The Economist is convinced by the recent IPCC report on climate change that global warming is a) a reality, and b) the world must do something about it. That something, this article concludes, is to both adapt to the climate change and try to reverse it.

Climate change | All washed up | Economist.com

WE WERE right, all along. That is the thrust of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a United Nations body set up to pronounce authoritatively on the science of global warming. In 2001 it predicted that global warming would lead to many ills, including greater numbers of extinctions, growing shortages of water, higher incidence of tropical diseases, and lower yields from agriculture, fishing and forestry in some places. Now the scientists who write the reports say they have much stronger evidence that such calamities are indeed occurring—faster, in many cases, than they originally thought.

That there have been changes in climate I readily concede. My skepticism comes from lack of confidence in the conclusions being drawn from the studies. I look askance at the IPCC report partly because of the politics of it (can any global agency be objective?) and partly because that conclusions about climate change depend a lot on one’s worldview.

A secular worldview that assumes separate spheres for religion and science tends to place its trust in science and ignore the possibility that a sovereign God may have something to say about his handiwork. A Christian worldview, on the other hand is apt to ignore the real contributions of science to our understanding of how things work. Like climate change science. Like cosmology.

What’s needed on both sides of the debate is a good dose of humility and a better sense of the limitations of human thought.

Dave, which he is not so humble himself.