A bit of changeover has to be done here. We're trying to get these lights out as well, so that if we manage to get something up on the screen, then it will be able to be seen. Come up here now to discover that the guy who screwed this in was a farmer, which means it's well and truly screwed in. All that's good. Experimentation's the name of the game. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Okay, we're going until we get there. I have to wear things now. Many free Presbyterian young people does it take to turn off a light. But we will get there. If you turn in the Bible to the book of Genesis, Genesis chapter 1, you might be able to do that, you might not. I would imagine some people that are tuning in online are having a bit of a laugh to themselves right now, but we might as well join them in that. Okay, so far so good, that's up at least. Right, we're on Genesis chapter one, and I'm playing for time, that's why I'm waffling here. I'm trying to get a bit of time for these guys over here. We are starting to read at verse 24, Genesis 1 and the verse 24. And God said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind, and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind, and God saw that it was good. And God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, and the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. And God said, Behold, I have given you Every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree in which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat, and it was so. God saw everything that he had made. Behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day." Amen. We know the Lord will add His blessing on to the reading of His Word here tonight. So, where are you? I think we're gonna have to reinvent another title for this message. We should really have read the earlier part of Genesis 1, and God said, let there be light, and there was light. Because maybe until we read that, we're not gonna have anything. Where's Peter Lund when you need him? I mean, he's usually jumping off the organ stool and clicking the light. Given the fact that they've gone off, it maybe takes a while to build up again. So it will come. All good things come to those who wait. So we will wait for a moment or two and see how she runs. Well, the subject tonight is as sort of advertised there on the screen. I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, but I'm afraid climate change is going to dasher my dream. So I'm giving it a real tongue-in-the-cheek treatment here, not being terribly serious in the title, although I guess as we get into the meat of the stuff, we will become a lot more serious there when we're dealing with these issues. And there will be flashes of light and all kinds of things going on as we go through, but we'll not pay too much attention to that. If ever there was a green man in recent memory, it would have been the man by the name of David Bellamy. And you'll have heard of him, English author, broadcaster, botanist, prominent environmental campaigner as well, because he died on Wednesday of the past week, the 11th of December 2019. Now, Bellamy rose to public prominence way back in 1967, so that's way before you were born, and I just about got in, in time. Well, I wouldn't have known anything about it. I was running about napping. He hadn't been potty trained at that time. But here he is, and he is seeing a lot of this stuff that's out in the ocean because there had been an environmental disaster involving a ship called the Torrey Canyon. So, huge oil spill. He wrote an article about it and that article was published in the scientific journal called Nature. Over the years Bellamy has been involved in a lot of projects, in fact he was imprisoned at one time because he had launched a campaign against a proposed dam being built in Australia in 1983. And in 2016, we have him, and that's the picture on screen here, where he opened the Headley Hope Fell Boardwalk. And that boardwalk, as you see it stretching for many meters, was made from recycled plastic bottles. So what I'm saying is, his environmental credentials are pretty much second to none. He kind of started the whole process off. And right up to now, there are 570 holiday parks. And they receive a, what's called a David Bellamy Conservation Award. They were distributed in 2018, 2019, and that's for the work that they have done, that's being acknowledged for enhancing and protecting Britain's natural environment. There was a problem for Bellarmine though, and that problem arose in 2004. And his fame and his honour and acclaim kind of hit the buffers, rolled off the reels, call it what you will, because he made the comment back then that this man-made global warming that people were talking about was nothing but, to use his word, poppycock. And he was instantly deserted by fans. He was shunned by his peers. And he says, broadcasters ostracize me. Conservation groups that once were looking for my endorsement, they shunned me. And he was sacked as the president of a number of wildlife trusts. And so he is sitting back, bemused. How did this happen? He said, I started conservation. There were no groups back then when I was first around. Now they don't want to be anywhere near me." Well, okay. You claimed that man-made climate change, global warming, was poppycock. So he was asked later in years, do you believe that you were right? And the answer that he came with was, absolutely, it's not happening at all. But if you get the idea that people's children will die because of CO2, they'll fall for it. He actually, and this is pretty grisly, he said that somebody emailed him way back in the day whenever he had made the comment, they emailed him to say that he was the worst paedophile in the world. Basically, they were claiming that he was killing children by denying global warming. And he said, but in the last 30 years, crops have got greener and grow quicker. In