lowest inflow on record:

The nation's food bowl, the Murray-Darling basin, does not have enough water in the system to keep 150,000ha of citrus, apples, pears, apricots, plums, cherries, table grapes and wine-grapes alive… We are facing a disaster unprecedented in Australian history. (The Weekend Australian, September 15-16, 2007, p. 33)

Several billion-dollar desalination plants have been built with more planned. With sea levels rising, one hopes they won't be submerged in a few decades!

The Sunday Mail reported:

The world's oasis areas are being wiped off the map because of drought and growing deserts, experts from Europe and Africa told a conference in Morocco yesterday. (September 17, 2006, p. 44)

New Scientist reported that climate models of rainfall predict substantial drying from the equator to 30^o north, which includes North Africa, India, south-east Asia, Mexico and northern South America.

It already contains some of the world's driest areas, such as Africa's Sahara desert. Regions further to the south, including the rain-forests of central Africa and South America, have begun to get increased rainfall and will get wetter… there will also be a significant drying of areas in the northern subtropics, including the US south-east and the Mediterranean. Apart from the overall trends…there will be significant increase in both floods and droughts in all regions. (July 28, 2007, p. 11)

India can expect huge floods as Himalayan ice melts followed by perpetual drought when the ice is gone and no longer feeds the rivers.

According to Jacques Diouf, director-general of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, rising prices for fuel and basic foods such as wheat, corn and milk had the "potential for social tension, leading to … political problems."

Mr Diouf said food prices would continue to increase because of strong demand from developing countries, a rising global population, more frequent floods and droughts caused by climate change and the biofuel industry's appetite for grains... (The Weekend Australian, September 8-9, 2007, p. 38)

Fresh water will become a precious commodity, sparking wars to obtain it. The International Crisis Group based in Brussels monitors regions where conflict is brewing:

And as of this month, it will start talking about whether to include another variable in its analysis: climate change. The discussion comes after a wave of interest in the link between climate change and conflict. Last month, a group of retired US admirals and generals said global warming would act as a "threat multiplier", with events such as droughts toppling unstable governments and unleash-ing conflict… (New Scientist, 2 June, 2007, p. 12)

In 2004 climate modeller Thomas Knutson suggested that increased atmospheric CO₂ would lead to bigger hurricanes. Invited to comment on television his slot was cancelled by White House intervention.

Referring to this and other interference, New Scientist said:

The incidents reveal the extraordinary lengths to which the Bush administration is willing to go to suppress information about climate change...

Over 40 percent of survey respondents reported pres-sure to eliminate sensitive words like "climate change" from reports and edit climate-related work to change its meaning… (February 2007, pp 5, 7)

In 1995-2005 sea levels rose 3cm. The Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change assumes the rise will continue slowly and reach 18-59 cm by 2100. But this doesn't allow for the doubtful stability of the Greenland and Antarctic icesheets. The IPCC predicts global warming of at least 3^oC this century. Previously when Earth was 3^oC warmer than now – 3,000,000 years ago – sea levels were 25 metres higher!

NASA physicist James Hansen expects a sea level rise of "metres". He says more scientists don't speak out because: "scientists downplaying the dangers of climate change fare better when it comes to getting funding... After I published a paper in 1981 that described the likely effect of fossil fuel use, the US Department of Energy reversed a decision to fund my group's research…" (New Scientist, 28 July, 2007
 

Vance Packard in The Waste Makers (1960) analysed how America's economy produced mountains of waste through "planned obsolescence" – the policy of producing cars and everything else to either soon break down or go out of fashion, encouraging consumers to throwaway and buy again.

Manufacturing anything releases CO₂ the main climate-change gas. Western economies, therefore, are structured to heat the planet by producing waste! Yet 25% of humans are still so poor they even lack electricity! Clearly, economic change is required!

Some other helpful changes might be:

• Switch from petrol-guzzling vehicles to fuel-efficient ones.

• Increase investment in wind turbines and solar energy.

• Reduce the number of cattle and sheep. Westerners could eat less meat and also ban obesity, and India could slaughter its "sacred" cows. The world's 1.5 billion cattle and 1.7 billion sheep burp out methane, which has 20 times the warming effect of CO₂. Fewer animals would mean less global warming.

• Reduce traffic speed limits to 50mph. If the USA did this, it would also be self sufficient in oil!

• Lower demand for energy by rationing and price-rise and use the $ gained to fight global warming.

This list is not entirely serious. It's my way of pointing out that people resist change to their habits and will resist changes needed to save the planet. Coal-use, for example, will increase:

Unlike oil, which is expensive and concentrated in geopolitically problematic locations, coal is plentiful in those countries where future demand is likely to be greatest, notably the US, China and India. Given that coal generates the most CO₂ per unit energy of any fossil fuel, the implications for climate change are serious… (New Scientist, 17 March, 2007, p. 14)

Jesus said, "the gospel will be proclaimed throughout the world…and then the end will come." (Matthew 24:14)

He also said: "Jerusalem will be trampled on by the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled." (Luke 21:20-24)

Understood literally, the "Gentile times" finish when the Jews recover Jerusalem. That could be 1948 or 1967 or future – there's insufficient detail to be sure. After that is when the sea and waves bring "distress of nations".

The Apostle Peter spoke about the "last days" (Acts 2:14-21) and said that with God "a day is as a thousand years". (II Peter 3) The plural – "last days" – suggests at least two "days" or at least 2,000 years.
 

If major icesheets collapse the flooding of coastal land will cost $trillions, and a billion people could be displaced! Tsunamis from underwater landslides, volcanoes and earthquakes and even impacts of asteroids into oceans, may add to "distress of nations" from "the sea and the waves". Governments should relocate infrastructure and industry inland, convert coastal land to non-essential use, and compensate people whose properties thereby lose value. The nations have ignored the Bible as "irrelevant" and face devastation.