Genesis 8:22 - Even Global Warming will not Undo God’s Promise
Here are the particulars of God’s promise that he would never again “curse the ground because of man” or “destroy all living creatures”…
 22 “As long as the earth endures,
      seedtime and harvest,
      cold and heat,
      summer and winter,
      day and night
      will never cease.”
It is an interesting promise, because it reiterates God’s promises above, but it is not immediately clear how so.
“Seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night,” are now conditional on the earth enduring. Enduring what? Well, the word translated “endures” is “yowm”. As used, it refers to the remaining designated time of something. In this case, for the time the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, etc., will never cease. In fact, that is almost exactly how the NKJV translates it… “remains”.
Recall that God originally cursed the ground because of Adam’s disobedience. It then remained cursed as Adam’s descendants simply became more and more evil. All those years, the earth remained cursed. But it wasn’t enough to turn people from their evil to God. So, God destroyed them… except for the one man who trusted Him, along with his family.
At this point, God had demonstrated that the “imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth.” While possible for such a man to trust God and obey, it wasn’t likely. Still, as unpleasing this was, it was less pleasing to God to simply give up altogether. So, he took the best of the bunch and started over. God had not purged man of having an evil imagination, but He did make it clear what that imagination should earn us… condemnation.
Interestingly, the flood was not the first time God had destroyed all of the living creatures of a land. The KT impact had destroyed nearly all life in the entire world. In fact, that’s the reason why Christians find evidence of a global catastrophe… there was one. It just wasn’t the flood… though there was flooding 65MYA to be sure. We know that destruction was of God, because it immediately preceded Day 5 of creation. Another extinction occurred between Days 5 and 6 as well. However, this was the first such event that scripture literally associates with God. It was focused in purpose, dramatic in effect for the region, and will never happen again. In fact, as long as the earth remains, it will remain viable.
Look at the list in verse 22 again. It reminds me a similar list of things that Al Gore warns us are at risk if mankind does not change his evil ways… the hazards of Global Warming.
We are warned that we are risking the earth’s ability to manage its seasons, reducing the contrast between cold and heat, or summer and winter. Consequently, that risks the ability for us to raise food: seedtime and harvest. However, what Al Gore never warns of is the risk that the earth might not one day be here. The earth itself would remain, yet he fears that verse 22 is false.
To clarify, the word earth above refers to the region of land impacted by the flood, which was actually land inhabited by Adam’s descendants before the flood, plus any surrounding land that was impacted by how large the flood had to be to do its job. That turned out to be a rather sizable portion of the Middle East, including much (if not all) of Turkey, Armenia, Iran, and Iraq. However, these phenomena of day and night, summer and winter, can only be put at risk on a global level. These could not impact only the area of the flood without impacting the world at large. Therefore, this is actually speaking globally in the end. It would seem then that God is telling us that whether Global Warming is a legitimate phenomenon or not, it will not have the catastrophic impact Al Gore warns us of. This does not remove our responsibility as stewards of the earth, but it does mean that practical matters such as cap and trade and oil consumption are not going to destroy us… not as long as the earth remains.