other words, what he's saying is CO2 acts as a fertilizer, and he said that's good news, but we don't get it. The thing about it is, there are many, many people today, the eco-warriors of today, and they just do not want you to get that. And they don't want you to get Bellamy's warning and they don't want you to get what he calls plain common sense. Plain fact of the matter is that Bellamy's view on this does not fit well with the popular story that does the rounds today. So here's a guy and he must be suppressed and his voice has to be silenced. I want to talk about another woman here. Judith Currie. Judith Currie is a true climatologist. She once headed the Department of the Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology until she gave up in the academy there, and she said, I want to express myself independently, not be tied to the view of a particular body. What she believes on this particular issue, independence of mind, being able to express your own view, do scientific experiments, and be able to tell the world, this is what I found in science, rather than what the big consensus wants you to tell everybody out there, she said, this independence of mind is being crushed in this day. And you know how it is. You say something that veers off and the climate alarmists are all over you and they will be battering you into submission and making sure your voice is not heard. You will have heard about the Extinction Rebellion movement. That certainly has given a lot of fuel to the man-made global warming that people are talking about in society today. They had a declaration of rebellion that they launched in front of the Houses of Parliament. They blockaded the UK's Department for Business and Energy and Industrial Strategy. Then they glued themselves to the gates of Downing Street. They called Rebellion Day, they blocked the five main bridges over the River Thames in London for a number of hours on that day. Then they, let's go again, Rebellion Day number two, and so they went for it, and they blocked the roads around Parliament Square. They staged a mock funeral march on that occasion, and they traveled to Downing Street with a funeral cortege and Buckingham Palace as well. Then they got buckets of fake blood and they poured them the road outside Downing Street, representing, they said, the lives of children that are being threatened by your policies. You probably know as well that they glued themselves to the glass in the House of Commons, the viewing gallery, during a debate that was taking place on the subject of Brexit back then. And then they took what you have in the photograph here, an out-of-service fire engine. and they used that to spray the front of the treasury in London with 1,800 litres of this fake blood and they held banners out in front of the building as seen there, stop funding climate death. They arranged a global day of civil disobedience that spread, as the term would suggest, globally across the world in many of the major centres. Not only do we have this extinction rebellion grouping and others like them, but we have a little figurehead. You've seen her so many times, I'm sure, and it's, what was the slogan? Make not just America, but the world Greta again. Well, this 16-year-old Swedish teenager, I actually feel sorry for her, feel she's being used, Greta Thunberg. She, quite memorably, did she not harangue all of the heads of state in the UN headquarters? And the UN would have loved that back in September, because you're so complacent, you people. all of your inactivity. How dare you?" she said. Really, this is terrible what you're doing to me. You're stealing my childhood and all that kind of thing. Get back to school and enjoy your childhood. That's the way to do it, rather than run about. Did you see her car? Inside her car? No. Well, there was a guy, recently she was in Spain, and there was a guy and he had seen her come along in his car, get out of the car, and he went and photographed, and it's full of old plastic junk in the back of the car, and he showed it to her chief supporters. Oh, no, that can't be true, it can't be true. No way could we believe that, that, oh, it wouldn't be our Greta. She's become an icon for this. activism in the climate emergencies and catastrophes and all the rest. She was in Turin last week and she urged them, 2019 is almost over. We must make sure 2020 is the year of action. Isn't that so exciting? I'm sure you'll all be wound up for that. The year when we bend the global emissions curve. Now, she has received numerous honors and accolades and awards, including, she's now in fellowship with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society. In 2019, Time magazine named her one of the One, one of the 100 most influential people in the world and they voted her the youngest ever time person of the year. And there she is sporting on the cover of that very August publication. But the basic contention coming from Extinction Rebellion, Greta Thunberg, and all of the people that are on the same kind of a bandwagon, they're saying the damaging effects of global warming, they're so obvious, you know, so odious, you just can't ignore them. You've got your melting polar ice caps, the rising sea levels, you've got flooding, you've got storms and drought, you've got the loss of habitat, i.e., the death of polar bears, and all the rest of it. And so we've got all of these images, I love polar bears, by the way. I wouldn't like to be hugged by one, but I do like looking at them here. And you have them drifting about, and ice flows all over the place, drifting to extinction somewhere. Will somebody feed me because I am starving here? And we hear louder and louder the cry going out, you need to impose limits, you need to change your wasteful ways, so as not only to save the polar bears, but the whole planet that we live on, and of course, everybody on it, all of us. Now, We're told that scientists agree on