wildfires Archives - DOES GOD EXIST? TODAY

August 22, 2024August 20, 2024

The Giant Sequoia Design

The design that God has built into every ecosystem continues to radiate the truth of the biblical statement that we can know there is a God through the things He has made (Romans 1:20). As science discovers design in the creation, the truth of that biblical statement becomes obvious. We often see design in very small things such as bacteria, viruses, and algae, but on the other end of the scale, we find very large objects such as the giant sequoia.

Imagine a plant that can be uninjured by fire but needs fire to reproduce. In our day of forest mismanagement resulting in massive fires, this feature becomes important. In the past, smaller fires wiped out ordinary trees like oaks or maples. The super-large trees were unaffected by the fires and used them as part of their reproductive design. One of the most notable examples is the giant sequoia found in California.

The giant sequoia is so tall and large that fire does not affect it. The tree stands more than 370 feet tall. (A football field is 300 feet long.) Giant sequoias weigh 640 tons, as much as 107 elephants. They can be up to 29 feet wide and are not affected by the blights that affect ash, elm, oak, or maple trees. In California, the redwoods cover 1.6 million acres, and the giant sequoias another 48,000 acres. These trees, which do not depend on groundwater and a root system, get their moisture from snow, rain, and fog.

These giant trees occupy a unique ecological niche among Earth’s staggering diversity of plant and animal life. They show God’s design and planning, making our planet extraordinary.

Reference: SaveTheRedwoods.org

July 3, 2023July 1, 2023

Human Actions Lead to Wildfires

In our part of the country, people will remember the summer of 2023 as the “summer of smoke.” Canadian wildfires combined with wind directions have brought heavy smoke into our area. The smoke has been so dense that a friend living in Chicago told me he could not see across the street – a distance of about 20 yards. In the past, we personally experienced California wildfires and saw their massive damage. The message we need to understand is that human actions lead to wildfires.

God designed the natural world to prevent massive fires from developing. When we allow brush to accumulate, lightning, human carelessness, or arson starts a fire, it will explode into a conflagration of massive proportions. The role of grazing animals is one way the natural world has been designed to prevent these huge fires.

Ireland is a rainy country, but in 2021, wildfires burned near Dublin for six weeks. The fuel for those explosive fires is a flowering plant called gorse. It grows in dense thickets and is highly flammable when it dries in late summer. The removal of an indigenous goat breed known as old Irish goats allowed the heathland to become overgrown. The result was annual fire outbreaks.

By introducing the old Irish goats back to the area where the gorse grows, the plant biomass is no longer a fuel source for the fires. An organization called the “Old Irish Goat Society” (OIGS) has been involved in a three-year project to reintroduce the endangered goat breed into areas suffering the threat of wildfires. One obvious risk in today’s world is that the goats will also eat desirable plants. In the past, carnivores prevented that from happening by limiting goat populations. The OIGS prevents that problem by equipping the goats with GPS colors that set off an alarm when the goats wander too far.

God built into the creation a variety of means of preventing wildfires. Once again, human actions lead to wildfires by altering the original system, which included grazing animals. Yellowstone National Park has similar results with elk herds. We must learn to allow the controlling agents that God built into the original system.

Reference: “Meet the Firefighting Goats of Dublin” in Discover magazine for July/August 2023, pages 10-11.

July 22, 2021July 17, 2021

Evidence of Climate Change

My son-in-law and his family moved to Vancouver, Washington, in 2020. His wife grew up in Thailand, where the weather was hot and humid. I told her that when she got to Vancouver, she would have a completely different climate experience. I explained that the Pacific Current along the coast brings cold water from Alaska while the wind brings cool air and lots of rain to the Portland/Vancouver area. How could I have guessed that the summer of 2021 would prove me wrong and give more evidence of climate change?

June 27, 2021, was the hottest day ever recorded in Oregon, with temperatures reaching 112 degrees in the Portland area. Air conditioners are usually rare commodities in that part of the country, and even fans are not very common. Because the weather was so unusual, people were ill-equipped to deal with that kind of heat, and many people died. My son-in-law had brought an Indiana exhaust fan, so they were not comfortable but able to survive.

This was not just a freak heatwave. Climate change in the western third of this country is causing all kinds of problems. Lake Powell, on which we have spent many happy hours, is at 20% of its maximum capacity. Lake Mead near Las Vegas is 160 feet below its full level. People living in areas like the U.S. midwest don’t understand that this is a real crisis for people who live in the desert southwest. Many cities get their water from these lakes, Likewise, farms. Farmers irrigate their vineyards and orchards with water from those lakes.

The drought is evidence of climate change producing tinderbox conditions in the forests of the western region. From July 24 through December 31 of 2020, more than 100 fires burned over 10 million acres causing 20 billion dollars in damage to man-made structures. The heat even caused highways to buckle.

Those who try to deny the evidence of climate change are setting the world up for a catastrophic future. This is not something that God has done to punish us. However, it is the result of careless use of the resources God has given us. It is time to stop arguing and start fixing the problem. Moving water from places where there is too much to areas that are in drought is an expensive option. Planting massive numbers of trees is an option worth trying. Standing around in 115-degree heat and trying to deny the climate is changing is not an option.

Reference: The Herald Bulletin, July 3, 2021.

December 18, 2017October 5, 2018

Global Warming Issue

There can be no rational question but that our planet is experiencing a period of global warming. The data shows that warming is growing daily, but research is also showing that this is not an unusual situation. In the past, there have been periods of global warming far greater than what we are experiencing now. However, humans were not a part of the global warming issue then, but they certainly are involved today.

In the geologic period known as the Pliocene, carbon dioxide levels were similar to today’s. They trapped heat and raised global temperatures higher than what we are experiencing now. Temperatures in the Arctic were as much as 19 degrees Celsius higher than today. This warmth allowed changes in the living systems that were around at the time. In the Arctic, forests grew, and mammals like horses and camels became abundant. Wildfires roared across the landscape spewing soot into the air which further altered the climate of the area.

We are now seeing fires around the world which can alter climate. Russia had a fire that burned 283,280 square kilometers in 2012. In 2015 there were 20,230 square kilometers burned in Alaska. California has been experiencing some of the worst fires on record. Wildfires have broken out in Greenland, which is unusual. Scientists are investigating how soot from the fires is affecting the climate of the region.

We can learn a lot about our future by studying what has happened in the past. We must add human influence to the picture, but we need to avoid buying into the views of extremists on both sides of the global warming issue.
–John N. Clayton © 2017
Data from Science News, December 9, 2017.