Suddenly I understand the climate change debate. An article in my iPhone’s AP News app persuaded me. I was persuaded before, mind you, but until today I didn’t know how much credence to give the skeptics (correct answer: none at all). The article quoted a scientist who said, “It’s just physics.” (Carbon dioxide traps heat. The process of burning fossil fuels adds carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. The predictions scientists made back in 1975 or so have pretty much come true on schedule.) The oil, gas and coal companies have taken the lead in denouncing the science, and the reason people have sided with them and been skeptical of the science is pretty much self-explanatory: to accept the prognosis is to accept the need to change everything about the society in which we live. The situation is very much analogous to the need to quit smoking because the doctor has told us that lung cancer, emphysema, even diabetes and hair loss are imminent if we continue to smoke three packs a day. No more fossil fuels means no more industry. No more cars, no more factories, no more superpower status.

God forbid we should become just another third-world country.

The fun thing, as far as my anarchistic theories are concerned, is that it doesn’t matter what we do. We have a choice and God is in control. Any theological questions those two statements may raise about God’s goodness, etc. boil down to a case of first-world whining.

It is my wholly unsubstantiated opinion that people who suffer the way impoverished, majority-world people suffer tend not to ask such questions, or at least not in the same way. Their questions tend more towards “Why haven’t you smitten those fracking first-worlders, yet?” I may be wrong. Damned if I know what kinds of questions such people ask.

But let’s consider our first-world options, at least at the two extremes:

Number one: We fail to address the problem, keep our blinders on, and find out what happens in a hundred or two hundred years—this is the option we will most likely take. Since none of the climate change predictions for our lifetimes are too outré, let’s let our children and grandchildren scramble to find a solution. In truth, their panicked efforts to save Amsterdam, Manhattan, etc, from drowning are highly likely to make things worse. This is in accordance with the laws of unintended consequence. It is my opinion that launching millions of tiny mirrors into space, or pumping huge amounts of sulfur into the atmosphere, or whatever, is a very bad idea. We know this from past experience, or at least we should. At some point, however, we are almost guaranteed to try to install some sort of global thermostat. Next stop: ice age.

But here’s how God works, if I understand correctly: Justice often takes centuries. The wicked prosper; the poor are oppressed. For generations nothing changes. Then the poor start crying out to God in earnest, and soon the oppressors’ world collapses. A remnant is preserved, and peace is restored.

Don’t get me wrong—life doesn’t suddenly get easy for the remnant, but that’s not the point. Life was never meant to be as easy as it is for the extremely wealthy (by which I mean, for example, the American middle and upper classes). When I say that peace is restored, I simply mean that simple people are simply left alone. At least until they start clamoring for the easy life again, or find something valuable that they’ll kill to defend, etc. (I say “et cetera” as if you all know what the hell I’m talking about, when really I’m making allusions to my own peculiar theology, which very few others even know about let alone agree with or even understand how I can believe it makes sense, but in a nutshell, the biblical book of Judges is my idea of the way the world should be. Trust God and all shall be well; trust earthly power (yours or anyone else’s) and all shall take a little bit more time to be well.)

Option two: We repent. Ha ha ha. This is God’s preferred option, unlikely as it is that we will take it. Ironically, climate scientists are being faithful prophets, and the people are refusing to believe and thus refusing to act, and soon enough (in God’s timeframe) it will all be over. Yes, it is mostly the conservative Christians (in the political sense of the word) who are ignoring the prophetic words, but they are us. Make no mistake: No matter how liberal an activist or active a liberal you may be, the conservatives are right to tell you to love America or leave it. To stay (unless you’re extremely poor) is to accept the privileges of oppressive wealth. I’m not 100% certain (because I haven’t looked into it, myself), but I’m pretty sure Mexico would welcome you if you and your family wanted to walk down there and live in a remote village somewhere within its borders. Just try not to be a burden on the people who are already there, okay? (Aaaand somehow I manage to sound sanctimonious in spite of myself.)

God is a slow activist, but an effective one. And don’t get me wrong—we are allowed to participate in his activism; it’s just that living like a prince is generally incompatible with living like a prophet. How that jibes with my assertion that scientists are being “faithful prophets” I don’t know; I’m just a writer who carries the white-man’s burden, and I can’t find any compelling reason to put it down. By any standard I can think of, white men are guilty. I’m a white man, living a white man’s life, therefore I’m guilty. And I don’t think I should stop feeling that way. If I can’t even bear up under this anemic cross, how will I shoulder the one Jesus asked me take? How will I ever be able to take up my cross and follow Jesus through the eye of a needle into the kingdom of heaven unless God takes away my wealth and security?

Our imminent economic collapse is not just God’s justice, but God’s mercy, as well.

All I’m trying to say, in regards to option two, is that we can repent of our wealth. The option is on the table. Or rather, not so much our wealth as the passion with which we cling to it. The sense that we’re entitled to it. The evil we condone, turn a blind eye to, and occasionally actively participate in in order to gain and/or keep it. Regarding all these things we are allowed to repent. Having done so we may yet avert the coming climatic catastrophe simply by quitting our greenhouse-gas-producing habits. If we don’t, our civilization will be destroyed. And, more than likely, much of the less-prosperous world will fail alongside us. That may seem unfair to the victims of our crimes and lacks of compassion, but, if my theories are correct, the world, when it recovers, will be a paradise like we cannot imagine. Thanks to global warming, Antarctica may well be restored, after thousands of millennia of wintry exile, to fruitful vivacity. Such is God’s justice. Such is God’s mercy. May the creatures who thrive there never stop thanking you for it.