One vital question M V Tronson says, that impacts every citizen of any nation in both the developed and developing countries of the world, is the place that personal convenience plays in our use of private vehicles.
"It is good for the BWA to affirm the biblical teaching that God created all things and that God's creation was good (Genesis 1:1-2:2), and that God had entrusted the care of creation to humans (Genesis 1:28, 29; 2:15)," concurred M V Tronson. "And it is exciting to realise that, although we have often denied or ignored the interdependence of the Earth's resources with creation and abrogated our stewardship of creation, we can confess our sin and begin to redress the resulting environmental degradation."
Moreover, M V Tronson says, it's wonderful to resolve to be more thrifty and efficient with our energy by, for example, making greater use of renewable energy technologies, minimising "greenhouse gas" emissions and using "green" architecture, town planning and transport and to conserve, reuse and recycle goods.
And further, M V Tronson commented that he could not fault the BWA in their urging of the practice of environmental stewardship and making recommendations to advance global action on climate change.
"Meanwhile," noted Mark Tronson, "BWA members, along with myself and everyone else, use our high-emission motor vehicles to engage in our daily lives. We use our powers of reason in deciding how best to care for our families. For example, we sometimes feel it best to pick up the kids from school, sports and social activities, to ensure that no harm comes to them."
He also points out that our first-world conveniences such as home-cooking and dishwashers (and other luxuries) are all blessings from God, and sometimes our modern appliances use energy more efficiently and therefore produce fewer emissions, than those monsters our grandparents used, or those small coal fires used by individual rural homes in some developing nations.
Advances in technology are critical he says, and he freely acknowledges the motor vehicle he drives today is much more carbon emission efficient than the one he drove twenty years ago.
"So why?" muses M V Tronson, "does our society alone beat itself over the head about the excessive carbon emissions?"
"The politicians have jumped on the bandwagon," continued Mark Tronson. "They love this subject; they rant and rave, point the finger, and say all the same things as did the Baptist World Alliance, and then they get in their chauffeured driven white cars to go home; each one in a separate large car, many going in the same direction."
M V Tronson noted that he may be a sceptic, but he is not the only one. He feels that there is a point in which this pontificating is excessive, and does not reflect reality.
"Science is the human art of noting today's facts and constructing a theory to explain them. As the observations of the facts improve, the theories changes quite regularly as they should do," reflects M V Tronson, but he suggests that one shouldn't gamble one's life on the latest press or politician's fashionable '10-second-grab' interpretation of complex scientific models or theories.
He advises people to apply good wholesome 'commons sense' and not to be run-over by such issues. Scientific models are only as good as the data that is put in; and this data is only as good as humans can gather. Although records and ways of using technology to assess past events are improving all the time, human beings can only ever have the viewpoint of a short timescale compared with the whole of creation and the Earth's ecological systems.
For example, comments Mark Tronson, twenty years ago, scientific observations indicated that Earth was heading for another ice age (get out your woollies), whereas more recent models, based on other observations, indicate a warming trend (get out your sunnies).
"Any Baptist minister (or any other Christian minister) has an innumerable number of calls upon his/her time that demands the convenience of a motor vehicle. I'm of the view one does not stop serving the community as effectively as one is able by not utilising the practical use of our motor vehicles," M V Tronson noted.