climate change and its dangerous effects. Every single scientist, well not quite everyone, maybe 99.8 scientists in the world agree on this particular thing. That's what we're told. It's not true, but that's what we're told. We're also told climate change is due to mankind. It's our fault, we caused it, we should reverse it. If we don't do it, the earth will be destroyed for life in a very short space of time. You mean we have about, you know, 12, 15, whatever years to go, and then we're out of it along with the polar bears and everybody else. In short, it's our world, it's our climate, it's our fault, it's our problem, it's our responsibility. Did you ever hear any of them mention God, putting God into the equation at any given point in time? I haven't. He's out of the emergency equation as far as they're concerned, which doesn't come as much of a surprise. Now, it won't come as a surprise to you to hear tonight that in speaking on this subject, I'm going to the Scriptures, and on the subject of climate change, I will be introducing God as the central figure in the discussion tonight. So, we have our topic. It is, I'm dreaming of a white Christmas, but I'm afraid Climate change is going to dashure my dream. First thing we're talking about, conservationism and the creation commission. Conservationism and the creation commission. So, while I said they have eliminated God by and large, do you know what? There are a lot of groups, God groups, if we can call them that, even some evangelicals, and they're getting on the bandwagon here, on the bandwagon, so we've got For example, I'm sure you know about it, the Green Bible. Out there, the product description is this, the definitive Green Movement Bible shows that God is green. Did you know that? The Green Bible equips and encourages you to see God's vision for creation and helps you engage in the work of healing and sustaining creation. Well, I would argue, yes, God probably does like the color green anyway, because look at this earth. A lot of greenery all about, but then you could say he likes blue because look at the oceans, look at the sky, and everything else. But we have verses in this green Bible that underline God's care for creation, and there, as you can see on screen, they are rendered in green ink. The whole thing is printed on, oh, well, it has to be in recycled paper, using a soy-based ink, and you have a cotton or a linen cover on this Bible. Not only they have got on the movement here, we have got the Pope, of course. Not to mean if you're diminishing in popularity somewhere, you're going to have to join the bandwagon that's got wheels and moving somewhere. And so he is saying we can no longer remain silent before one of the greatest environmental crises in world history. And he is supporting the alarmist movement that has grown up around us. Not on his own, Archbishop of Canterbury is with him, many other Christian leaders are as well. Desmond Tutu. Do a little bit of research on Desmond Tutu and find just where he's come from, what he's been involved in over the years. But he's telling us climate justice. I was in Belfast, Cornmarket, not that long ago. And it was on the school lunch break, of course, because you wouldn't waste school time with this. And there was a strike, climate strike. And we've got these classrooms coming in, converging in Cornmarket. And all I was getting was climate justice. When do we want it? Want it now. Climate justice. What are you talking about?" But we'll get to this topic as we go through here. Did you know that some students from a theological seminary in New York City, Union Theological Seminary in New York, they prayed to a display of plants that was set up in the chapel of their college? I don't know what the Whitfield College is doing, but I mean it's clearly missing out on a lot of material here, because I've not seen in the foyer anywhere in martyrs this kind of arrangement, and I haven't seen them prostrate themselves before a bunch of plants. They then issued a statement telling us why they were doing this. Today in chapel, we confess to plants. Wonderful. Today we held our grief, joy, regret, hope, guilt, and sorrow in prayer, offering them to the beings who sustain us, but whose gift we too often feel to honor them. And then they asked a question, what do you confess to the plants in your life? Well, actually, nothing, because I confess my sin to God, and I'm told He alone can forgive sin, so why on earth would I be confessing my sin to a plant? I mean, catch yourself on. Where's the common sense that David Bellamy was talking about? There is also an evangelical environmental network that produces a creation care magazine, and they're getting on board as well. In fact, take this as a quotation. One evangelical leader who said, work out what he is saying here, please, the earth is God's body. and he wants us to look after it. The earth is God's body, and he wants us to look after it. There was an old false religion called pantheism. I think that's all that is, and you can look it up in some kind of a dictionary and you'll find out what that's about. But what kind of teaching is that? What kind of theology is it? What kind of practice is this? Praying to plants and saying, the earth is God's body, let's look after it. God's well enough capable of looking after Himself, and He certainly does that day in, day out, from eternity past and will do to eternity in that is to come. Where do we fit in here? What is our attitude to be? What should our activity be? Should I, as a Christian, have any responsibility to take good care of the environment around me? Well, I would say, yes, we do. And maybe that surprises you, but yes, of course, we have a responsibility. What does the Bible say? Well, man's commission is expressed here in Scripture. It's why we turned to Genesis 1.26, and God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So everything is involved here. And the word