Our illustrious President created a publicity event last week by officially renaming Mt. McKinley, America’s tallest mountain. From now on, it will be known as Denali, which has been the name recognized by the Alaska natives since well before anyone from the lower 48 ever wandered up there. Having lived and worked in Alaska for a number of years, I’m confident that except for a few local folks involved in the political scene, Alaskans in general don’t really care what Obama, or anyone else for that matter, calls it. The whole thing was just another media side-show, a staged political spectacle designed to draw attention to the President delivering another prophetic declaration that unavoidable global disasters are bearing down on us, and worldwide death and destruction will be forthcoming if we don’t dismantle capitalism and the entire free enterprise system and have the government control everything we do. Perhaps someone should inform him and his socialist cronies that global disasters are already happening, and they are not the result of the atmospheric temperature. We’re living in the midst of a climate change crisis, but it’s not the one he likes to warn us about.

Climate Change–Image by Nicola Jones

The atmosphere in America, and in much of the world at large, has changed, and things have ‘heated up’ to a frightening degree. The evidence is undeniable, and life as we have known it is reeling under the impact of some of the changes. And, no, we aren’t talking about ice caps melting and the oceans rising. The beaches aren’t moving inland, and we’re in no danger of our coastal cities being wiped out, but there are other kinds of ‘climate changes’ that are real, and other protective ‘shorelines’ that have been, and are being, systematically obliterated. Families, businesses, churches, communities, and an entire way of life that once thrived behind their protective barriers have been inundated, and people are drowning as wave after wave of moral, ethical, and spiritual chaos choke off the life they once knew.

It’s paradoxical how the ‘global warming’ fanatics (and their cohorts in the media) spare no hyperbole in describing the devastation they envision as resulting from even the slightest change in atmospheric temperature, yet deny that any negative impact could result from some of the much more relevant kinds of ‘climate change’ that those in their ranks support. Drastic and wholesale changes have been inflicted on the basic systems that have supported our moral and ethical ‘climate’, ensured our social stability, and maintained our national welfare since the founding of this great country. The lethal influence of those changes has been disastrous.

To cite one example, violence has ‘heated up’ in America at an alarming rate. Our country has become more universally violent than at any point in recent history, and every day pours forth more substantiating evidence. Class envy, greed, lust, and prejudice are inflamed to a level of murderous rage by the pervasive promotion of a godless philosophy that subjugates everything to a value system based on pure hedonism. This nation, like every nation, has always had its episodes of random violence, but an atmosphere of peace in our communities was once the general rule. There was a prevailing attitude of respect for others, and for human life, simply because it is human life. That is no longer the case. Arrogance, personal attacks, and a general lack of respect are commonplace in both public and private interactions. A fast food worker was pulled by her hair through the window of her drive-through station last week by an irate customer who didn’t like the way she handled the order. That kind of thing isn’t surprising, given that we treat the wholesale slaughter of the most innocent of human lives as a ‘right’. Over 15 million lives have been purposefully and cruelly extinguished because a mother saw her child as an inconvenience, and we now know that the sale of their body parts by the perpetrators of their murder has been big business, a business supported by the highest elected officials in the land. That’s a climate change that no prophet of doom would have envisioned a few generations ago.

As national resources dwindle, a ‘dog-eat-dog’ mentality, and a ‘me first’ attitude have become the prominent characteristics of the social atmosphere. Claims of personal entitlement to the earnings and possessions of others is fostered as a ‘right’, and declared to be ‘social justice’. The accompanying ‘survival of the fittest’ mentality is fitting. It would be the expected outcome of years of teaching Darwinian evolution, and forcefully replacing belief in a personal and loving Creator with the notion that we are no more than a random confluence of molecules, with no purpose beyond meeting our basic needs and pursuing our own pleasures. Small wonder that lying, cheating, stealing, and betrayal have become the norm in this painful new ‘climate’.

The climate change fanatics spout warnings of global doom if people don’t do something about it, and multitudes run out to buy a Prius to save the planet, and some even sell their cars and a get a bicycle. Even if man-made global warming wasn’t an anti-capitalist hoax (which I believe it is), shrinking your ‘carbon footprint’ isn’t going to affect the status of the arctic ice cap. We can’t do anything about the global weather hoax, but there are some things we can do about the climate change crises that are real.

In an atmosphere of lies, we can tell the truth even when it hurts us, and demand it from others in return. In an atmosphere of ‘me first’ entitlement, we can offer grace, and sacrifice for someone else’s benefit once in a while. In a climate of violence, hatred, fear, greed, and prejudice, we can love without expectation, and give without manipulation. In an atmosphere where gloom and bad news are inescapable, we can proclaim ‘good news’ with eternal benefits, and the hope that this climate doesn’t have to stay the way it is. We can’t do anything about the deserts or the polar ice, but maybe we can bless a thirsty soul, and maybe even can melt a few hearts.

© 2015 Gallagher’s Pen, Ronald L. Gallagher, Ed.S.  All rights reserved.

To follow this blog for more ‘Right Side Up Thinking ~ In an Upside Down World’, sign up just below the ‘Search box’ in the upper right sidebar for regular email notifications of new posts.