Why climate change may save more lives than it costs
Lee Zeldin, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator, announced earlier this week what he described as “the largest deregulatory action in the history of the United States.” The new ruling argues that Congress has not given the EPA the necessary authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, methane from oil and gas companies, or a host of other pollutants.
The shift stands in contrast to how the EPA has approached these issues since the Clean Air Act ostensibly established a legal basis for such regulation back in 2009. However, the basis for that law was the “endangerment finding,” which argued that greenhouse gases represent a sufficiently large threat to public health and welfare to necessitate government intervention. Zeldin and his team are questioning that conclusion.
Given the way government agencies typically function, it may seem odd for one to actively try to limit the scope of its authority. However, shortly after his nomination to lead the EPA, Zeldin stated that his goal was to drive “a dagger through the heart of climate-change religion” by going after the regulations used to support it.
And this is hardly the first time that conservatives—or even President Trump—have sought to chip away at these protocols. During his first term, Trump undid many of the regulations from Obama’s tenure in the Oval Office, only to see them reinstated by Biden. However, if the endangerment finding were overturned, then it would be far more difficult for future presidents to do the same.
But while Zeldin and others in the administration have argued the cost of these regulations outpaces the environmental gains, their primary focus is less on the science behind climate change and more on the argument that Congress took shortcuts in granting regulatory powers to the EPA in the first place. Largely avoiding the quagmire of debate around shifting temperatures and humanity’s impact is seen as an easier path to deregulation.
Whether that assessment proves accurate will be for the courts to decide, but the attempt has sparked fresh debate over both climate change in general and the government’s role in combating it more specifically. And when it comes to that debate, relying on facts over narratives is essential.
To that end, I found a recent article by Jonah Goldberg in The Dispatch to be particularly helpful.
Data-driven or agenda-driven?
In his article, Goldberg argues that—at least in the short to intermediate term—climate change may actually save more lives than it costs. He points to how, in Europe, for example, 8.3 times more people die from cold weather than from heat. If that fact is surprising, it may be because heat-related deaths get nine times more media coverage.
Goldberg is quick to clarify: “I think climate change is real and a problem—even if I think it is also overhyped and used to justify a political and economic agenda that is not entirely about dealing with the problem. So I don’t want to be too dismissive.”
However, he goes on to point out that these changes manifest more in the form of warmer winters than hotter summers, which could lead to greater crop yields, faster reforestation, and fewer cold-related deaths. Moreover, carbon emissions from heating are four times greater than the emissions from air conditioning, meaning that colder climates exacerbate the problem far more than warmer ones.
Yet, despite those factors, many continue to focus only on climate change’s potential consequences—many of which are both real and troubling—while ignoring the possible benefits. And this trend is seen most clearly in Europe, where the rising temperatures have proved particularly painful because the people there are often ill-equipped to handle them.
In Switzerland, for example, government approval is required to install air conditioning. In France, as of a few years ago, roughly three-quarters of all homes were unair-conditioned, and the prevailing narratives throughout their culture aim to keep it that way.
A recent Wall Street Journal article described how “In France, media outlets often warn that cooling a room to more than 15 degrees Fahrenheit below the outside temperature can cause something called ‘thermal shock,’ resulting in nausea, loss of consciousness and even respiratory arrest.”
As someone who has spent most of my life in Texas, I can assure you that is not the case.
But while it is easy to deride claims of “thermal shock” and an ever-evolving list of climate-related doomsday predictions—or their counterparts that claim nothing is actually changing—the truth is that all of us are tempted at times to downplay the truth when it proves inconvenient to the narrative we would prefer to believe.
And, as Christians, that is a mistake we cannot afford to make.
Itching ears and false teachers
One of the most tragic examples of this mistake in Scripture comes from the scribes and Pharisees who opposed Jesus throughout the Gospels. For the most part, these were well-meaning, well-educated, God-fearing men who dedicated their lives to helping people know how to be right with the Lord.
The problem was that their understanding of what made a person right with God was wrong. So when Jesus came preaching about the need for repentance and looking beyond right actions to focus on getting your heart right, they rejected him.
They built their lives, their ministries, and even their very identities around a false idea, and their dependence upon the lie was so strong that not even God incarnate could correct them.
But while the Pharisees are a famous example of this fault, all of us are prone to the same mistake. Moreover, it is just as damaging to our relationship with God and as easy to fall victim to today as it was two thousand years ago.
Our culture fits well into Paul’s warning that “the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy 4:3–4).
Fortunately, the advice that follows is just as relevant as well: “But as for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Timothy 4:5). In short, choose what’s true no matter the cost and never waver from our calling to help others do the same.
So, what false narratives are you prone to believing today? Are there any areas of your life where your ears are itching for convenient myths over inconvenient truths?
All of us have our blind spots where we are vulnerable to that temptation. The key is knowing yours and then learning to rely on the Lord to help you choose his reality over one of your own making.
Will you ask for his help in making the right choice today?
Quote of the day:
“The word of God hidden in the heart is a stubborn voice to suppress.” —Billy Graham
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