dominion, used 27 times in the Old Testament, two main threads of thought coming through. And the word dominion, it means first to rule. So you're having dominion over, you're reigning over, you're ruling over. The other thought is to take, and the word is rendered to take in a very interesting incident in the Bible that we find in the book of Judges, chapter 14, verse 9, Samson is here. Samson has killed a lion that he met on his journey, and he goes back sometime later along the same route, and there's the carcass of the lion, and he sees bees inside the lion producing honey. And we read in Judges 14 and 9, and he took, ah, that's the word, dominion. He took thereof in his hands and went on eating. But he told them not, this is his parents, that he had taken the honey out of the carcass of the lion. So it is to rule over, dominion, and to take from. God has given man authority to reign over the earth, rule it, and take from it. That becomes even more crystal clear a couple of verses on, Genesis 1, 28, and God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and Subdue it, and then the word again, and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the fowl of the air, over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. Subdue, another verse, another word in the verse that seems to pulse out here. It's used 14 times in the Old Testament. It means to keep under control, to bring into subjection, to bring under your authority. So our commission with regard to living in the world is clearly expressed in the Bible, have dominion over and subdue. That's an express. What about man's commission explained? Before and after giving us this commission regarding creation, God emphasizes three times over, once before, twice afterwards, just stressing a point that man is made in the image of God. There's a discussion in the Godhead. God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion. And so on we go through these verses. God alone has authority over all of creation. But He has delegated some of that authority to man living on the earth, to rule it, to use it for the promotion of the glory of God, to show that God is glorious right across the earth. A number of lessons we can learn from that. One is that God has a purpose. The purpose is this, man is always to reveal God's glory and also the earth. The earth is a tool. A resource to enable man to reveal God's glory. So the Bible makes it plain the earth doesn't rule over man. Man rules over the earth. That is God's design. Now the earth has been hit by the curse. Man's fallen sin. Catastrophe has come. The flood has come. Another catastrophe. But even now God's command still remains the same after the fall. Genesis 9 verse 6. Again, God is saying, you're in the image of God. That's how I've made you. And in that image, you must rule for me over the earth. A lot of the people say in the world today, animals, fur coats, detestable. Get them off. Don't you dare wear them!" That's a travesty on God's creation. Well, hold on a minute. Genesis 3.21, God made clothing for man to keep him warm. Man's no longer immortal, but he's mortal, and he's prone to suffer from the cold. He needs clothing, and God endorsed this a way back in Genesis 3.21. So, animals are not fabric. That's what they tell us. But again, some people say animals in the world again shouldn't be eaten. And yet again and again, what do we find in the Bible? God gives us animals to eat. For example, Genesis 9 verse 3. If you take it only from Genesis 1, you'll only be able to ascertain from Genesis 1 everything. It was all veg. It was. They were all vegan. back then in Genesis 1. But as we move on, Genesis 9, they're not all vegan now, they're moving on. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb have I given you all things. So in the way that he gave the green herb back in Genesis 1, so he gives now everything that moveth as meat in Genesis 9 verse 3. Now we know history of Israel. what they were able to eat, what they weren't able to eat. There were distinctions between them, so they limited what they should take in their diet. And yet you remember over in Acts, New Testament, chapter 10, the verse 13, God is speaking to Peter about all manner of animals, and He says to Peter then, Rise, Peter, kill and eat. And Peter is reluctant and hesitant, but God commands him three times, rise, Peter, kill and eat. What I have called clean, don't you dare call common, was God's word to him. And in 1 Timothy 4, this is very interesting, 1 Timothy 4, verse 1 to 4, Paul is exhorting Timothy, there's going to be seducing spirits in the world, there'll be devils working about them, and I'll tell you what, do you know what one of their Identifying Marx will be these guys against the Bible, against God. They will forbid the eating of meat, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving to them which believe and know the truth. Now, if we needed to know any more in Scripture, we're We can't eat meat, and this is available to us. Well, think of the Lord Jesus Christ, because He Himself ate lamb at the Passover, Luke 22, 15, and He ate fish after His resurrection in Luke 24, 42 to 43. Now, you're entitled, as am I, not to eat meat for dietary reasons, but we are not entitled to think it is more holy for the average person, nor should we think that eating meat is a sin when God has endorsed and allowed it. A lot of people say, you know, using animals for scientific testing, that's terrible, that's deplorable, shouldn't be doing that. Oh, you're telling us that you're doing it with the aim of relieving human suffering? No wonder no circumstances should you be experimenting on animals. Gary Francione, law professor, litigates animal rights cases, said that he would not allow an animal to suffer even if the research would produce a cure for cancer. One of the people within the animal rights movement was asked if a pig could give its life. To save the life