God & Country

Christians Unsure About Climate Change's Causes, but They Back Solutions

May 7, 2009 RSS Feed Print

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Can evangelicals and Roman Catholics be skeptical of human-created climate change but still want to combat global warming? Sure.

Yesterday, I wrote that a new poll showing majority evangelical and Catholic support for tackling climate change jars with a recent Pew poll that revealed faith-based skepticism toward human-created global warming. But the pollster behind the new poll, religion-and-politics numbers guy Robert P. Jones, E-mails to say that that's not so. It turns out that Jones's findings on Christian support for combating climate change track pretty closely with Pew's numbers showing Christian skepticism about human-created global warming.

While it's true that only 40 percent of white evangelicals feel there is solid evidence that the Earth is warming because of human activity, Jones notes that a full 67 percent say there is solid evidence for global warming, regardless of the cause. Among Catholics, 73 percent in Jones's poll believe the Earth is warming, though only around half say it's because of human activity.

Despite doubts about global warming's cause and the "current difficult economic climate," Jones writes, "we found significant support for tackling climate change now. More than 6 in 10 (61 percent) believe dealing with climate change now will create new jobs and help avoid more serious economic problems in the future. A majority of every religious group, including Catholics (67 percent) and white evangelicals (52 percent), agree."

Tags:
energy policy and climate change,
global warming,
evangelicals,
religion

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Wow! That is a lot of filth you're spouting ... do you talk to your mother that way? Do you espouse to be a devout man who follows all the tenants and the spirit of the Bible? If so go back and read your post. Or is it really about who's payroll you're on? There are a lot of consultants or specialists in spinning media who spend their entire days hunting for any post anywhere that opposes their employer's postion and seek to undermine it. I'd be confident in naming you as such based on the content of your post. But perhaps I'm wrong and far be it for me to be as vitriolic as you choose to be.

I'd suggest taking a deep breath and considering that God provided this Earth ... and if we sully and destroy it in our ignorance we have ruined the Garden he has provided. This is truly a test of our faith and resolve to care for the gifts we have been provided.

Jonathan Anderson 4:48PM May 14, 2009

van Dresser missed the point again. No one is denying climate change. Climate changes everywhere and change is the constant. Climate has changed ever since since the planet began having atmosphere 4.5? Billion years ago. Over that immense deep time, however, the planet has reached a stable equilibrium between glaciations and interglacial periods and the water vapour is part of the thermostat. Warm the planet and clouds form to cool the planet; it is just that simple. Cool the planet and humidity drops and glaciers waste away. The equilibrium position for the oceans is out at edge of the continental shelves. The last big thaw resulted in flood myths and global religions. Radical Environmentalism may be the latest, but it is built on the myths of all the rest.

I am objectively sceptical that any trace gas is anything but an effect. The inverse solubility of gasses in seawater is science the Goracle never knew. A slippery truth has circled around and bitten the true believers of the mass movement on the backside. CO2 trails warming and cannot be the cause.

The issue is now McCarthyism as a number of scientifically illiterate politicians have got onto a politically correct bandwagon and do not have an exit strategy whereby they can save face. While CO2 has risen, the global climate has cooled. The cause and effect has no correlation. It would be funny if it were not so serious. If they want to crater the economy why don't they say so instead of hiding behind Tipper Gore's skirt?

Fran Manns of PA 9:15PM May 08, 2009

It's nice that there are Evangelicals and Catholics who accept the reality of climate change. But their unwillingness to accept what climatology is telling us regarding the mechanism of that process tells me that their acceptance may not be useful. The thing of it is, understanding needs to precede action on this problem. When Bush pushed ethanol by arguing that it would solve climate change, we wasted a great deal of time and effort, because in fact ethanol as a vehicle fuel accomplishes very little in that regard. Work the problem, people. Accept science. Stop trying to tell the scientists how science works. Stop spinning the conspiracy theories about rich renewable energy tycoons. None of them has half the money that Exxon has- and as a result our policies have so far focused on keeping Exxon happy much more than dealing with climate change as a threat to our descendants.

Chris Wiegard of VA 2:17PM May 08, 2009

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Dan Gilgoff covers religion for U.S. News & World Report. He is the author of The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War, and is a former politics editor at beliefnet. E-mail Dan at godandcountry@usnews.com.

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