CAN THE BIBLE GIVE AN ECONOMIC FORECECAST?
I am not an optimist, and, this may surprise you, I am also not a pessimist. I call myself a realist, because I am too old to be swayed by emotional attachment to either rose-colored or depressing views. And a realist has to be a bit of a cynic, and, sorry to say, that’s also how I see myself. I think newspapers, TV broadcasts, any public news source, view matter from a general acceptance point of view, always focusing on its salability, and the obvious result is that the media are selling a half-truth because the real situation is too dire and too detrimental for the balance sheet. Oh yes, the odd time the truth breaks through, especially in books such as Elizabeth Kolbert’s The Sixth Extinction, which concludes on the somber note, “The Sixth Extinction will continue to determine the course of life long after everything people have written and painted and built has been ground into dust and giant rats have – or have not – inherited the earth.”
Elizabeth, a gifted writer, employed by the New Yorker magazine, a weekly I subscribe to, tells it like it is, in her well-documented and thoroughly researched book. Edward O. Wilson, the world’s most famous biologist, in his The Future of Life, ends on an optimistic, and even religious, note: “A civilization able to envision God and to embark on the colonization of space will surely find the way to save the integrity of this planet and the magnificent life it harbors.” This upbeat ending contrasts with the description of the book by The San Francisco Chronicle, which says that it “Offers the most powerful indictment yet of humanity as destroyer.”
E. O. Wilson calls himself a lapsed Christian, having left the Baptist Church in which he grew up. Yet, as one of the most well-known scientists, and always pleading for the preservation of animal life, the New Creation would greatly benefit from his expertise. If I’d be allowed to vote there, I’d plead for his admission.
That Bible. Can we trust it, especially its last book, Revelation, in which John, the perfect dreamer, saw a vision. Is, whatever he saw about our ending, accurate?
Well, even if we don’t trust the Bible, can we trust our current doomsayers, such as Kolbert and others? Truth is that we slowly are starting to realize that the biggest threats to long life is not the pandemic, but climate change. Not all that long ago there was an Ice-Age, now, thanks to us, temperatures are hotter than ever, changes are speeding up, and are lasting longer. Already, about a third of the world’s population is exposed to deadly heat for 20 days or more each year. In India, 65 per cent of the population was exposed to heatwaves in 2019. If greenhouse gas emissions are not dramatically reduced, extreme heatwaves could threaten three-quarters of the global population by 2100. Put bluntly, the death toll from extreme heat could rise by more than 2,000 per cent within this century.
Will we be able to reverse the trend?
Of course not. It would mean that you and I return to the lifestyle practiced 100 years ago and more, and that’s simply impossible. Global warming is accelerating because of spiraling greenhouse gas emissions. More CO2, NO2, methane and other noxious gasses were emitted over the past 30 years than in the previous 150. This is because we are burning more fossil fuels for energy, cutting down more forests for food, increasing meat consumption, and using more fertilizers and fluorinated gases than ever. Global warming is not just heating up land, it is also heating up the oceans. The world’s seas are dramatically warming and becoming less oxygen-rich, threatening marine ecosystems and the coastal communities that depend on them. An astonishing 200 species are disappearing every day and millions are threatened with extinction if temperatures continue rising. Climate change is already banging down the front door. Radical re-alignment and adaptation is needed, including a universal shift to a zero-carbon world. This can be achieved only by dramatically turning away from fossil fuels and toward renewable energy. And even then…
We all know it, and we won’t do a thing about it, because, in the main, life is comfortable, sort of.
However, the immediate danger is not Climate Change. The immediate danger is our economic system that can only function on more: less leads to collapse. And less is happening, and my source? The 18th Chapter of the last Bible book, Revelation. Can I rely on it?
There is a lot of stuff in Chapter 18, one of the Bible’s last chapters. Yes, it does refer to the current world economy and also to Climate Change, calling it “the rape of creation and adultery.” Here are some excerpts.
Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great!
she has become a lair for demons
and a haunt for every unclean spirit,
every unclean bird,
and every detestable beast.
All the nations have drunk the wine
of the passion of her immorality.
The kings of the earth were immoral with her,
and the merchants of the earth have grown wealthy
from the extravagance of her luxury.
That applies to us today: Global Warming and the Pandemic stem from our destructive and satanic addictions to fossil fuels.
Then I heard another voice from heaven say:
“Come out of her, My people,
so that you will not share in her sins
or contract any of her plagues.
For her sins are piled up to heaven,
and God has remembered her iniquities.
Sinning against creation, is sinning against God, that’s why we are faced with the impossible: we have to quit the society we have created, but that is no longer possible: that’s why the end is near. Even though we are stuck and can no longer distance ourselves from the monster we have created, we still must do everything in our power to create conditions of permanence and durability in our own lives.
Next disaster: economic stagflation: inflation combined with economic depression.
The chapter continues:
“And the merchants of the earth will weep and mourn over her, because there is no one left to buy their cargo— cargo of gold, silver, precious stones, and pearls; of fine linen, purple, silk, and scarlet; of all kinds of citron wood and every article of ivory, precious wood, bronze, iron, and marble of cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, and frankincense; of wine, olive oil, fine flour, and wheat; of cattle, sheep, horses, and chariots; of slaves and souls of men. And they will say:
“The fruit of your soul’s desire
has departed from you;
all your luxury and splendor have vanished,
never to be seen again.”
The merchants who sold these things and grew their wealth from her will stand at a distance, in fear of her torment. They will weep and mourn, saying:
“Woe, woe to the great city,
clothed in fine linen and purple and scarlet,
adorned with gold and precious stones and pearls!
For in a single hour
such fabulous wealth has been destroyed!”
The conditions related in Revelation 18, indicate a fully functioning society, with an enormous production of a full slate of consumer good, produced under slave conditions: they paint an accurate picture of today’s society. The enormous influx of money out of nothing, combined with sudden inflation, increasing global uncertainty, as well as energy bottlenecks, will cause consumer confidence to collapse and “in a single hour destroy such fabulous wealth.”
Can we trust the Bible for giving us an economic forecast? Yes, it is reliable because it has the insight of hindsight.