The Purpose-Driven Challenge to Global Warming

It's Getting Hot in Herre

This is welcome news (from the NYTimes) after last week's pronouncement that the National Association of Evangelicals was backing down from taking a position on global warming/climate change, largely due to protests from heavily right wing Christianist voices like James Dobson, Donald Wildmon and Richard Land (who all owe allegiance to the GOP, aka God's Own Party; see previous post).

Despite opposition from some of their colleagues, 86 evangelical Christian leaders have decided to back a major initiative to fight global warming, saying "millions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors."

Among signers of the statement, which will be released in Washington on Wednesday, are the presidents of 39 evangelical colleges, leaders of aid groups and churches, like the Salvation Army, and pastors of megachurches, including Rick Warren, author of the best seller "The Purpose-Driven Life."

"For most of us, until recently this has not been treated as a pressing issue or major priority," the statement said. "Indeed, many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough."

The statement calls for federal legislation that would require reductions in carbon dioxide emissions through "cost-effective, market-based mechanisms" — a phrase lifted from a Senate resolution last year and one that could appeal to evangelicals, who tend to be pro-business. The statement, to be announced in Washington, is only the first stage of an "Evangelical Climate Initiative" including television and radio spots in states with influential legislators, informational campaigns in churches, and educational events at Christian colleges.

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In response to the critics, the president of the National Association of Evangelicals, the Rev. Ted Haggard, did not join the 86 leaders in the statement on global warming, even though he had been in the forefront of the issue a year ago. Neither did the Rev. Richard Cizik, the National Association's Washington lobbyist, even though he helped persuade other leaders to sign the global warming initiative.

Paul Waldman (contributor to The Gadflyer and Media Matters) notes why progressives/liberals should be pleased with this shift beyond the embracing of greener policy (via TomPaine):

So why should progressives be glad about the NAE’s retreat from one prominent element of what is known as “Creation Care”? Not just because it exposes a split within the organization, but because that split reveals the forces now threatening the unity of the conservative movement. Progressives should be on the lookout for divisions among religious conservative, and between religious conservatives and other conservatives, to find wedges that can be driven home to crack the conservative movement to pieces.

The NAE’s decision came after a number of prominent evangelicals wrote an open letter to the association discouraging it from taking a position on the issue, because, “Global warming is not a consensus issue, and our love for the Creator and respect for His creation does not require us to take a position.”

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This group may not know a lot about climatology, but they sure know which side the GOP’s bread is buttered on. Yet while they’re busy kneeling before the altar of unrestrained corporate profits and every industry’s right to pollute, the people they claim to represent may start to wonder just which god is being served.

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So the message progressives should send evangelicals is this: you’re being suckered. The GOP thinks you’re nothing but easy marks, people who can be easily manipulated to work for rewards they’ll never see. At the end of the day, the ones who get repaid by the Republicans will be the ones who paid the bills: the corporate interests—from oil companies to pharmaceutical manufacturers to Wall Street firms—who never doubt that they’ll get a return on their investment in the GOP.

And here's a reminder about what's at stake, via ENN:

Scientists on Monday painted a gloomy picture of the effects of global warming on the Arctic, warning of melting ocean ice, rising oceans, thawed permafrost and forests susceptible to bugs and fire.

"A lot of the stories you read make it sound like there's uncertainty," said Jonathan Overpeck, a professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona. "There's not uncertainty."

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Glenn Juday, professor of forest ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, said tree growth has decreased at Interior Alaska sites that were promising for commercial harvest. Studies of temperatures at Talkeetna and Fairbanks indicate daily lows are not as low as they used to be. The warming lowers the water available to white spruce, black spruce and birch, Juday said.

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If warming trends continue, Overpeck said, the globe eventually will get a nasty message from the Arctic: a rise in sea levels. Higher oceans will flow into low-lying parts of the world such as New Orleans, making recovery in that hurricane-ravaged city moot.

"It's hard to imagine why we're wanting to rebuild if we're going to allow global warming," Overpeck said.