My Take On Global Warming

We installed the window air conditioner in our bedroom last week. I installed the one that goes into the office/living room this morning. We have one more to go; it cools the dining room and kitchen.

Julie and I agree on almost everything except the temperature at which to use an air conditioner. If there is no breeze coming through the house, she would turn an AC on at about seventy degrees; I tend to wait until it reaches above ninety degrees. In a vehicle, I believe in 455 air conditioning – four windows down, fifty-five miles an hour.

However, since Julie had Covid, those window air conditioners get installed earlier each year, but this year caught us by surprise.

The weather in Indiana this year has been nothing short of beautiful. Most days have seen high temperatures in the seventies or low eighties with a constant gentle breeze. Occasionally, the farmers express a desire for more rain. Still, the rain has fallen in just the right amount at the right time. The crops, especially the corn, are a plush green and taller than usual at this time of year. God has been good to us.

Just a week ago, the forecast called for an overnight low of 44. I made a joke on social media about how global warming was keeping us from freezing. A long, sustained heat wave was not on anyone’s mind.

Then Sunday came.

I woke up Sunday morning to a weather alert – plan for a heat index of over 100. By the end of the day, the weathermen were telling us that this scorching heat would be with us at least through next weekend, warning farmers that drought conditions may develop over the next two to three days. Looking at the extended forecast (through the end of June), the heat is staying for a while. Except for a few days of highs in the upper eighties, everything else is in the nineties. June 30 is currently forecast for a high of 94.

How long will the heat run into July? Will there be damage to what seems like a bumper crop in the fall? Will we see the worst-case scenario – a drought that turns into famine? God only knows. God knows because He knows the future. God knows because He is the one who creates and sends us our weather. God knows because He created the universe and the natural laws that operate the things of the universe. And God knows because He is the only one who can override nature’s laws.

If global warming is a thing, and I am not saying it is or it isn’t, God will either cause it Himself or allow us to bring it on. Either way, God is still in charge of the weather.

The Bible talks about the weather a lot.

At times, God uses the weather as punishment. Noah and the ark would be the most obvious illustration, but the Bible describes earthquakes, fire, and brimstone raining down from heaven, storms, drought, and more used as punishment for sin. In the coming seven-year tribulation, we read of God using earthquakes, scorching heat, one-hundred-pound hailstones, and more as judgment upon the world.

Luke 21:25 mentions that “the sea and the waves roaring” are signs of the end times. Could this mean more frequent, immense, and more powerful hurricanes? Are the bigger, stronger hurricanes we experience a result of global warming, or is God simply ramping things up a bit as He promised would happen before His return, or both? Whatever the correct answer is, one thing we can be sure of is that God is still in charge of the weather.

We also see in the Bible that prayer can affect the weather. Samuel, in 1 Samuel 12:16-18, and Elijah in 1 Kings 18:41-45 are only two of several examples.

God also uses the weather to show us the brevity of life and our need for Him. James 1:11, “For the sun is no sooner risen with a burning heat, but it withereth the grass, and the flower thereof falleth, and the grace of the fashion of it perisheth: so also shall the rich man fade away in his way.”

To summarize, my take on global warming is this: God is in control of the weather.

If God allows us to cause global warming, then He must have a reason. We should pray and study the Scriptures to understand His reasoning.

If global warming does not exist, then God is causing the sea, wind, and waves to roar, and we should pray and seek the Scripture to discover why God is doing these things.

God is in control of the weather. Seek Him for the answers to your climate questions.