The flood at the time of Noah was a globally catastrophic event. Since then, the earth has
experienced many more disasters, ranging from volcanic explosions to earthquakes to hurricanes. (Incidentally, NASA says that a single hurricane is the equivalent of 10,000 nuclear bombs; [1] avolcano, 10,000 atomic bombs; [2] and an earthquake, 42 tsar bombs—the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated. [3]These frequently recurring disasters, each of which far surpasses any force of man, does not have the potential to wipe out all living creatures.
Yet today there is a very real fear that human-generated climate change could do what nature has never been able to.
Facing this terror, millions of young people recently participated in 3,600 protests. [4]
Signs included messages such as “Stop denying the earth is dying” [5] and “You will die of old age. We will die of climate change,” [6] and chanting phrases such as “I speak for the trees.They said f*** you” [7]
While we can debate public policies, what cannot be ignored is genuine sense of fear the next
generation feels. As Greta Thunberg, a sixteen-year-old climate activist in Generation Z,
explained:“Adults keep saying: ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope.’ But I don’t
want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel
the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a
crisis. I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.” [8]
Generation Z (those born after in 1999 or after) has been declared the “‘post-Christian’
generation,” [9] and statistics seem to confirm this: “the percentage of Gen Z that identifies as
atheist is double that of the U.S. adult population” [10] and less than 4 percent have a Biblical
worldview. Without God, this generation will not experience His promise that “Perfect love casts
out fear” (1 John 4:18 NASB).
God created this world and only He has the power to destroy it. He made this clear in Job 38, and
the Apostle Peter similarly affirms: “In the last days mockers will come...it escapes their notice that by the word of God the heavens existed long ago and the earth was formed out of water and by water, through which the world at that time was destroyed, being flooded with water. But by His word the present heavens and earth are being reserved for fire, kept for the day of judgment
and destruction of ungodly men” (2 Peter 3:3, 5-7 NASB).
For believers, faith—not fear—should guide our behavior. Fear is not God’s plan, but even if we
find ourselves surrounded by it, we should remember His promise that “in the world you have
tribulation, but take courage: I have overcome the world” (John 16:33 NASB).
Foundations of Truth hereby waives all claim of copyright (economic and moral) in this work and immediately places it in the public domain; it may be used, published, edited, and distributed in any manner whatsoever without any attribution or notice to Foundations of Truth.
1 Steve Graham, “Hurricanes: The Greatest Storms on Earth,” NASA Earth Observatory (November 1, 2006), here
2 Dominic Utton, “Volcanoes: Nature’s Nuclear Bombs,” The Express (April 16, 2010), here
3 Robin Andrews, “The World's Most Powerful Earthquake Ended With An Eruption And A Human Sacrifice,” Forbes (June 25, 2017), here
4 Hirji, Z., Champion, M. & Ghorayshi, A. “Millions of young people around the world are leading strikes to call attention to the climate crisis,” Buzz Feed News (September 20, 2019). here
5 “Millions attend global climate strike,” BBC (September 20, 2019), here
6 Ibid.
7 “Global climate strike: Greta Thunberg and school students lead climate crisis,” The Guardian (September 20, 2019), here
8 Franklin Foer, “Greta Thunberg is Right to Panic,” The Atlantic (September 20, 2019), here
9 “Atheism doubles among generation z,” Barna Group (January 24, 2019), here
10 Ibid.
