–– Lennox Kalifungwa
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Rumor has it that carbon emissions have boldly escaped the grip of God, as though the Almighty misplaced His sovereignty. Further whispers suggest that winds and waves now answer to climate scientists and global summits rather than their Creator, while trillions of dollars and human ingenuity scramble to fill the supposed vacuum in divine governance. In this narrative, God is relegated to a footnote: powerless, apathetic, or perhaps altogether absent. The cosmos, once orchestrated by His will, is now a tempest to be both feared and appeased. Humanity, formerly bearing His image, must clean up the mess of its own rebellion, while divine promises are relegated to myth.
If God is dead—and the alarmists’ gospel tacitly preaches this—then, by all means, let us fear. Fear that the sky might fall, the poles might melt, or the oceans might consume us. Fear is the natural religion of a world that denies its Creator. Those who do not fear God will inevitably fear everything else.
Climate Change: Faith in Chaos
The prevailing panic around climate change thrives in a worldview bereft of God. Many who sound the alarm adhere to an evolutionary framework, believing the earth has drifted through billions of years of cosmic happenstance. Unsurprisingly, such a perspective breeds anxiety: if creation is rudderless and without divine constraint, then even the subtlest fluctuation in temperature becomes an existential crisis. But make no mistake—this debate is not about data or science. It is a clash of worldviews: one that excludes God versus one that acknowledges His supreme authority over creation.
Inconveniently, the science underpinning climate hysteria is far from settled. Consider the evidence. Between AD 1000 and 1300, global temperatures declined while carbon dioxide levels remained steady. Temperatures began rising centuries before industrial CO₂ emissions surged. Such discrepancies expose the fragility of the correlation between carbon emissions and climate trends. If these relationships were absolute, the data would align across scales. Yet, even on the matter of extreme weather events, evidence linking human activity to catastrophic trends remains tenuous at best.
The Economics of Alarmism
Climate alarmism, far from being a dispassionate pursuit of truth, functions as an industry—a lucrative one. Those who profit from perpetuating fear would face economic extinction if their narrative crumbled. A trillion-dollar ecosystem of international organizations, from the United Nations to the World Economic Forum, thrives on this moral panic. Meanwhile, the media amplifies the rhetoric, weaponizing fear to enforce compliance with statist and globalist decrees.
The collateral damage is most visible in developing nations, particularly in Africa. Green energy policies, marketed as compassionate, have throttled these economies by forcing reliance on unreliable energy sources like wind and solar. Threatened with sanctions for exploring fossil fuels, African nations endure power shortages that cripple businesses, stifle agriculture, and perpetuate poverty. Such policies prioritize abstract environmental concerns over tangible human needs. This isn’t stewardship; it’s sabotage—a crusade against human flourishing disguised as virtue.
This is a direct assault on capitalism and decentralized governance through the global redistribution of wealth. The poor should not bear the burden of political theater masquerading as virtue. Crucially, this agenda is never about uplifting the impoverished but systematically targeting the wealthy—undermining wealth creation through punitive taxation and regulatory overreach. If the goal is to improve the world, the focus should be on cultivating better people, not merely better policies or projects. Yet, climate alarmists invert this logic, striving to perfect systems and things while vilifying humanity itself.
The Heresy of Practical Atheism
At its core, climate alarmism is practical atheism. It denies God’s sovereignty, replacing divine providence with bureaucratic edicts and corporate interests. In this paradigm, creation is deified, and humanity, made in God’s image, is vilified. The rhetoric claims to care for the poor, yet it robs them of the energy resources they need to escape poverty.
There is an undeniable link between affordable energy and higher living standards, yet activists demand sacrifices that impoverish the many to enrich the few.
The ethos of climate activism opposes the biblical mandate to subdue the earth and be fruitful. It promotes infertility, stagnation, and tyranny, echoing the nihilistic refrain of depopulation advocates. It prioritizes hypothetical future generations over the needs of those alive today. If true care for posterity were the goal, it would begin with empowering the present to prosper.
A Biblical Alternative
Christians must resist the alarmist narrative with the unshakable truths of Scripture:
1. God governs His creation
“The God who made the world and everything in it… gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:24–25). God’s sovereignty extends to the boundaries of the seas and the constancy of seasons (Proverbs 8:29; Genesis 8:22). He is not perplexed by human anxieties or environmental fluctuations.
2. God sustains all things
“In him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). The cosmos is neither self-sustaining nor spiralling out of control. Every atom obeys His command.
3. God’s promises stand firm
After the flood, God declared, “While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (Genesis 8:22). Alarmism denies this covenant, replacing divine assurance with apocalyptic despair.
4. Human flourishing aligns with stewardship
The dominion mandate of Genesis 1 calls for humanity to steward creation without compromising human welfare. True stewardship nurtures both the earth and its inhabitants, recognizing that environmental care must serve, not sabotage, human flourishing.
A Call to Clarity
Christians must discern between genuine environmental stewardship and ideological coercion masquerading as science. Christians must recognize these fundamental truths: if so-called “science” is unethical, it is not science at all—it is wrong. If it neither honors God nor serves the highest good of humanity, it is flawed. When “science” bends to ideological narratives rather than aligning with objective truth, it ceases to be trustworthy.
Science is not a deity to be worshipped. Climate alarmism, far from being grounded in genuine science, is rooted in a pagan worldview that seeks to steal, kill, and destroy. It must be rejected unequivocally, even if doing so comes at great personal cost—including the loss of lucrative careers.
Climate alarmism’s ultimate goal is not to save the planet but to erode truth, enslave humanity to fear, and dethrone God.
The antidote? Courageous faith, grounded in the promises of a sovereign Creator, and a rejection of the fear-driven narratives that seek to reshape society. Climate alarmism may be loud, but the Word of God is louder—and infinitely more enduring.