On Evangelicals and Climate Change

Last week I had the opportunity to listen to a talk given by an evangelical Christian leader to an audience of primarily evangelicals on the topic of global climate change. Given the rancor that sometimes accompanies this issue, it was a bit of surprise as were some of the reactions I observed afterwards. But this subject has been on my mind for the last few months after attending a lecture given by Dr. Richard Alley, professor of geosciences at Penn State University in State College, Pennsylvania, last June at the Denver Science Museum and having just finished reading Tim Flannery's 2006 book The Weather Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on Earth.

Actually, I hadn't kept up with the most recent surveys on evangelicals' views on climate change and so after the talk I took a look around and found that in one recent study 33% of evangelical Christians describe global warming as a "major issue" while the numbers are over 50% for people of other faiths or of no faith. The results were culled from a Barna poll and were based on nationwide surveys conducted on 1,007 adults in January 2007 and 1,004 adults in July-August 2007. They break down like this:

Percentage That Agree Global Warming is a Major Issue
Evangelical Christians                 33%
Non-evangelical born again Christians  55%
Notional Christians                    59%
Non-Christians of other faiths         61%
Agnostics and atheists                 69%

and the article goes on to give the following percentages within Christianity although it's not clear if this is in response to the same question...

Catholic      59%
Protestants   52%
Mainline      59%
Non-mainline  49%

However, another study referenced in a CBS commentary and done by CBS found that 46% of evangelicals "think global warming is having a serious impact on the environment" as compared to 52% of the population as whole. Obviously the wording of the question has a lot to do with the answers but it's possible that this signals a shrinking of the gap as discussed in this recent Washington Post piece..

Regardless, the gap still exists and the reasons for it and why it tends to shrinks as you go from evangelical to non-evangelical and Protestant to Catholic are intriguing. While I'm not sociologist I'll venture a few guesses based on my own experience and the reactions I observed last week.

A Conspiracy wrapped in a Hoax. Within the evangelical community there is certainly an emphasis on prophecy and end times events as evidenced by the popularity of the Left Behind series which focuses on one particular (and historically recent) interpretation of the book of Revelation. In that vein one of the conditions or preconditions for the rise of the anti-Christ that is often discussed is the formation of a one-world government that, interestingly enough dovetails with other groups who fear the same thing. And so many evangelicals feel that global climate change and the kind of international treaties it may produce (Kyoto) is just the kind of issue that could be used to hasten the creation of a one-world system as people look from national to international solutions. Christians of other stripes don't as often take this view of the book of Revelation and therefore this issue doesn't arise. Oh, and it doesn't help that in the U.S. one of the main advocates of climate change has been a traditional enemy of conservatives and that a large majority of evangelicals are political conservatives.

Scientific Skepticism. Spurred on by the very prevalent belief in young-earth creationism many evangelicals chafe when the discussion turns to the scientific consensus on climate change let alone things like ice cores showing temperature patterns that go back hundreds of thousands of years. On the former issue young earth creationists already believe that the scientific consensus on the pattern and history of life is fatally flawed and so disbelieving in the human connection with climate change is not only to be expected but is actually easier to deny than is biological evolution. As to the latter, the belief that the earth is only around 10,000 years old means that climate reconstructions and talk of previous ice ages (or even the most recent one) are unconvincing to the say the least. And of course there's a liberal sprinkling of myths that circulate as well including the one about volcanoes emitting more CO2 than man-made sources (in actuality human sources are 130-150 times more potent). Once again, other stripes of Christianity don't hold this view and in fact young earth creationism is almost entirely restricted to the U.S.

Dissonance with God's Plan. Although it seems simple on the surface one of the primary issues may simply be the belief that the all powerful God is in control of his creation and so Christians needn't worry. This would make sense but I think it goes a little deeper and reflects a feeling of dissonance with the idea of God commanding mankind to proliferate and subdue the earth. If indeed not only the industrial revolution but all of mankind's activity on the earth for the past 10,000 years (the so-called "Anthropocene") has brought about these changes, something would seem amiss with God's plan. One would think this conflict would arise in other flavors of Christianity as well but perhaps their view of God's plan is somewhat less deterministic.

A Question of Priority.
Finally, there are many evangelicals who simply believe that Christians should be focusing on other more pressing social issues. While that's an argument I can certainly respect, there would seem to be no reason why one would necessarily preclude the other and Christians couldn't both focus on issues like the right to life and the environment.

In the end this seemed to be the main point made by the speaker I heard last week. Christians can all agree that we have a responsibility both to our fellow man, especially the poor and the oppressed, and to be stewards of the creation. In the area of climate change these go hand in hand since by caring for the environment we can help lesson or avoid the deleterious effects, most of which will be felt by the poor whom Christians are called to serve.