Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Scott Christiansen
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000173B
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00:01 Welcome back to The Liberty Insider.
00:03 Before the break with guest, Scott Christiansen. 00:05 We were talking about his experience in Mongolia. Yeah. 00:10 You know, it's the experience 00:11 very few people have had not just 00:13 because Mongolia was closed 00:15 to the outside world for so long. 00:16 But now that it's open, 00:17 it's not a place that people gravitate to, is it? 00:20 Well, you know. 00:21 It's the coldest capital city in the world, there is-- 00:24 Ulaanbaatar. Ulaanbaatar. 00:26 It's the coldest capital city in the world. 00:27 And while we were there, we saw minus 40, 00:30 minus 41, and minus 42. 00:31 Now you didn't see it, you felt it. 00:33 Wow, boy did we feel it. 00:34 It's very-- I lived in Idaho where it would get down 00:37 to minus 10, minus 15. 00:38 And I know that-- I know when it's of that temperature, 00:41 you linger too long and you stop working. 00:43 Ah! You know we moved to a much, 00:45 much warmer place, we're in Maine now. Maine. 00:48 So a minus 10, minus 20, it-- it seems warm. Yeah. 00:52 As well as you got that fireplace going. 00:54 There are a lot of, you know, 00:55 there's a lot of reasons that people don't go to Mongolia. 00:59 And you know the amazing thing is that for millennia, 01:02 Mongolians have lived in felt tents 01:05 on the windy plains of Mongolia 01:08 and have survived in conditions like that. 01:10 Quite tough people. 01:11 We started this program talking about Genghis Khan, 01:15 the world learned how tough 01:16 those people were long, longtime ago. 01:20 But you know your book on World in Distress 01:24 by Global System Decline, 01:25 which I found more explanatory. 01:29 Give some examples from your time in Mongolia. 01:31 So what evidence did you see there? 01:34 And then you also based in China, 01:36 which is just next door. 01:37 What it was did you see there? 01:38 That started you really thinking about, 01:42 you know, just looking at the world, 01:44 as the Bible says, waxing old like a garment. 01:46 Right. The things in decline. 01:47 Beginning to fail. 01:49 How could you characterize what you saw? 01:50 Well, you know, back in the 1990s 01:52 of course I didn't have this perspective 01:55 that I have now and that I outline in the book, 01:57 Planet in Distress. 01:59 But the world was beginning to learn about 02:03 global climate change. 02:04 And as was I, you know, I would read things 02:08 and I would ponder them. 02:10 But in Mongolia, it was a very big deal, 02:13 you could actually see it. 02:14 Now what happened in Mongolia was in Southern Mongolia 02:16 is the Gobi desert. 02:18 It's not a warm desert in the winter, 02:20 I mean, you'll see minus 20 and minus 30, 02:21 it's very cold place. 02:23 Most deserts are very cold in the winter. 02:24 It's true. Yeah. 02:25 They're dry. Maybe not the Sahara, but-- 02:29 Well-- I've never been there. 02:30 Most deserts I can't even explain why 02:34 but I've read over the years, they're very cold at night. 02:36 Oh, yeah, because when the sun goes away, 02:38 there's nothing to hold it. 02:39 But in Mongolia, the desert began to advance northward. 02:45 And this month and it would advance 02:47 from 10 to 20 kilometers a year, that's a fast march. 02:51 Well, for ages, for millennia, 02:54 Mongolians have staked out where 02:57 and they were nomads of course. 02:59 The ones in the countryside, they would stake down 03:01 where they would put their houses in the winter. 03:04 They're felt tents. 03:06 And you don't move you go to one place 03:08 and you stay there. 03:09 And of course one family would have 03:11 this traditional place that it would go to. 03:13 Well, as the desert marched north, 03:16 thousands of families were displaced 03:17 because the croplands, the grasslands went away. 03:23 There was nothing to feed the animals on 03:24 and so the Mongolians, it's not like that 03:26 there wasn't a quite a bit of room, 03:27 but they began to get crowded. 03:29 And that wasn't just-- That wasn't the only thing 03:31 that was something called Zud. 03:33 You've probably never heard of a Zud. 03:35 No, you got me there. 03:36 Well, the Zud is the Mongolian word for heavy snow. 03:40 Now Mongolia is very cold, 03:42 but in the course of the Mongolian winter 03:44 there would be just a couple centimeters of snow. 03:47 And this is a very important thing 03:49 because the Mongolians live off of their animals, 03:51 their tents were made out of their animals fur, 03:53 their clothing is made out of the animals fur. 03:54 They eat the animals. 03:55 And the animals all lived outside. 03:57 The animals lived outside. 