At the recent G8 (short for Group of Eight) meetings held in Toyako, Japan, leaders of the world's eight richest and most developed countries—France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States—met for three days of informal discussions on major issues affecting the world. And as has been the case in preceding meetings, the discussions once again included global warming.

Surprisingly, this year U.S. President George W. Bush indicated that the United States would join the other G8 countries in striving to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions—the presumed cause of global warming. Previously, Bush had refused to obligate the U.S. to this effort because he believed doing so would be counterproductive to the nation's business. Like most issues, global warming and Bush's response have critics at both ends of the spectrum.

Some such as Vladimir Ryzhkov of The Moscow Times.com don't believe the U.S. is responding fast enough to this environmental issue. He wrote: "Of course, it is good that the United States, with the largest economy in the world, finally recognized the need to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, but it took no concrete steps to do so during the summit. The World Wildlife Fund has made it clear that the G8 member countries—which contribute 62 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions—have not set definite goals for reducing those pollutants at the last three consecutive summits."

Other critics contend that global warming is based upon flawed ideas. In support of this position over 31,000 Americans who hold college degrees in science have signed the Oregon Petition which claims: "There is no convincing evidence that human release of CO2, methane or other greenhouse gases is causing or will cause, in the foreseeable future, catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." These skeptics further believe "The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind" (www.oism.org/pproject/).

Some maintain that the earth has always had gradual fluctuations in temperature and that recent warming is only temporary. Supporting this position, recent temperatures of the earth recorded over the past year indicate that the earth has now experienced widespread global cooling. As Dailytech.com reported: "Over the past year, anecdotal evidence for a cooling planet has exploded. China has its coldest winter in 100 years. Baghdad sees its first snow in all recorded history. North America has the most snow cover in 50 years, with places like Wisconsin the highest since record-keeping began. Record levels of Antarctic sea ice, record cold in Minnesota, Texas, Florida, Mexico, Australia, Iran, Greece, South Africa, Greenland, Argentina, Chile—the list goes on and on.

"No more than anecdotal evidence, to be sure. But now, that evidence has been supplanted by hard scientific fact. All four major global temperature tracking outlets (Hadley, NASA's GISS, UAH, RSS) have released updated data. All show that over the past year, global temperatures have dropped precipitously.

"A compiled list of all the sources can be seen here.  The total amount of cooling ranges from 0.65C up to 0.75C—a value large enough to wipe out most of the warming recorded over the past 100 years. All in one year's time. For all four sources, it's the single fastest temperature change ever recorded, either up or down."

Global warming (or is it global cooling?) has become a hugely contentious issue that has engulfed politics, science, the world economy and efforts to equalize business opportunities for developing nations.

In the face of such divergent opinions, what should a Christian do? From the instruction God gave Adam to "tend and keep" his environment (Genesis 2:15), we know that we need to be careful not to needlessly squander the earth's resources or pollute our land. But in contrast to those who believe man will solve his environmental concerns, the Bible predicts a different scenario.

According to God's Word, man's efforts to make the earth a healthy place to live will not be very successful. Instead, the Bible prophesies that humanity will come to the point of almost destroying itself before Christ returns to save man from himself (Matthew 24:22) and rule the earth for 1,000 years.