my blog post (a week late): Christians and Climate Change

This hasn't come up in class yet, so I am going to find a site on Christians and Climate Change--I know there have been recent movements of Christians coming together saying they DO believe climate change is happening, and is part of their religious practice to care for god's earth. So here I go to find more...

(later)

Here is the website I am looking at: http://christiansandclimate.org/

It's a really beautiful, polished site, without any distracting ads flashing at you. There are, however, a few footnotes.

"As American evangelical Christian leaders, we recognize both our opportunity and our responsibility to offer a biblically based moral witness that can help shape public policy in the most powerful nation on earth, and therefore contribute to the well-being of the entire world.1 Whether we will enter the public square and offer our witness there is no longer an open question. We are in that square, and we will not withdraw."

Other issues they are working on include: sex trafficking, AIDS, and genocide. Grouped with these, Climate Change (CC from here on) is obviously a serious and dangerous matter.

They offer four claims in their Call to Action.

Claim 1: Human Induced CC is Real
(sound familiar?)

They note that "from 1988—2002 the IPCC’s assessment of the climate science was Chaired by Sir John Houghton, a devout evangelical Christian." also "In a 2004 report, and at the 2005 G8 summit, the Bush Administration has also acknowledged the reality of climate change and the likelihood that human activity is the cause of at least some of it." I guess saying that there are reliable Christians who have been working on this for quite a while.

Claim 2: Consequences will be significant and will hit the poor the hardest.

Claim 3: Christian Moral Convictions Demand Our Response to the CC Problem

emphasizing biblical passages stating god's call for the stewardship of earth, reminding people to love their neighbor

Claim 4: The need to act is urgent--for governments, businesses, churches, individuals

Many of the consequences haven't happened yet, people keep trying to build more coal plants,etc. ending with saying there is a need to help the poor adapt to the consequences of CC.

There is a section on "what others our saying about our initiative." It includes comments from the following:

DuPont
John McCain
Joseph Lieberman
Lindsay Graham
Olympia Snow
Editorial comments from newspapers in Atlanta, S. Florida, and Philadelphia
William F. Buckley

There is a Pray section and an Act section. The Pray section has prayers you can say about CC. I thought this part was nice and very friendly to science studies:

"We pray that our concern and attention to the issue of climate change would not cause spiritual division in your body, but that You would grant humility and a teachable spirit to all of us (Phil 2:1-11)."

The Act section talks about reducing carbon missions in one's own life, encouraging our country to do so, and again, helping the poor adapt. It uses the concepts of mitigation and adaptation:

"Just as in our own homes we would have to both mop up the damages from an overflowing sink (adaptation) AND fix the running faucet that’s causing the problem (mitigation), so also both adaptation and mitigation are necessary to solve the global warming crisis."

There are ten suggested actions for individuals and families, beginning with prayer and bible study, and continuing on to include compact fluorescent bulbs, renewable energy, and supporting green businesses.

Then there are steps churches can take to be more green (though they aren't using that word) and ways citizens can act to affect change.

The tone of the whole site is very calm and rational and not excited, though urgent. I find fascinating the continuing return to the care for the poor. This of course is central to the life of Jesus and to the teachings of the Bible (well, depending upon who you ask I guess). But it seems that, though in a lot of ways this site is a typical liberal CC call to action, there is this very human element thrown in. They do allude to science, but it the bulk of the site is not slinging facts at facts at facts. The bulk of it is tapping people's, or Christian's, sense of their humanity and their sense of caring and connectedness. In a way this is similar to the idea of a drowning polar bear (and the site opens with an image of two presumable poor kids, cute and smiling by a pile of rubble), but the drowning polar bear is working mainly, I think, of identifying with something cute and beautiful dying. This site is alluding to that, but also to a sense of moral obligation it knows its audience must have, as Christians.

In a way, this makes their job easier--there are known people identified as Christian leaders, who have groups of people that follow and trust them. (unlike Politicians, whose followers most likely distrust them a lot of the time). There is also, of course, God backing them up. And, for a believer, God probably trumps science in reliability. So fascinating.

I haven't figured out who specifically made this site and runs it....that should enter in here as well...

Of course this website could totally have holes shot through it by Kenner. What is really unique about it in the midst of all the CC dialogue (rhetoric?) is that it appeals to humans responsibility to each other. I feel like so much of the dialogue these days is a lot of F-U, I-don't-want-to-help-you-as-long-as-things-are-working-for-me dialogue. I think a lot of the "scientists are all corrupt and dishonest" arguing fuels that sentiment. It reminded me of when Amy asked in class "What's wrong with living sustainably for the sake of living sustainably?" instead of just doing it because the planet is about to blow up? In that sense, I think this site is giving individuals more credit and agency, and not just leaving them in the hands of the facts of scientists. Or at least making them feel that way???