of a baby, would you be for it? The animal rights said, absolutely not. And he warned sternly against that, and he said, the baby's parents should be made to care about the pig. And so I put a very nice, cuddly, wee, clean pig. such as you'll never see in a farm, up on the picture here. So they will feed you. Ah, it'd be terrible to do anything to a little animal like that. Absolutely. I mean, he's saying that even if I should be saving the life of a baby by the use of something from the pig, then I shouldn't be doing it. The baby's parents should be made to care about the pig. Director of an organization called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals said, a rat is a pig, is a dog, is a boy. What was that? A rat is a pig, is a dog, is a boy. In other words, just as you can't eat a boy, you can't eat a pig. Just as you can't exploit a boy for testing, then you can't exploit a rat. Just as you can't take from a boy, so you can't take from a cow milk or cheese or leather. So, Andrew, you better get out of farming right away before, you know, you really violate the whole atmosphere around you. This is dreadful what you do for a living. In addition, geese are not to be plucked, sheep are not to be sheared, silkworms are not to be harvested. Where do we get this belief from and this system of belief? It's certainly not in the Bible. You'll get it from the theory of evolution, that's for sure. There's a foundational text for animal liberation, guys. Peter Singer is the one that wrote it. He says, it can no longer be maintained by anyone. but a religious fanatic that man is a special darling of the universe. There are no clear distinctions between us and animals. Now that's horrendous teaching. There are no clear distinctions between us and animals. Mankind, no matter what he wants, and I know this is a rather irreverent play because it is in the beginning God, but in terms of one that God put over His creation, He put man there as the climax of the physical creation. Man is God's crescendo. built up to it in creation. And so in Genesis 1, having created the land and the skies, plants and the trees, the space and stars, fish and birds, beasts and animals, we have a discussion within the God's head, and they begin to talk, one with the other here, a conversation about the man that they are going to create. Why is that? Well, man's going to be better than the rest. Let us make man differently, and the answer is, let us make man in our image after our likeness. Scattered around the world today you'll find many masterpieces of art. I'm representing one here, which is the second most expensive by Paul Cezanne, the card players. And the guy that bought that cost him 272 million American dollars. I'll show you another couple, one which would be the third highest, and it is that. Yeah, that's it, fully in focus. That would cost you 186 million American dollars to buy. It's called number six. And then there's a subtitle, Violet, Green and Red by Mark Rothko. I'm sure you'll be saving all your piggy bank money just to buy a corner of that one. Then there's one at 300 million American dollars, and that is by Paul Guggen, When Will You Marry? And he was over in Tahiti at the time and painted this particular painting. And as I've said, it is the most valuable painting at the moment in the world. Now imagine, imagine you and I turning up, rolling into some art gallery where these were all on display and we went and we ripped them down and we tore them up and we took the Stanley knife and we shredded them about and just left them lying there. Hey, we've turned the greatest masterpieces recognized in the world, we've turned them into an absolute mess. Well, that's what these climate change guys are doing. with God's greatest masterpiece, man, and they're turning it into wickedness, reducing man to lower than the brutes of the earth. Can animals be used to help in human suffering? Of course they can. Can they be used for research? Yes, they can. Can we be unnecessarily cruel to animals? Absolutely not. The Bible tells us in Proverbs 12 and 10, so a balance has to be struck. A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Should we love God's creation? Yes, we should. Should we be environmentalists in the truest sense? Yes, of course, we should. You'll know the hymn, This is My Father's World. And to my listening ears, all nature sings and round me rings the music of the spheres. Animals, however, are not to be wasted. And where do I derive that from? Well, take the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. Our Lord is involved here in this miracle, feeding of the 5,000. And He commanded, gather up all the leftovers. Mark 6.43, and they took up 12 baskets full of the fragments and of the fiches. Why did He do that? So that He wouldn't litter? Well, yes, but so that food would not be wasted. And one thing that I've seen, and it has been highlighted, sometimes unfairly, other times fairly, I'll grant it that, in climate strike rallies across the UK and in America as well, when they're leaving, a lot of the old posters go into the bin or on the floor and all over the place, and it can be an absolute garbage nightmare after they have been on the scene. Not only are animals to be used by man because we rule over, we take from, That's God's order. Other resources in the earth are to be used as well for the glory of God, sustainable material like wood. Noah and his ark, for example, the use of the wood in building the tabernacle, and also the use of metal in that same tabernacle. So that's sustainable resources, wood, but also the unsustainable resources such as metal. Moses was told, use the metal from the ground. God told him, use as well not only metal but precious stones are to be used as well in that construction. David is making musical instruments out of metal as they do way back in Genesis chapter 4 as well. So in other words, there are resources out there in