I like Bill Nye. I actually like Bill Nye quite a lot.

A former Boeing engineer, Nye possesses the unique capacity to ignite a passion for discovery, particularly for young people. Leveraging his flair for disarming humor, his television programs on science and discovery are legendary. “Bill Nye the Science Guy” is a universally recognized brand.

Nye recently appeared in a quasi-debate on CNN’s “Crossfire” television program, a multi-person show that typically appears to be more of a verbal food fight with guests and hosts talking over each other on controversial issues. Following his appearance, many opined that Nye should now be known as “Bill Nye the Climate Guy,” as he emotionally defended a recent report on climate change. The ratings for this program were high.

Following the debate, he made a most interesting statement: “I will look anyone in the eyes and remind them that climate change is the most serious problem facing human kind…What will future generations think of us?”

Is climate change truly "the most serious problem facing human kind"? That's a fair and important question arising out of Nye's statement. Nye's follow-on question, “what will future generations think of us?” is equally valid.

To answer these questions, perhaps we can first pose another more probing question: what happens when one treats the symptoms of a problem and not its cause?

Engineering training includes a strategic emphasis on root cause analysis. If a product or application fails, it’s not enough to just fix it. Engineers want to know why it failed. By finding out what failed or caused the failure, a design flaw or issue can be remedied for future production and use.

Concerning Nye’s statement, let’s consider the root cause of possible climate change. In reality, greenhouse gases and toxic energy byproducts simply represent the symptoms of a much greater problem. The surprising root cause of Nye’s climate issue actually lies in ancient history, which cause has been amplified many times through the ages.

To frame things in perspective, consider this critical fact: students of the Bible know that scriptural teachings generally divide how we live life into two broad categories. The first is the way of life that God directs and espouses, which focuses on giving, sharing and collaborating. When this way of life is practiced, peace, balance and freedom result. The other way of life is one that tries to justify unfairly taking, hurting, promoting an unbalanced focus on self and harmful greed. It is commonly practiced today, and its outcomes (called “fruits” in various biblical analogies) are all-too evident.

It is this latter category of cognitive self-indulgence that allows emotional space to somehow tolerate children being gassed to death in Syria. It helps people justify why it is globally permissible for roughly five percent of the world’s population to greedily consume over 50 percent of the world’s finished goods (while depending on people living in poverty to sustain it). Its relabeling of greed as somehow justifiable allows people to rationalize living with hot national debt at incomprehensible levels in order to prop up an unsustainable lifestyle. Instead having a balanced approach to nurturing and caring for the land and environment that sustains life, this harmful approach to living explains away insolent atmospheric belching of harmful chemicals for industrial and energy production. It accounts for why nations distrust, even fear each other, and why they spend upwards of an inconceivabletwo trillion dollars annuallyon military expenditures. I could go on, but the picture is sufficiently clear.

Simply put, it is give versus get.

And “get” wins hands down almost every time.

How did we arrive at this destructive point? Its etymology squarely lies in the answer to what is the most serious problem facing human kind. Future generations will talk long about the world’s present inability to properly address this issue.

What is it? What is the true root cause? Here it is: The most serious problem today is the foolish rejection of God by billions of people. Rejection of God means to willfully cut oneself off from critical guidance, from what the Bible describes as God’s “incomparably great power for us who believe” (Ephesians 1:19, New International Version).

Make no mistake. God is all-powerful. God is not trying to somehow convince us that He is right. At a future point where this way of “get” will lead humanity to the precipice of total annihilation, when the way of “get” crescendos to unfathomable evil, God will intervene (Matthew 24:22).

Until that time, God will continue to allow humanity to demonstrate to itself its incapacity to act and govern apart from God (James 4:1-3, Isaiah 59:8). He will permit the deadly consequences of human folly to nearly reach their full measure. We need to understand that the potential destructive outcomes of climate change represent some of these consequences.

Here’s the crux of the matter: It doesn’t have to be this way! The answer? David instructed Solomon: “Acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you”(1 Chronicles 28:9, New International Version, emphasis added).

As the world will learn, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). The consequences of humanity’s present preferred way of life are relentless.

With all due respect to Bill Nye, here’s a new statement to consider: Our variant? “I will look anyone in the eyes and warn them that rejecting God and embracing ‘opposing ideas of what is falsely called knowledge’ [1 Timothy 6:20, NIV] is the most serious problem facing human kind. Climate change is simply the consequences of humanity rejecting the benevolent law of God, which if truly applied, would result in the outbreak of peace and sanity. To survive, we must identify and treat the cause of our problems, not just the symptoms.”

God’s way is a way of love, of helping, of prospering. You don’t have to be a victim of humanity’s most serious problem. You have achoice.

From across the ages, the cry to choose wisely is clear: “Save yourselves from this corrupt generation” (Acts 2:22). What will you do?