< Questions and Answers on Global Warming
June 28, 2026
Note: I would appreciate any contributions or comments, pro or con, to further clarify or explain the truth on this issue.
Global warming will probably be a future serious difficulty for humanity. Many facts have been put out related to global warming, and it is good to be able to sort through them.
Q: Does the Bible have anything to say about environmental responsibility?
A: Yes. While it is not as important an emphasis as glorifying God and loving other people, loving others includes metaphorically not being one to trample the good pasture so that other sheep cannot eat, or muddy the streams so that others cannot drink (Ezekiel 34:17-19).
Revelation 11:18b (NIV) says, “The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great – and for destroying those who destroy the earth.”
Q: Aren’t the environment and global warming just liberal issues?
A: No. Regardless of who has spoken up in the past, they should not be considered merely liberal issues. Some have painted all environmentalism with the same brush as those who say eating animals is bad (contrary to Jn 21:10-13; Acts 10:12-13). After all, in both Matthew 14:17-21 and Matthew 15:29-38 Jesus did not miraculously feed the people with bread and organic algae! Moses and the Israelites ate some of the sacrifices of the bulls, goats, and sheep. But people who support strange and extreme views on some things should not keep us from supporting right things just because some extreme people support those also. We should judge each issue on its own merits, and based on what the Bible teaches.
Q. Don’t geologists say the earth has had significantly warmer times in the geological past?
A: Yes, but the same evidence they put forward also shows less land mass above sea level and wide areas of deserts. So if their evidence is correct, it shows that there will be less livable space for people if there is global warming, regardless of the source of the warming.
On a lighter note, perhaps we could solve all this by moving many of the people onto Kevin Costner’s boat in the movie Waterworld. ;-)
Q: Don’t geologists also say that before man there have been natural fluctuations where the earth has been much colder, with ice ages, as well as warmer?
A: Yes, but that does not change the fact that there will be hard times for humanity now if there is less land above the ocean and more deserts. Some islands in the Pacific and Indian oceans will be the first to be completely submerged. Global warming is an established fact already for some in sub-Saharan Africa, because the Saharan desert has already expanded south and is expanding even more.
Q: On the current warming trend, isn’t part of the cause due to natural phenomena not caused by people?
A: Maybe so. There are many complex factors, including output of the sun, chaotic interactions in weather patterns, etc. that can cause changes. Regardless though, two facts are clear: 1) the earth is getting warmer now, and 2) humanity is significantly contributing to it getting warmer.
Q: What is some of the evidence that global warming is occurring now?
A: Here are some things to watch.
Average temperatures are rising rapidly. There was a time period after Christ when temperatures were slightly higher than today. However, the rapid rise in average temperature is very disconcerting.
Ice caps melting, and Greenland (and its polar bears) are disappearing
Carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere and ocean
Water shortages in western Australia, southern U.S. and the Sahara Desert is expanding southward.
Sea level rise
Q: Besides increasing the average temperature, what else does global warming do?
A: It can change ocean current and weather patterns, and it can make for more violent storms and hurricanes. Global warming would NOT be expected to affect volcanoes, earthquakes, or tsunamis.
Q: Haven’t some parts of the earth gotten colder?
A: Yes, for example in January 2008 Baghdad had its first snow in over a century, and Jerusalem had snow too. However, global warming does NOT mean that every part of the earth will get colder. It only means that the average temperature over the whole earth will be higher. In fact, due to changes in ocean currents, it is possible that the gulf stream current will hit Europe south of where it is today, which paradoxically, could make parts of northern Europe colder.
Q: Without getting into scientific jargon, basically how does the earth maintain a certain temperature?