03:58 So there's heavy snows would be catastrophic 04:00 for survival of the herd. 04:01 Well--well the animals, in addition to that, 04:03 one more thing that was very important the animals, 04:05 the Mongolians burnt the animal droppings. 04:08 Especially from cows, 04:09 that's how they get their heat. 04:10 Very much like India. 04:11 Very much and-- And in Mongolia 04:15 the animals live outside and they eat-- 04:17 They eat the surface of the grass down 04:19 to where the plains are smooth as this table. 04:21 By the end of winter, it's eaten down. 04:23 When it snows, the grass is sparse though, 04:26 now when it snows the animals have to move the snow 04:29 to get down to the grass. 04:30 And they end up expending more energy moving snow 04:33 than they can get for grass because it's so scarce. 04:36 So the animals slowly starve to death. 04:38 They don't produce any fuel for the Mongolians to burn. 04:42 So the Mongolians started getting very, very cold 04:44 and burning less and less fuel. 04:46 And with the animals starving, 04:48 the Mongolians don't have anything to eat. 04:50 Their entire world collapses 04:52 and in the past they had a couple Zud's 04:56 but it began in the 1990s. 04:57 They began to have Zud's every year. 05:00 What this did was it forced the Mongolians 05:02 to abandon their nomad life, move to the capital city, 05:07 and engage in whatever they could find, 05:09 very often they engaged in things 05:11 that were well illegal and demeaning 05:15 and immoral just because they needed to live. 05:18 This is the pattern all over the world is-- 05:19 is the nomads or country dwellers moving to the cities. 05:24 It leads a social decline in many ways. 05:27 Well, you know, for a millennia these-- 05:30 these wonderful people that have been 05:32 so hardy and so self-sufficient 05:35 and it's interesting if you take a look at 05:39 climate change and its impact on society. 05:44 What you see is that a couple degrees here 05:47 and couple of little change in precipitation there 05:50 can have a profound and destabilizing effect 05:52 on an entire society. 05:55 There's a lot of controversy surrounding climate change. 06:01 But, you know, what's fascinating for me 06:02 in reading Spirit of Prophecy-- 06:03 You traveled and I think-- Yeah, please. 06:05 Controversy and you hear it in the media, in the U.S., 06:08 but I've traveled enough in the world 06:10 and I've talked to other people that have. 06:12 If you travel a bit it hits you in the face 06:15 because everywhere you go, 06:17 the climate is radically different 06:18 than it was within living memories. 06:20 Within memories. Something is going on. 06:22 You would have to be, 06:24 you know, a virtual ostrich. Well. 06:27 To say there's no climate change. 06:29 Where I think the debate should be 06:31 and this is indifference to political views of the U.S., 06:35 I think you could, apart from biblical understanding, 06:39 you could debate what's causing climate change. 06:42 But to say there's no climate change 06:43 is to be a flat-earther, it seems to me. 06:46 Let's talk about that for a second. 06:47 What's causing climate change? 06:49 When Adam and Eve sinned what was the very first thing 06:54 that they noticed in terms of something that changed. 06:56 The leaves were changing. 06:57 No, that wasn't the first thing. 06:59 The first thing that they noticed was 07:01 that there was a chill in the air. 07:03 I had forgotten that. In Spirit of Prophecy. 07:05 Yes, first page. The exact page. 07:07 Now I remember that. 07:09 But the other sentence resonates with there 07:11 I remember that they saw 07:12 the cast coming over the leaves, 07:14 sort of death manifesting through them. 07:16 When they--after they left the Garden of Eden it's true. 07:19 But you know what. 07:20 That's an ambiguous statement because people would say, 07:22 well they--they lost their coverings, 07:25 they became aware of their nakedness, 07:26 you know, so that's what it was. 07:28 But a couple pages later in the Spirit of Prophecy 07:30 we read that God made skins for Adam and Eve 07:34 because of the-- Because of the climate 07:37 which had been very stable, now had marked changes 07:41 and it was very extremely hot. 07:42 But they also lost their covering of blood, 07:44 so that may have taken away warmth. 07:47 Well, my point is sin when it came into the world. 07:52 Its first noticeable impact was climate change. Yeah. 07:55 And after sin has become the dominant force 07:58 in our world today how is it 08:00 that it could change the climate back then 08:02 and not change it now? 08:03 So my argument is that among all the other systems 08:06 that are being impacted. 08:08 This is a biblical argument. 08:09 That's consistent biblically. Yeah. 08:12 What I was saying the scientifically 08:14 people could sort a question whether there is classic. 