When it comes to science, Christians are too often on the defensive: the Earth is so stationary (stamp foot), we are not descended from monkeys, and so on. Or else we can be heard elaborately explaining why science is OK by us after all — a project with which I have much sympathy. But one gets a bit tired of both stances. It is therefore refreshing to see Christians neither battling science nor defending it but simply listening to it — taking its warnings seriously and trying to act on them in a Christian way. Whatever that may be. Of course, the Christian way of reacting to impending disaster and horrific inequity will often be indistinguishable from the atheist way or Jewish way or Muslim way or Wiccan way, since the ethical common ground among sane human beings tends to be large.
Case in point: earlier this month, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops and other Catholic groups announced the formation of the Catholic Climate Conference. These Catholics are taking seriously the view of the overwhelming global majority of scientists with expertise in climatology and related fields, namely, that climate change is (a) real, (b) caused by us, (c) dangerous, (d) accelerating. And they are asking, “Well, if that’s the world we’re living in, what are we going to do about it?”
Paying special attention to the further information that the poorer parts of the world are likelier to be hit harder by climate change than the rich ones — although we may all be hit pretty hard by and by — the Catholic Climate Conference has written as follows:
Our cars and power plants, more energy consumption and waste — we’re leaving a bigger carbon footprint. Scientists tell us that means more climate change. Here and around the world, it is the poor who will be hit hardest. With more droughts, floods, hunger and joblessness. As faithful Catholics, we have a moral obligation to care for both Creation and the poor. Pope Benedict XVI insists, “Before it is too late, it is necessary to make courageous decisions” to curb climate change.
The picture on the Evangelical side of the aisle is, I gather, more complicated. Or, well, not to euphemize, it’s worse: according to a 2009 report from Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion and Public Life, “white evangelical Protestants are the least likely [of all US religious and non-religious groups] to believe that human activities are contributing to climate change.” Ouch. Bottom of the league.
Specifically, 47% of US adults accept that “there is solid evidence that the earth is warming because of human activities,” but only 34% of evangelicals do so. At least the picture is mixed: in 2007 the National Association of Evangelicals issued a “Call to Action on Climate Change” that laid out the basic scientific facts (beginning with “Human-induced climate change is real”) and called for fighting climate change as an aspect of stewarding the Creation. Kudos!
The Catholic Climate Conference cites a Zogby poll finding that most Catholics (55%) think climate change a serious problem, but no group of believers can boast too loudly on this score. Acceptance of scientific reality is highest, Pew found, among people professing no religion at all: 58%. And even that’s a pretty sad showing considering that 97% of climatologists actually conducting climate research agree that global warming is real and human-caused.
As Anne Lamott might say, it’s enough to make Jesus drink himself to sleep.
[Originally published April 27, 2009]