Why Should Evangelical Christians Care About Climate Change?<\/a> by Chris Mooney in Slate.<\/p>\nThe Text:<\/strong> Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian, has had quite a run lately. A few weeks back, she was featured in the first episode of the Showtime series The Years of Living Dangerously, meeting with actor Don Cheadle in her home state of Texas to explain to him why faith and a warming planet aren\u2019t in conflict. (You can watch that episode for free on YouTube; Hayhoe is a science adviser for the show.) Then Time magazine named her one of the 100 most influential people of 2014. Cheadle wrote the entry. \u201cThere\u2019s something fascinating about a smart person who defies stereotype,\u201d Cheadle observed.<\/p>\nWhy is Hayhoe in the spotlight? Simply put, millions of Americans are evangelical Christians, and their belief in the science of global warming is well below the national average. And if anyone has a chance of reaching this vast and important audience, Hayhoe does. \u201cI feel like the conservative community, the evangelical community, and many other Christian communities, I feel like we have been lied to,\u201d explains Hayhoe on the latest episode of the Inquiring Minds podcast. \u201cWe have been given information about climate change that is not true. We have been told that it is incompatible with our values, whereas in fact it\u2019s entirely compatible with conservative and with Christian values.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Hayhoe\u2019s approach to science\u2014and to religion\u2014was heavily influenced by her father, a former Toronto science educator and also, at one time, a missionary. \u201cFor him, there was never any conflict between the idea that there is a God, and the idea that science explains the world that we see around us,\u201d says Hayhoe. When she was 9, her family moved to Colombia, where her parents worked as missionaries and educators, and where Hayhoe saw what environmental vulnerability really looks like. \u201cSome of my friends lived in houses that were made out of cardboard Tide boxes, or corrugated metal,\u201d she says. \u201cAnd realizing that you don\u2019t really need that much to be happy, but at the same time, you\u2019re very vulnerable to the environment around you, the less that you have.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of addressing the climate issue,\u201d says Hayhoe, \u201cwe don\u2019t have time for everybody to get on the same page regarding the age of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n
Her research today, on the impacts of climate change, flows from those early experiences. And of course, it is inspired by her faith, which for Hayhoe puts a strong emphasis on caring for the weakest and most vulnerable among us. \u201cThat gives us even more reason to care about climate change,\u201d says Hayhoe, \u201cbecause it is affecting people, and is disproportionately affecting the poor, and the vulnerable, and those who cannot care for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fact remains, though, that most evangelical Christians in the United States do not think as Hayhoe does. Recent data from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication suggests that while 64 percent of Americans think global warming is real and caused by human beings, only 44 percent of evangelicals do. Evangelicals in general, explains Hayhoe, tend to be more politically conservative, and can be quite distrusting of scientists (believing, incorrectly, that they\u2019re all a bunch of atheists). Plus, some evangelicals really do go in for that whole \u201cthe world is ending\u201d thing\u2014not an outlook likely to inspire much care for the environment. So how does Hayhoe reach them?<\/p>\n
From our interview, here are five of Hayhoe\u2019s top arguments, for evangelical Christians, on climate change:<\/p>\n
1. Conservation is conservative. The evangelical community isn\u2019t just a religious community, it\u2019s also a politically conservative one on average. So Hayhoe speaks directly to that value system. \u201cWhat\u2019s more conservative than conserving our natural resources, making sure we have enough for the future, and not wasting them like we are today?\u201d she asks. \u201cThat\u2019s a very conservative value.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, many conservatives don\u2019t buy into climate science because they don\u2019t like the \u201cbig government\u201d solutions they suspect the problem entails. But Hayhoe has an answer ready for that one too: Conservative-friendly, market-driven solutions to climate problems are actually all around us. \u201cA couple of weeks ago, Texas \u2026 smashed the record for the most wind energy ever produced. It was 38 percent of our energy that week, came from wind,\u201d she says. And Hayhoe thinks that\u2019s just the beginning: \u201cIf you look at the map of where the greatest potential is for wind energy, it\u2019s right up the red states. And I think that is going to make a big difference in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. Yes, God would let this happen. One conservative Christian argument is that God just wouldn\u2019t let human activities ruin the creation. Or, as Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma has put it, \u201cGod\u2019s still up there, and the arrogance of people to think that we, human beings, would be able to change what he is doing in the climate, is to me, outrageous.\u201d You can watch Inhofe and other religious right politicians dismissing climate change on biblical grounds in this video.<\/p>\n
