See, the LORD is going to lay waste the earth and devastate it; he will ruin its face and scatter its inhabitants … - Isaiah 24:1

Today’s Scripture Reading (January 15, 2017): Isaiah 24

A new study reveals just how long we would survive a Zombie Apocalypse. The study, conducted by some physics students with way too much time on their hands, does not reveal an encouraging answer for us if “The Walking Dead” actually became a reality. According to the physics students, it would take about 100 days – a little over three months – for the Zombies to reduce the remaining population to less than 300 people. In just over three months, the planet would be nearly empty of human life as we know it.

Oh, there is some good news. After the population dwindles to around the three hundred mark, we might make a rebound. But it would take about twenty-seven years before we began to see the human race start to make gains in population. The study reveals that “A Zombie Apocalypse” is fiction – really? I didn’t know that (sarcasm for those who might have missed it) – but that it was one way to get the students engaged in making complex predictions.

We aren’t real good at making complex predictions. I recently watched as a Christian Scientist speak about the reality and illusion of climate change. He talked about the fossil record and the evidence for higher levels of carbon in the atmosphere in the ancient past of our planet than currently exist. In fact, the world had come perilously close to ending because of a lack of carbon in the atmosphere. What we needed was not a carbon capture device, but a carbon release device to bring us back from the brink. And the burning of fossil fuels, fossil fuels are essentially nature's carbon capture devices, was an excellent carbon release device. Everything that he said was very true, except that the left something out. Human beings can only exist in a minuscule margin that exists at the bottom of the carbon scale. (Or, there is a reason why greenhouses pump carbon dioxide into their plant areas – plants do well with a high carbon atmosphere. We, unfortunately, do not.) In the ages of creation, as plants developed, God had provided a high carbon environment that helped the plants grow. But after we appeared on the scene, the atmosphere changed into another “Goldilocks zone.” An ecological age that allowed for the minimum carbon to keep plants alive, and the maximum carbon that mammals, including us, could tolerate.

Isaiah says the Lord is going to devastate the earth. Remember that in Hebrew thought, what God allows, he does. We are likely the ones who will bring on the devastation of the planet. But God, who is powerful enough to stop the destruction, will allow it. And the earth will cease to be a place where humans live. I don’t think it will be Zombie Apocalypse, but who knows. I am not even sure that it will be climate change that will be humankind's ultimate undoing. But whatever it is, God will allow, ushering in the final days of life on the planet.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Isaiah 25