This morning, there were two news items that caught my ear - one local and the other global - and made me think about how we go about things.

The local tidbit was about a man the next town over who walked into a bank, announced that he had a gun and was going to rob it, and then immediately turned around and walked out, having changed his mind.  He was immediately arrested and found to be unarmed.  He's being charged with attempted robbery.

There were two things that I found curious about this.  First off, rather than being commended as someone who had made a poor decision and then decided not to follow through on it - albeit slightly late - he was lampooned as an inept robber who was not "dedicated" enough to his work.  No mention was made as to whether or not he has a previous criminal record, or what the impetus for his initial decision to rob the bank might be.  I found the mocking of the person to be rather counter-productive.  Would it have been better if he had traumatized everyone in the bank and actually taken money?  I would think that - with the exception of never considering robbing in the first place - this would be the hoped for outcome.  A man makes a poor decision, but comes to his senses.  How is this mockable?

The second thing about this story that intrigued me is that he's being charged with attempted robbery.  He didn't take anything.  The story made it sound as though all he did was walk in, yell out that he had a gun and was going to rob the place, then turn around and walk out.  There was clearly some sort of intent to rob, but no robbery took place.  While I can see charging him with something, attempted robbery seems both inaccurate and overkill.  Assuming this man has no prior criminal record, he's going to face prison time for a statement that he made but did not act on.  I'm sure that there are other situations where announcing an intent without following through with it might still merit full legal punishment - but this sure doesn't strike me as one.  When our prisons are already overcrowded, how does sending this guy to prison solve anything?

The second story relates to the current G8 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G8) leadership summit occurring in L'Aquila, Italy this week.  The eight richest nations in the world are committing to not raising global temperatures by more than two degrees Celsius (about 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).  The draft of their committment can be read at http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/09/climate-change-g8.  

I find this sort of committment odd.

Not we're going to committ to specific changes in practices and regulations in each of our nations.  Not we're committing to eliminating our dependence on fossil fuels.  No specific committment at all to changing any particular practice or regulation.  Rather, this broader, amorphous committment to not raising global temperatures more than another two degrees Celsius.  

I've talked with folks who are passionately convinced that mankind is behind global warming.  The more intelligent of them will admit that this is at best a hypothesis, an assumption that because mankind is pumping particular forms of contaminants and gasses into the atmosphere and environment, there is logically going to be some sort of measurable change in temperature.  The more intelligent of them recognize that while this is logical, it is not necessarily true or accurate.  Pretty much all of them will admit readily the standard scientific maxims that temperature on our planet has apparently fluctuated rather markedly over time, alternating between very warm periods and very cold periods.  

So a committment from some wealthy nations not to prevent the Earth's temperature from rising more than another two degrees Celsius seems ridiculous at worst, and naively well-intentioned at best.  Make a committment to some measurable, controllable change in practice.  Don't make wild committments when you really have no way of knowing whether or not anything you change will slow down the warming trend we're supposedly in.  

I'll make my standard disclaimers when discussing this issue.  I fully support pollution controls and taking better care of our environment.  This ought to be a standard position for any Biblical Christian, as it falls well in line with the original charge to Adam and Eve back in the first chapters of Genesis.  We are to be tending creation, not exploiting it.  However, we also need to recognize the odd incongruencies between claiming that the Earth goes through temperature fluctuations, yet insisting that if we're in such a fluctuation now (and data seems conflicted, at times), that it may not necessarily be related to our industrial pollutants.  Again, make the changes either way - we certainly won't be worse off with a healthier Earth!  But try to stay grounded in what you're able to reasonably promise.  This particular promise from G8 members smacks of grandstanding, and allows all of them the opportunity to throw up their hands in the future and claim that it wasn't their fault - that their intentions were good.  I don't tend to care a whole lot about intentions - I prefer to see tangible evidence of those intentions.