Will “Carbon Cuts” Make Climate Change Worse?

Well, the popular article reporting on this study writes:

One [sic] the one hand, cutting fossil fuel pollution is necessary for avoiding severe destruction over the long term. But such cuts will make the earth much hotter in the short term.

This study looked at reductions in pollution due to the sudden stop of much manufacturing and transportation during the pandemic. As pollution slowed, aerosols in the atmosphere settled, less light was reflected back into space, and the overall temperature on earth grew warmer. So if countries around the world do work to cut back on pollution (which is a good goal—according to the article, pollution results in millions of deaths each year), the result, according to this study, will be a (temporarily) warmer earth—which is exactly what climate activists don’t want!

What I thought was interesting about this study was a remark one climate scientist made about the study:

I have nothing but respect & reverence for [Hansen] . . . but I think he is wrong on this one,” University of Pennsylvania climate scientist Michael Mann tweeted.

But Mann said they agreed on something important: We don’t understand the earth’s atmosphere as well as we need to. “And where there is uncertainty, we should weigh in on the side of precaution,” (emphasis added)

The modern climate change movement is actually a religion that believes man can save himself and save the planet.

Yes, indeed, “we don’t understand earth’s atmosphere as well as we need to.” As we’ve pointed out before, we haven’t been measuring earth’s temperature for very long—and we’ve only had robust data since the 1970’s when satellite measurements began to be taken. Climate is extremely complex and there’s still so much we don’t know (like how cycles on the sun impact climate). There’s so much we don’t know and yet politicians want to radically change society—including plunging nations into poverty or keep them in poverty by withholding cheap energy from them—because of their fears about the future climate. (Despite the fact that their predictions continually fail to come true!) The modern climate change movement is actually a religion that believes man can save himself and save the planet.

Yes, the atmosphere and climate are complex, but the God who made it all and thoroughly understands it all said,

While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease. (Genesis 8:22)

We don’t need to fear that man will destroy the planet, as God wouldn’t let that happen anyway.

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This item was discussed today on Answers News with cohosts Jessica Jaworski, Patricia Engler, and Bodie Hodge. Answers News is our weekly news program filmed live before a studio audience here at the Creation Museum and broadcast on our Answers in Genesis YouTube channel and posted to Answers TV. We also covered the following topics:

• Are Antarctic glaciers hiding secrets?
• LGBTQ groups: “No such thing as neutrality”
• Students fails course for saying “biological women.”
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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.