Protected Rainforest Paved Over for Climate Summit

According to reports, a new four-lane highway is being built through tens of thousands of acres of protected Amazon rainforest and wetlands in order to accommodate the influx of visitors in November. This new road, while designed with wildlife crossings and other “sustainable” features, will cut the forest area in half, causing habitat fragmentation.

Now, this highway has been proposed since 2012 to relieve congestion in the city, and according to other reports, construction began in 2020 before the city knew it would host the climate summit, so it’s not clear if the reports that this is all about the climate summit are accurate (though apparently, some of the locals think it is). But either way, it certainly makes for an ironic headline!

And it serves as a good reminder for us to think about these climate summits and what they really accomplish. There are real threats to conservation (like habitat fragmentation!), but is man-made climate change the huge threat it’s made out to be at events like COP30 and through the media?

Climate change alarmism is very much a worldview-based hysteria.

No! Climate change alarmism is very much a worldview-based hysteria. Those who wring their hands about the future of our climate start from the assumptions that our climate has remained relatively stable for tens of thousands of years, that any warming (or cooling) must therefore be our fault, and that man is ultimately in control and we can save ourselves.

But this neglects the true history of the world which includes a perfect climate designed by God that was marred by human sin, was radically shifted by the global flood and its aftermath, and is ultimately controlled by the God who promised the seasons would continue while the earth remains (Genesis 8:22).

Yes, we need to care for God’s creation—balancing the needs of humans with wise stewardship of the limited resources God has entrusted to us—but we don’t need to do so from the gloomy position of the climate alarmists who believe everything will end in just a few years if we don’t make radical changes that will cause real suffering to millions of individuals, particularly the poor. We need to be wise stewards who start from God’s Word and apply his wisdom.

If you’d like to learn more about a biblical response to climate change, I encourage you to check out my book, cowritten with environmental scientist Jessica DeFord, Climate Change for Kids…and Parents Too!

Get More Answers on Answers News

This item was discussed Monday on Answers News with cohosts Kevin Hadsall, Dr. Tim Chaffey, and Avery Foley. Answers News is our weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum, broadcast on our Answers in Genesis YouTube channel, and posted to Answers TV. We also covered the following topics:

• Should a Christian university be forced to hire against its beliefs?
• Do 2.75-billion-year-old rocks rewrite evolutionary history?
• Should we “stand up for science”?
• And more!

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Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

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