Hayhoe thinks the answer to Inhofe\u2019s objection is simple: From a Christian perspective, we have free will to make decisions and must live with their consequences. This is, after all, a classic Christian solution to the theological problem of evil. \u201cAre bad things happening? Yes, all the time,\u201d says Hayhoe. \u201cSomeone gets drunk, they get behind the wheel of a car, they kill an innocent bystander, possibly even a child or a mother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Climate change is, to Hayhoe, just another wrong, another problem, brought on by flawed humans exercising their wills in a way that is less than fully advisable. \u201cThat\u2019s really what climate change is,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s a casualty of the decisions that we have made.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. The Bible does not approve of letting the world burn. Hayhoe agrees with the common liberal perception that the evangelical community contains a significant proportion of apocalyptic or end-times believers\u2014and that this belief, literally that judgment is upon us, undermines their concern about preserving the planet. But she thinks there\u2019s something very wrong with that outlook, and indeed, that the Bible itself refutes it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe message that, we don\u2019t care about anybody else, screw everybody, and let the world burn, that message is not a consistent message in the Bible,\u201d says Hayhoe. In particular, she thinks the apostle Paul has a pretty good answer to end-times believers in his second epistle to the Thessalonians. Hayhoe breaks Paul\u2019s message down like this: \u201cI\u2019ve heard that you\u2019ve been quitting your jobs, you have been laying around and doing nothing, because you think that Christ is returning and the world is ending.\u201d But Paul serves up a rebuke. In Hayhoe\u2019s words: \u201cGet a job, support yourself and your family, care for others\u2014again, the poor and the vulnerable who can\u2019t care for themselves\u2014and do what you can, essentially, to make the world a better place, because nobody knows when that\u2019s going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
4. Even if you believe in a young Earth, it\u2019s still warming. One reason there\u2019s such a tension between the evangelical community and science is, well, science. Many evangelicals are young-Earth creationists, who believe that the Earth is 6,000 or so years old.<\/p>\n
Hayhoe isn\u2019t one of those. She studied astrophysics and quasars that are quite ancient; and as she notes, believing the Earth and universe to be young creates a pretty problematic understanding of God: \u201cEither you have to believe that God created everything looking as if it were billions of years old, or you have to believe it is billions of years old.\u201d In the former case, God would, in effect, seem to be trying to trick us.<\/p>\n
But when it comes to talking to evangelical audiences about climate change, Hayhoe doesn\u2019t emphasize the age of the Earth, simply because, she says, there\u2019s no need. \u201cWhen I talk to Christian audiences, I only show ice core data and other proxy data going back 6,000 years,\u201d says Hayhoe, \u201cbecause I believe that you can make an even stronger case, for the massive way in which humans have interfered with the natural system, by only looking at a shorter period of time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn terms of addressing the climate issue,\u201d says Hayhoe, \u201cwe don\u2019t have time for everybody to get on the same page regarding the age of the universe.\u201d<\/p>\n
5. \u201cCaring for our environment is caring for people.\u201d Finally, Hayhoe thinks it is crucial to emphasize to evangelicals that saving the planet is about saving people … not just saving animals. \u201cI think there\u2019s this perception,\u201d says Hayhoe, \u201cthat if an environmentalist were driving down the road \u2026 and they saw a baby seal on one side and they saw a human on the other side, they would veer out of the way to avoid the baby seal and run down the human.\u201d That\u2019s why it\u2019s so important, in her mind, to emphasize how climate change affects people (a logic once again affirming the perception that the polar bear was a terrible symbol for global warming). And there\u2019s bountiful evidence of this: The just-released Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change\u2019s \u201cWorking Group II\u201d report on climate impacts emphasizes threats to our food supply, a risk of worsening violence in a warming world, and the potential displacement of vulnerable populations.<\/p>\n
So is the message working? Hayhoe thinks so. After all, while only 44 percent of evangelicals may accept modern climate science today, she notes that that\u2019s considerable progress from a 2008 Pew poll, which had that number at just 34 percent. Ultimately, for Hayhoe, it comes down to this: \u201cIf you believe that God created the world, and basically gave it to humans as this incredible gift to live on, then why would you treat it like garbage? Treating the world like garbage says a lot about how you think about the person who you believe created the Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Article: Why Should Evangelical Christians Care About Climate Change? by Chris Mooney in Slate. The Text: Climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian, has had quite a run lately. A few weeks back, she was featured in the first episode of the Showtime series The Years of Living Dangerously, meeting with actor Don Cheadle […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[259],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n
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