Does climate change line up with Hashem’s promises regarding the future?
On the face of it, the Torah seems to make predictions that fly in the face of claims about climate change.
Hashem’s promise never to destroy the world again
After Noah and his sons are saved from the flood, Hashem makes the following pronouncement:
… Hashem resolved: “Never again will I curse the earth because of humankind, since the devisings of the human mind are evil from youth; nor will I ever again destroy every living being, as I have done. So long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease…” (Bereshis 8:21)
Soon after He tells Noah:
“I will maintain My covenant with you: never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” (Bereshis 9:11)
Although this seems to offer some kind of guarantee from Hashem that the world will not be destroyed:
Firstly, as we have stated already, climate change isn’t expected to destroy the world, “only” to cause very significant damage.
Secondly, the Torah is stating that Hashem will not destroy the world. This has no bearing on the level of destruction that mankind is capable of wreaking.
Even if Hashem was guaranteeing that climate change will not destroy the world, that doesn’t mean that we can sit on our hands and do nothing. Perhaps Hashem is guaranteeing that we will succeed in addressing climate change.
Hashem’s promise to bring the Geula (future redemption)
The Torah’s general picture of the world’s ultimate future is so optimistic. Hashem has promised us that the world will be perfected, both physically and spiritually, in the Messianic era. In recent decades we have seen technological revolutions transforming the quality of human life on Earth, bolstering our expectation that we are heading towards this utopian reality. Climate change seems to present a very different picture, one of massive degradation and devastation. Even if we say that climate change will not be the “end of the world”, as we have already pointed out, is there still not a contradiction between these two pictures?
Not all roses
First, let’s look at the promises of the future redemption. Is it really all so optimistic?
The Gemara in Sanhedrin 97a tells us what is expected to happen in the generation when the Messiah will come:
Rabbi Yitzḥak said to him that this is what Rabbi Yoḥanan says: During the generation in which the Messiah, son of David, comes, Torah scholars decrease; and as for the rest of the people, their eyes fail with sorrow and grief, and troubles increase. And the harsh decrees will be introduced; before the first passes the second quickly comes.
The Gemara then elaborates, describing frightening events that will happen in the seven-year shemitta cycle leading up to the coming of the Messiah, including famine, widespread death including of righteous people and major wars. This frightened some of the Sages so much that they wished it to come after they had already died. In fact, there are opinions in our tradition that explain that Hashem will do nothing less than destroy the entire physical world, only to subsequently recreate it anew.
We see that although the Torah’s view is ultimately optimistic and that the world’s ultimate destination will be bright, there is absolutely no assumption that the path towards that destination will be smooth, without hardship or even without destruction. We are currently riding a wave of unprecedented material blessing and perhaps that has influenced our thinking, but we should not forget that we stand less than a century away from the worst physical devastation our people has ever known. We are fooling ourselves if we assume that we could never experience harsher times.
More optimistically, though, our hope is that, with the help of Hashem, mankind will succeed in limiting the impacts of climate change, such that the specter of serious devastation never materializes.