A: It is a complex process, but here is a simplified explanation. The sun gives the earth most of its heat; the molten core gives just a little. The sun itself can have small variations and oscillations over the centuries. Much of the sunlight over the poles is reflected back out into space by the white icecaps, cooling the earth. Carbon dioxide has significant greenhouse effect, reflecting heat reflected from the earth back to the earth, and methane has even a stronger effect, about 28 time stronger. When volcanoes erupt they have somewhat of a mild warming effect because of the carbon dioxide and methane they spew into the atmosphere, but they have a much stronger cooling effect from the ash in the atmosphere reflecting the sun’s heat before it hits the earth. However, putting lots of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere has not had as strong an effect as some thought, because the oceans act as a buffer, absorbing the carbon dioxide, and making them more acid. However, once the buffer is close to full, so to speak, then the rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations will increase. There are also large amounts of methane gas that are in rocks under the ocean floor; single-cell archaea organisms have a sulfur-methane (not oxygen-carbon) metabolism. If something were to cause this methane to be released in the atmosphere, this would not only greatly increase global warming, but make breathing more difficult. Geologists now think this is what caused the extinction of half of all kinds of life at the end of the Permian geologic period.
Scientists are also concerned with what they called “positive feedback loops”, or in slightly less scientific terms “double-whammys”. Some global warming means small ice caps, which means less sunlight reflected back into space, which means even more warming. Large emissions of carbon dioxide both increase the emissions in the atmosphere some and cause the ocean to “buffer out” some of the carbon dioxide. But the more the ocean buffer’s the carbon dioxide, the less efficiently it can buffer out additional carbon dioxide. So you do not see much effect until the buffer is close to full, and then, like an l-shaped curve you see a strong effect. If you stopped emissions of carbon dioxide at this point, you would not see any improvement until the carbon dioxide concentrations went down in the ocean, and the ice caps grew back to reflect more sunlight.
Q: What are major sources of global warming?
There are two: carbon dioxide, which is the main one, and methane, could potentially be more serious.
Carbon dioxide is required in small quantities for plants to live. But we have multiple times what is needed. Carbon dioxide in the water makes carbonic acid, which is mildly acidic, sort of like a soft drink. Good news is that the vast oceans do a lot to absorb carbon dioxide. Bad news is that the oceans are becoming more acidic is destroying coral reefs around the world. Venus is extremely hot because it has a thick atmosphere of carbon dioxide.
A Methane molecule has about a 28 times larger effect on global warming than a carbon dioxide molecule. Natural gas is basically 99%+ methane. Sources of methane are livestock, fossil fuel leaks and flaring, landfills, and rice cultivation. Wetlands and melting permafrost also release a lot of methane. Curiously, also termites produce a lot of methane. For landfills they drill pipes, use a vacuum if needed to extract the gas, separate out the non-methane parts, and then use the methane as fuel. When methane burns it produces just water and carbon dioxide. There is also a lot of natural gas trapped under the ocean floor. If it were somehow released all at once the planet’s average temperature would skyrocket.
Q: What are our energy options?
A: There are eleven basic options today plus some research areas.
Solar energy is renewable. There is higher installation cost, but no running cost. A drawback of solar is that it generates very little on rainy days, and none when the sun goes down. So it cannot be relied upon as a sole source, but it can augment other energy sources for peak usage. People have worked on solar energy concentrators, but those kill birds who fly in between and cooking them to death.
Wind energy on earth is only worthwhile in a few places. The Atacama desert in Chile, Iceland (where they don’t need it), and the central plains of the North America. It is renewable, but the turbine blades can kill birds and they make noise. Also, the blades wear out and they have to be disposed off. Other alternatives for wind are offshore and in the higher atmosphere where the pressure is lower, but the wind velocity can be 200 miles per hour.
Hydrothermal energy is from dams. There is a high capital cost, but a plus is that is also creates a lake. A minus on the Pacific coast is that it is hard for Salmon and other fish to swim upstream to spawn. So some dams in the Pacific Northwest have been torn down.
Geothermal energy is great for land that is sitting close to a volcano or a continental rift. This works great in Iceland, but few other places.
Natural Gas is mostly methane, which unburned would contribute more to global warming than carbon dioxide. However, we can burn it efficiently today, producing mostly water and only some carbon dioxide. Oil has more carbon (when burned producing carbon dioxide), and less hydrogen (burning to water) than natural gas. Natural gas plants have the advantage of being able to be started up and shut down rather easily. It only costs about $8,000 to start an idle natural gas plant.
Oil: The world has been thought to be running low on oil. However, newly found deposits in the Gulf of Mexico and the Arctic Ocean could reverse the situation in for some years. We could do more drilling in Alaska, but we want to reduce damage to that fragile permafrost environment.