the earth and man is responsible to harness those resources. I find from the Bible it's right to dig up the ground for metal. Job 28 and 2, iron is taken out of the earth and brass is molten out of the stone. It's permissible to have precious metal and stones for enjoyment, no less. Job 28 and 1, surely there is a vein for the silver and a place for the gold where they find it. Job 28, 5 to 6, as for the earth, out of it cometh sapphires, and it hath dust of gold. It is right as well to use fossil fuels, natural gas, and oil." A lot of people say, of course, it is not. But notice a couple of things. The wildness of creation, the wildness of creation is a result of the curse. It's not a mark of blessing. God made man to tend the Garden of Eden to keep it. It was paradise. He then told him to subdue creation, to keep it under control, to tend to it, to cultivate it, to keep on top of it. The wild, sporadic, barren, harsh environment that we have in many parts of the world today has only come about as a result of the fall, sin, God's curse upon that sin. God wants us in this fallen world to subdue this wildness, not promote it. Why? Because a wild world is not compatible with God's plan of the earth being full of living creatures, men and women, revealing the image of God. Now, you and I can admire the Alps, but I for one wouldn't want to live on the top of one of those mountains. I don't think I'd survive there too long. We can admire the vastness and the waste of the Sahara Desert and the Gobi and everything else, but I wouldn't want to be living right slap bang in the middle of that, to be fair. I don't see these extinction rebellion guys with tents in the middle of that desert either, do you? Simply because we want to, they want to live where people have subdued the creation, where they have controlled it, where they have brought it under their rule and their authority. And if you let the earth go, you destroy life. That's a principle to keep in mind. If you subdue this earth, you preserve life. Now what about all these people who are talking about land degradation? starvation, poverty. Did you know that over the last 100 years, climate-related deaths have decreased by 95% because of technological advances being put in place through many countries of the world? Did you know as well that in the last 25 years, fossil fuels has lifted more than a billion people out of poverty, and yet people today are saying, you should not be using those fossil fuels. They're pretty inexpensive in regard to what people are using, rather than the green sources of energy that tend to be very, very expensive, and these people If they're not allowed to harness the resources in the areas where they are, they will suffer the most medically and they will suffer the most financially as well. One preacher has said, let's take the gospel to these people, along with the knowledge that we have for the glory of God's subduing creation, using it for their good and for God's glory. So, we have conservationism, the Creation Commission. I'll fly on this one. Catastrophism and climate change. The difficulty we have today is that if anybody dares veer off what is acceptable by the mainstream, then they are immediately closed down. If somebody says, for example, It's not just man-made, it's not just CO2 going up, it's not just greenhouse gases that are causing what global warming there is. What about other natural causes of climate variation, solar shifts, the oscillations of the Earth? Scientists in the scientific community believe that, but they're ridiculed when they express it. Sad thing is that about 51% of young Americans think the world is ending from climate change. I would imagine you go into Belfast, a high percentage of young people will believe, you know, we're pushing the envelope here, we're about to expire, we are going because we're not looking after our climate. Now that doom and gloom outlook has consequences, real life consequences, as to how people live their lives. Have you heard of the birth strikers? I mean, how do you operate to get it all back under control again? Well, consume less or you're going to perish. But what do you do? And they talk about, ah, here's one that you men could have been focused in on. The first one, upgrade light bulbs. Hang laundry to dry. Recycle. Of course, do that. Wash clothes cold. Switch to a hybrid car. Vegetarian diet. Buy green energy. Cancel a transatlantic flight. Don't use a car. Have one less child. Well, most of you, if not all of you, are not at that stage yet, but that's what they would want you to be considering. And people are considering that. Where did this come out of? It began in 1973. That's when the global warming controversy began, during the Gulf Oil Embargo, and there was fear rushing through the world that we're going to run out of petroleum. And do you know what happened? Ah, you're going to run out of… Yes, you are. Yes, you are. The nuclear industry got right in on that one. You're going to run out of petroleum, so you need to come our way. And that opened the door for great pushes in nuclear energy. It's the best alternative. Do you know what they did? They began to subsidize ecological movements that were hostile to coal, hostile to oil, and that has been going on ever since. Thus, the warming narrative was born. The NASA, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, they played a role in propagating the narrative, coming out with all of their graphs because they had ended the trips to the moon and we need to diversify and move somewhere else. And so they built some provisional climactic models and they focused on carbon dioxide, CO2. And ever since, CO2 has been branded the villain of the peace. It's just one among many factors, but it has been elevated right to the top, the big villain that we all must attack. Then we have the UN involved, of course, why not? Bureaucratic forces there at the UN promoting global