Evangelicals Debate Global Warming

Evangelicals debate global warming

The atmosphere in the evangelical community has been warming since (www.christiansandclimate.org / Gospel) was launched in early February.

The statement, which is supported by more than 80 prominent evangelical leaders say that climate change is a major problem and that the mandates of the Christian faith is a strong response to global warming.  Evangelicals have been reluctant to embrace environmental activism because of his ties with the liberal programs.  The group as a whole has been a general tendency to give priority to spiritual rather than physical, and social considerations.  As scientific evidence increasingly supports the observations of climate change caused by humans, but many take action.

“This is a very good in the form of a biblical foundation and, in fact, for a long period,” said Fred Van Dyke, who teaches environmental ethics at Wheaton College. “The evangelical community has long Associate agenda for the environment with a liberal agenda, but they  have at it. “

Roy Spencer, principal investigator at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and former senior climate scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center, said he feared that the initiative is focused on activism and not enough science.  He helped the Alliance Board (www.interfaithstewardship.org / Inter) the proposed 19-page monograph on global warming called “An examination of the scientific, ethical and theological climate policy.”

The Alliance is a coalition of religious leaders, scientists, academics and policy experts committed to the implementation of a biblical view on the management of environmental issues.  In the monograph, “said the alliance that the science of climate change is incomplete.

“We can not say with certainty how the planet could warm up, how much is due to human activities versus natural cycles, or whether these changes in global temperature would be particularly good or bad for people,” Spencer wrote in the monograph.

Other prominent evangelicals – as Focus on the Family Chairman James Dobson and Chuck Colson, founder of Prison Fellowship Ministries – have also said they are concerned about the location of the Evangelical Climate Initiative on environmental policy.

The media, in particular, has misrepresented the effort as most opinion among evangelicals, “said Cal Beisner, associate professor of historical theology and social ethics at Knox Theological Seminary and a consultant for the initiative.  For this reason, he has worked hard to dissuade the 30 million members, National Association of Evangelicals – which has refrained from establishing an official statement on climate change – to approve the measure.

“What I would warn against equating them is faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ with the approval of a particular scenario, the environment or the response to the policy, says Beisner.” I fear that the ECI call about the dangers of crossing the line of action in this regard.  “

Despite their differences, AT and the alliance of the two that global warming is a problem to solve, and both are motivated by a concern for people living in poverty.  The tension over the appropriate policy response.  TCI encourages preventative measures and supports the policy of mandatory emissions reduction is needed to fight the spread of global warming, will have the greatest impact on poor people living in coastal lowlands.

The Alliance claims that it makes more sense to invest in technology that will allow humanity to solve global climate has changed.  He also said that the policy of mandatory emission reduction requires an overall increase in the prices of all goods and services that rely on energy as factor of production – hence, the greatest negative impact on the world’s poor.

“Currently we have a government that has done nothing effective about global warming and do not listen to people like me – scientists,” says Mark Cane, professor of earth sciences and climate, a member of the academic and the Board of the Department of Columbia University (www.  earthinstitute.columbia.edu / Earth).  “They do not listen to evangelicals, but if [the Evangelical Climate Initiative] plays an important role in the savings.”