Coal deposits in the United States are enough to meet all our needs for more than a century. However, burning coal not only produces a lot of lung-harming coal particulates in the atmosphere, but also much more carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide than oil, because it has the largest ratio of carbon to hydrogen. While coal plants are more polluting, some have researched “cleaner burning coal plants” that could potentially recycle some of the pollutants. However, the recycling technology has not had all the details worked out yet. Coal plants cannot be started up as easily. It takes about $285,000 to start an idle coal plant. Because of the environmental impact of coal, many coal plants have been shut down. However, this trend is reversing in the U.S., with more energy needs required for massive AI datacenters. China has very little petroleum but lots of coal. They would like to get off coal, and they are a leader in solar, but unless other countries such as the U.S. share more oil with them, they still have a big need for coal.
Tar sands in Canada hold a tremendous amount of oil reserves the world can use. However, it was not thought to be cost effective until oil reached $80 per barrel (which it has surpassed), and it really tears up the land to dig it out.
Nuclear fission reactors, unlike all the other energy sources mentioned so far, has the positive point that it does not contribute to global warming. However, the immediate downside is that you have to be careful the Chernobyl-like disasters do not occur, and after the nuclear plant has run for a generation or so, it has to be torn down, and all the radioactive concrete, metal, and other materials have to be disposed of some how. Many environmentalists, who used to be opposed to nuclear energy now support it, not because they ignoring its serious risk and disposal issues, but they see those as lesser evils than the pollution and global warming of the other energy sources.
Ethanol biofuels: We can make ethanol as fuel from sugar cane (in Brazil) corn (in other places), and other plants. However, these pollute just like the fossil fuels. Burning the waste means they cannot be used for fertilizer, and we have to be careful that growing crops solely for fuel does not use almost as much fuel (for fertilizer, etc.) as we get from the crop.
Renewable energy: Hydroelectric power and wind power to do contribute to pollution or global warming. While some object to too many dams on rivers, hurting fish spawning, and noise pollution from wind turbines, But ignoring these negatives, there is one overriding concern, we cannot get enough energy from these sources, now or in the future, do meet more than 10 to 20 percent of our energy needs. So these are ideal to use when we can, but they alone cannot solve our problems.
(future) Nuclear fusion: Nuclear fusion, like the fission of nuclear reactors, would not contribute to global warming and could meet all the energy needs of the entire world for centuries. But its power is the problem. If you can produce all the needs of the western hemisphere for one day in one-microsecond “explosion”, how are you going to collect all that energy, and safely? Until the collection issue worked out, nuclear fission is not a workable idea.
Q: As responsible citizens, what can we do to at least somewhat improve the situation with global warming?
A: We can do things on an individual level, support things on a local government level, and support things on a national level.
Individually we can use less energy. That means no energy-hogging SUVs or cars, more insulation for houses, learning to live and sleep with colder temperatures in winter and warmer temperatures in summer. We can shift to supporting companies that generate electricity from renewable sources when possible. Refrigerators and dryers use a lot of energy. If you have two refrigerators, try to get by with just one. Air-drying some clothes, especially shirts and light slacks not only save energy but leaves fewer wrinkles. Natural gas dryers and stoves are more energy efficient than electric appliances.
Locally we can support renewable energy when possible, and nuclear energy. This is provided you agree that the risks and problematic future of disposing of nuclear waste is a lesser problem than pollution and global warming from other sources.
Nationally we can support stricter emissions on cars and power plants, and support initiatives to reduce energy consumption not only of our country, but around the world. Many countries have tried to do this together with the Kyoto protocols, but so far the United States has declined to ratify the treaty.
Q: Is global warming inevitable, and if so why do anything?
A: Given the desire of developing countries to use energy the way developed countries have, and given humanity’s poor track record of being able to work together to solve problems, I unfortunately think it might be inevitable. However, postponing the time of a natural disaster is good, and regardless of what other people do, as Christians we should act responsibly in this world.
Q: Does Revelation say anything about global warming?
A: No. but while it does not mention global warming specifically, it prophesies in general that this planet will not be as friendly a place to live on. While this will come to pass, it is not our role as Christians to contribute to the world’s suffering, but to be salt and light, setting an example as we point to way to the life eternal.
by Steven M. Morrison, PhD., chemical engineering