Evangelicals embrace climate change science to save planet
Pastor Dale Morgan
Evangelicals embrace climate change science to save planet*
WASHINGTON, Jan 17 (AFP) Jan 18, 2007
Evangelical and scientific leaders have united for the first time to
sway Americans to back urgent action to stem greenhouse gas emissions
that cause global warming threatening the planet.
Repudiating the struggle between neo-creationists and defenders of the
theory of evolution, a group of prominent scientists, including Nobel
prize winner Eric Chivian and NASA's chief climatologist James Hansen,
joined US evangelical leaders on Wenesday to launch this unprecedented
joint-initiative.
The coalition of 28 US scientists and eminent members of the Christian
evangelical movement, which boasts 30 million followers in the United
States, announced an "urgent call to action" to curb habitat
destruction, pollution, species extinction, the spread of human
infectious diseases and other manufactured dangers that are now
threatening humanity.
The statement was released at a news conference and sent to US President
George W. Bush, House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
bipartisan congressional leaders and national evangelical and scientific
organizations.
The group pledged to "work together toward a responsible care for
Creation and call with one voice" on religious, scientific, business,
political and educational circles to join the initiative.
They urged "fundamental changes in values, lifestyles, and public
policies required to address these worsening problems before it is too
late."
"There is no such thing as a Republican or Democrat, a liberal or
conservative, a religious or secular environment. We all breath the same
air and drink the same water," said Chivian, Nobel laureate and director
of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical
School.
"Great scientists are people of imagination. So are people of great
faith. We dare to imagine a world in which science and religion
cooperate, minimizing our differences about how Creation got started, to
work together to reverse its degradation. We will not allow it to be
progressively destroyed by human folly," added Richard Cizik,
vice-president for Governmental Affairs of the National Association of
Evangelicals.
"If current deterioration of the environment continues unabated, best
estimates are that half of Earth's surviving species of plants and
animals will be extinguished or critically endangered by the end of the
century," said Pulitzer Prize-winning author Edward Wilson.
One of the coalition's imperatives is to advance public dialogue and
influence US policy in regards to global warming, he said.
For William Galston, a religion expert at The Brookings Institution, a
private research institute, the "most important aspect" of this meeting
of minds is the participation of evangelical groups, whose vast
political influence dates back to the 1970s.
"It's another important step forward toward a change of orientation and
a change of policy on the part of the US in this area (climate change),"
he said. "That could have very important consequences for domestic
policy down the road."
Traditionally, evangelicals' public policy agenda was focused on social
issues, walking in step with Republican lawmakers, but now they have
taken "a serious step toward broadening the agenda," leaning toward the
Democrats, Galston explained.
Of note, Senator Barack Obama, a rising Democratic star who announced
this week his much-anticipated run for the White House in 2008, was
among the first to express support for the coalition's mission.