Evangelical Group Offers Conservative Global Warming Perspective
by Mary Rettig
July 31, 2006
(AgapePress) - - An evangelical group is presenting an alternative view on global warming. Just months after another evangelical group called for Christians to help combat what it sees as the crisis of human-caused climate change and its effects, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance is casting doubt on the theory of catastrophic global warming. Recently, 86 evangelical clergy, college presidents, mission and ministry heads, and other leaders signed a document called "Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action," which called on the U.S. government to pass federal legislation requiring significant reductions in carbon dioxide emissions to fight global warming. This group argued that such changes are necessary to protect the poor from the much touted harmful effects of an "unprecedented" environmental warming trend. (See related article)
In response to that document, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance issued one of its own, titled "A Call to Truth, Prudence, and the Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming." In that report, the Alliance presents evidence arguing against the extent and significance -- and possibly even the existence -- of the purported "scientific consensus" on catastrophic, human-induced global warming.
More than 100 scholars and religious leaders have endorsed the Alliance's report. Among these is Professor Calvin Beisner of Knox Theological Seminary, who contends that human efforts to stop global warming are largely futile and would likely do more harm that good.
"Mandatory carbon emissions reductions would have almost no significant effect on global warming," Beisner says. But requiring the international community to make such changes "would be very damaging to the global economy," he asserts, "especially to the poorest of the world's poor."
Signers of the "Call to Truth" document believe requiring the U.S. and other industrialized nations to curb carbon emissions would actually hurt the world's poor by delaying economic development, the professor explains. "The greatest enemy of the environment is not affluence," he insists. "It is poverty."
On the other hand, Beisner observes, affluent nations may be in the best position to enact positive changes. "The more wealthy people are, the more they have to invest in promoting a clean and healthy environment," he says.
Another Alliance spokesman, Professor Kenneth Chilton, feels Christians need to have a more balanced view of environmentalism. He says God made human beings to be stewards of the Earth, and they should not be made to feel guilty for using its resources.
Mary Rettig, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