governance. They want to take charge of everything, rule everybody, one world government, all the rest, and they got behind this particular line of research, and then they pull inside us, Give us your paper. What's your submission? What have you found out?" And they're making sure they find proof for the predetermined line they want them to go down. And so you've heard of the IPCC. Whatever Greta is, the IPCC is never too far away. The UN founded what is the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 1988 to push their agenda, and ever since, climatologists and an increasingly visible and thriving group here have embraced the faith and are pressing the alarm button and sending out panic. We've been moving now from global warming to the expression climate change, and climate change can mean just about anything. In 2005, Judith Currie, we mentioned her earlier, she was a proper climatologist. Stifled, she felt, not allowed to think independently, make known her scientific experiments, the outcome of those. So she broke out of the mainstream and went independent. In 2005, she had a conversation with this man. Rajendra Paquari. He was an Indian real white engineer. He remade himself, repackaged himself into a climatologist, became the director of the IPCC, that in 2007 received the Nobel Peace Prize. Under his tenure, some people have called him the clown of climate change. But he told Currie, without embarrassment, that at the UN, He only ever recruited climatologists who were convinced of CO2 warming as being the explanation behind all of the global warming, and he excluded everybody else, didn't want them. No part of the UN for you if you don't go along our line. So that's why you've got people, politicians today, Commentators today say, science says this, science says that. The overwhelming majority of scientists are right here, 97% rising to 97.5%, rising to 98.5%. You dare not take on that amount of scientists because you've got nearly all of them saying the same thing. That is not true. It is 98.5% of a particular number. These guys are all conditioned to go down the one line. And if you go down another line, public funding is withdrawn, scientific awards, you'll never get them, academic promotions, oh no, unless you're environmentally correct, you're not going to get any of these things. They'll not even entertain your name. Curie said, a person must not like capitalism or industrial development too much and should favor world government, the UN stuff, rather than nations. And she said, climatology is becoming an increasingly dubious science serving a political project. In other words, here's her words, I think this quote is brilliant, the policy cart is leading the scientific horse. The policy cart. is leading the scientific horse. Do you know what? Despite all of the hoo-ha about climate change, about catastrophe coming our way, do you realize that nothing effective is being done anywhere? We're living in a contradictory reality with people standing up saying we're threatening humanity by what we're doing. On the other hand, they're doing nothing practical to address this allegedly dire threat. Most economists will tell you that the only effective incentive to reduce greenhouse gases would be to impose a global carbon tax. And there is no government willing to wear that. And no government will take that one on. Well, is it as bad as you tell us? Is this the way London is going to be? You know, Tower Bridge, Thames rising, everything submerged, an apocalyptic crisis just around the corner? Curious told us as well, this melting, which started decades ago, was not leading to catastrophe. Polar bears, by the way, they adapt. They don't turn out like this. They do not turn out like that. They adapt. They move elsewhere. They've never been more numerous on God's globe than today, and yet they're threatened by the melting, urbanization, economic development in the polar region. We're wiping them out. Well, why are we multiplying them if we're actually wiping them out? Starving polar bears is the fake news of climate change. And over the last year or so, and there have been other periods whereby the planet has started cooling. Why have I got a picture of Manchester City on screen? Well, it's better than Manchester United, isn't it? Dr. Willie Soon. Read him up. Haven't time to go into it, but he demolishes. He says there is no climate emergency. Simple as. And he gives a lot of reasons why that is the case. But Manchester City, why are they there? I'll tell you why. The scientists promoting climate change catastrophe? Do you know what some of them have been known to do? Proven to do? They've taken figures of warming in the past, but they've decided, well, start at 1950, we'll move right through to 2000 and whatever. Ah, hold on a minute. Why not give us a complete graph? Because figures go back way before 1950, and if you go back before 1950, you find it was warmer, warmer, warmer back then than what it ever has been since. So what are you all about? It's like, and here's why we've got Man City on screen, if you started a graph at the year 2012, and ended your graph at 2019, you would see that Manchester City has won six trophies and competitions, and you would see in the same graph, starting at 2012, ending 2019, Manchester United has only won two trophies. So, that would make it look like Man City is three times more successful than Manchester United. The biggest club in Manchester has to be Manchester City. There's a problem. Football didn't begin in 2012. And so when you extend the range back and you take in the whole scope of the history of football, you'll find Manchester United is by far the most, and I do this, you know, this really grates on me to put this up on screen because I am a Leeds United supporter, cross Pennines, the enemy from the other side. But we haven't had a chance to play you in many years because we've been pathetic for about 15 years. But