What Should We Think About Greta Thunberg’s Climate Change Book?

Difference of Worldviews

Well, as Bible-believing Christians, we understand that we have a very different foundation for our thinking than Greta and the other authors of The Climate Book. Consider one of the statements she makes in her book:

We are, after all, an animal species among other animal species. We do not stand above the other elements that make up the Earth. We are dependent on them. We do not own this planet, no more than the frogs or the beetles, the deer or the rhinoceros own it. This is not our world . . .

It’s obvious just from this statement that Greta does not start her thinking with God’s Word. Her foundation is man’s word, naturalistic evolution, and millions of years. She has built her worldview from the foundation that man determines truth, and that view impacts how she interprets the world. As a result, she’s interpreting the world very wrongly!

Now, as Christians, we must reject her starting point and instead start with God’s Word. Scripture should be our foundation and the lens (worldview) through which we interpret everything, including claims about climate change and environmental activism. (And we have resources to help you. Check out “Climate Change and the Bible,” “Climate Alarmism,” and “The Globe Is Warming, But It’s Not Your Fault!!”)

Scripture should be our foundation and the lens (worldview) through which we interpret everything, including claims about climate change and environmental activism.

As the articles above detail, there’s no biblical or scientific reason for the cacophony of panic Greta and others like her create when it comes to climate change. Now, this doesn’t mean there aren’t environmental issues we should be concerned about. Of course there are! And we should care about them because God has placed us here to have dominion over his creation (Genesis 1:26), wisely tending and keeping it for his glory and our good. But as we care (or “steward”), we must have the proper perspective that (1) humans are image-bearers of God and therefore not animals, like Greta believes we are; (2) God is sovereign and earth is carefully designed by him; (3) we are to have dominion over creation; creation does not have dominion over us; and (4) we live in a fallen creation, suffering the effects of sin and the curse (Genesis 3).

What Then Shall We Do?

So in light of Greta and her contributors sharing how they believe we must act, I thought I would ask Jessica Jaworski, a wildlife ecologist and one of our education specialists, and Avery Foley (you may know her from the creation adventure program Schus Off!), both also hosts on Answers News, for a few practical ideas on how each of us can practice stewardship in our own lives without getting swept away by the doomsday panic of our world. Here are their suggestions:

1. Don’t litter. This one seems obvious, and yet so many people still do it (as evidenced by the amount of trash on the sides of highways!). Garbage pollutes God’s creation, causes harm to animals, and of course is very unpleasant to look at—therefore littering is not exhibiting righteous dominion. If we love God, we should want to care for creation and not pollute it. So don’t throw trash out of your car window, and make sure to clean up your campsite or other trash items while hiking or outside, and so on.
2. Clean up trash. Even if you aren’t littering, sadly, other people are—so volunteer to help get rid of that trash by participating in highway, beach, river, or neighborhood cleanups, or organize one in your own community. This is also a great way to meet other people who care about creation—opening up opportunities for you to give them the biblical reasons why you want to steward creation well!
3. Take care of what God has entrusted to you. Pets, farm animals, or even potted plants can be a great way of teaching children how to have proper “dominative authority” over creation. If you have a pet or plant, teach your child that it is their responsibility to have dominion over that creature, which means ensuring proper care to make sure it stays healthy. This principle can also be extended to the nonliving things God has entrusted to you—take care of them so you don’t have to replace them!
4. Try composting. We can limit the amount of trash we bag away, as well as recycle food waste, by starting a compost bin in your backyard or even in a bucket while living in an apartment. This newly created soil can then be recycled into your garden or used for potting house plants. Or the soil can be given away to a friend or neighbor for their garden. This is a practical way for food scraps to be reused instead of wasted.
5. Plant native plants in your garden. Many of the plants we enjoy in our gardens are non-natives that were, at one time or another, imported from other countries. While they are beautiful and we enjoy their variety, they often don’t really help support local food webs. Plants that are native to your specific area, on the other hand, support native pollinators like bees, moths, and butterflies—many of whom require very specific plants to be able to reproduce or complete their lifecycles. So, consider looking up a native flower nursery and adding some natives to your flower garden.
6. Reduce the size of your lawn. Lawn grass is non-native and doesn’t support local food webs. In other words, your lawn is an ecological “dead zone.” By replacing some of your lawn with plots of native wildflowers, you not only add beauty to your space, but you will attract helpful insects and pollinators, which will in turn feed birds (and you will have less grass to mow, so it’s a win-win!). A great place to begin is under any trees growing in your yard. Adding some shade-loving native plants in a ring around the base of the tree adds visual interest, provides food for pollinators and caterpillars, and breaks up the soil, which is important for the life cycle of important insects.

All of these are fun ideas to do together as a family, teaching your children about biblical stewardship and caring for what God has made.

All of these are fun ideas to do together as a family, teaching your children about biblical stewardship and caring for what God has made. And it is vital that we teach our children the biblical view, because the climate religion (it really is a religion!) of people like Greta is having a massive impact on the younger generations who are angry and petrified, thinking the world is ruined for them and they have no future. It’s leading to such despair! We must equip our children to think biblically about the environment and not give in to the lies and exaggerations of our culture.

Equipping Children to Think Biblically

One way you can do that is with our excellent Explore Environmental Science program for young people ages 11–18 at the Creation Museum or our Environmental Science High School Lab for the 2023–2024 school year. Or equip yourself to train your children with our brand-new, two-day Environmental Science Exploration for adults at the Ark Encounter. We are located near Cincinnati, in N. Kentucky.

Find all these programs and more at CreationMuseum.org.

Oh, and how about learning this promise from God to all of us: “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.