08:18 I mean, there's a certain questioning of global warming, 08:21 but to me it can only 08:22 be a question of what's causing it, 08:24 not whether there is such a thing. 08:26 Yeah, okay. You're right, I see it, yeah. 08:27 It's so of evident--I can hardly think about a place 08:31 in the last 30 or so years 08:33 that I have traveled around the world, 08:35 that wasn't having abnormal weather 08:37 and natural systems that have killed them. 08:40 There's a political mindset that is very conservative 08:45 and does not like change 08:46 and does not like expense. Well, fine. 08:51 But the interesting thing is 08:52 from a Christian's point of view 08:53 and especially from an Adventist point of view 08:55 when you point out that 08:56 this is consistent with prophecy. Absolutely. 08:59 And that is related to sin 09:01 that same mindset can look at this and say, oh! 09:04 and the realization should be 09:06 if all of this data is around us, 09:09 then that means that we are much closer 09:11 to Christ coming. Absolutely. 09:13 And I think it's significant that in the United States 09:16 the conservative Christian world 09:18 seem to have gotten religion 09:19 as far as the environment is concerned. 09:22 I saw it happen about the last four or five years, 09:27 I've got-- Couldn't remember my date 09:28 but after Katrina, certainly, there was a shift. 09:32 Where, and I read the articles 09:33 where they would quoting the Bible 09:34 and we should be stewards of the environment, 09:36 we should protest the man's misuse 09:40 of what he has that we should be 09:41 custodians and so on. 09:42 That's new and I think what an-- 09:44 what an opportunity for Seventh-day Adventists 09:47 to speak to this. 09:48 Not that we say that man can solve it 09:50 by his own efforts. 09:51 But we need to see the symptomatic misuse 09:54 of what God gave us 09:56 and we can speak to the moral situation. 09:58 And so this is a moment of opportunity again 10:01 for a message to talk to, 10:04 you know, not to the political world. 10:06 But in the political world they'll debate about it, 10:08 but we know the answer. 10:09 We can say that this is a sign of sin. 10:12 Man's brought it down himself 10:13 and therefore well it won't solve it 10:15 and I think we need to be more spiritually responsible. 10:18 Well, I fully agree when you look 10:21 at the impacts of the world falling apart, 10:23 especially on the 3.5 billion people 10:26 who make less than $2.5 a day, they have no buffer. 10:31 You know, we have ADRA, 10:32 the Adventist Development Relief Agency-- 10:33 Remind you that there's little time left, 10:35 but there's no much buffer 10:36 in the United States. Well. 10:38 I live in a neighborhood, for the town, 10:41 I live in pretty nice houses 10:43 but those people are mortgaged to the hilt. Yeah. 10:46 They lose their job or the wife gets pregnant, 10:49 they're out instantly, it's sudden death. 10:51 It's easy natural to see someone 10:53 who's on a $1.50 a day 10:55 and down to a dollar a day, they stop. 10:57 But it's pretty much the same here. 10:59 Our threshold is higher 11:01 but the margin maybe just as small. 11:04 You know, we're told that as the events built 11:09 and culminate toward end of time, 11:12 it'll be terrible and we're beginning to see that now. 11:16 But what we are also told is that 11:18 this is going to open people's minds to spiritual topics. 11:23 This is an opportunity to communicate with people 11:26 who never listened before. 11:27 When our lives of comfort are threatened and removed. 11:30 We began to be much more serious 11:31 about spiritual things. 11:33 If it is anything else, 11:35 it's an opportunity for us to witness 11:37 and to proclaim God to a sinful world. 11:41 One can only imagine the horror that peasants 11:45 and others in Europe and on the fringes of Europe 11:48 must have felt as the Mongol Horde 11:51 and Genghis Khan swept down upon them. 11:54 I don't think anything that 11:55 we can imagine today could fulfill that. 11:58 And yet, today we are literally living 12:01 under a more catastrophic threat of global meltdown 12:06 of natural systems as well as the artificial systems 12:09 that man has constructed. 12:12 As I have discussed this with author Christensen, 12:17 I really put to mind of the Tower of Babel, 12:20 following the cataclysm to end all cataclysms 12:23 for that early era, the flood. 12:26 Man had determined that he would defeat it, 12:29 built the tower, gathered together 12:32 and decided that he would somehow challenge God. 12:36 But there was no way that man's false system 12:39 could survive against God's ways 12:42 and God's decisions. We need to be careful today. 12:47 But when we look at system collapse, 12:49 we don't seek a human solution 12:51 and that we don't ignore the obvious need 12:54 to seek God in this time of our global distress. 12:58 For Liberty Insider, this is Lincoln Steed. |
Revised 2014-12-17