still, we're going back, we're going up. That's the song, that's the march, and we're with it. But anyway, you will find here that over the period of football history, taking in the trophies Manchester United have won, a way back before 2012, that they have won 19 trophies in total in comparison to Manchester City's six trophies. So in reality, when you get the full picture, Man United is three times more successful than Manchester City. When you go to global temperature and the guy has taken off quite a section of that, he's taken the higher spikes from the beginning when he was doing his talk, he just took that out and he got the later part of it and put that up on screen. You come to global temperature, you can make a graph show almost anything. Ever think When you're playing Monopoly, as you probably will be at Christmastime, or maybe all these board games have totally gone and are such old hat, nobody plays board games anymore. I remember we used to have fights with my cousins back in the day. Because Monopoly lasted not just one day, it went overnight, it happened the next day, and woe betide anybody that moved anything on the board, because there would have been an absolute riot if that had happened. But there's Vine Street, Vine Street, why on earth have you Vine Street in London? in the city of Westminster, because it was warmer, believe it or not, back in the day than it is today. And that's where it got its name from, not just, oh, let's think of a name, Vine, Vine, why else a Vine? Sure, well, there'd never been a Vine around here, but sure, we'll call it that, because there would have been Vines back there, warmer times. This is the guy he was talking about. A moment or two ago, or maybe five minutes or so ago, we're coming to a conclusion here. Dr. Willie Soon, check him up on the internet. The climatologists don't like him because he does say there is no climate emergency. And the points he's making, simply these, natural as well as man-made factors cause warming. Warming is far slower than what they tell you or predict. Climate policy relies on inadequate models. CO2 is actually plant food. the basis of all life on earth. Take it out, we're gone. Global warming has not increased. Natural disasters, no matter what they tell you, climate policy must respect scientific and economic realities, and we have to say amen to that one. Let's get the true science. Let's get the proper stuff, because we're willing to have that. In science, we know always dovetails when properly done. The scripture, when the scripture is properly interpreted. What is being said is this, climatology has become a political party with totalitarian tendencies. In other words, it's socialism in a new dress, you know? Red has become green, so green is the new red. I think Dr. Alan Kearns, I'm told, said that, and that's where we are. If you don't support the UN consensus on human-caused, human-caused global warming, if you express the slightest skepticism, you're a climate change denier, and you really wouldn't want to be called that, would you? You're a stooge of Donald Trump. You're a quasi-fascist who must be fascist, who must be banned from the scientific community. And so here we go. It's a conservationism, catastrophism, conversion, and continual concern. The fact of the matter is, and you're looking at it on screen here, the Grand Canyon, man's chief end and purpose in the world is to strive after the salvation of man, not the salvation of the earth. Saving the planet is not actually within our power. We can't actually do it. Man failed, beginning of time. As a result, God put a curse on that earth. It's God who changed the earth, not us. And because He has put a curse on the earth, we can't remove that curse. We won't be able to heal it. We won't be able to get perfection in the world again. Our focus should be on the proclaiming of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the message that has power to save. Do you know what? to see a lot of these climate alarmists converted, because they have such energy, they have such enthusiasm, they so believe in what they're pushing out there, that if you had some of them converted to Christ, got them preaching the gospel, they would be tremendous in the field of evangelism, and it's proclaiming the truth of the gospel that is our chief purpose here in the earth. Live for eternity, not live for time. Peter tells us, by the way, 2 Peter 3, verse 10 to 13, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, into which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise. The elements shall melt with fervent heat. The earth also, the works that are therein, shall be burned up. So there's going to be a conflagration. There's going to be an end. And it's going to be a changing, according to God's promise. He has said He will do it. There will be a new heaven. and there will be a new earth where righteousness dwells. That's got to be our aim and target. Let's get there by the saving grace of God alone. Set your affection on things above until you get there. Keep following God's instructions to Adam in the Old Testament, His instructions to Peter in the New Testament to do what you can, you're responsible to rule over and to take from, manage the resources, do so in a good way, not a reckless way. The resources that God has given in this earth and rest in the assurance. that the word in Genesis 8.22 applies, while the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease. Let's bow together in prayer. Heavenly Father, we thank Thee for Thy mercy to us. I pray that I will speak on to our hearts. Maybe, Lord, be able to cut through the foolishness of this age. Be able to interact with people that have been just caught hook, line, and sinker for this propaganda. Sort out all of the wild claims from the common sense of this, and maybe see young people in our day and generation won for Jesus Christ. Not shunted off down these dead ends.