More on climate change:

Christianity Today has posted an article on climate change: Cool on Climate Change. The article highlights the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance. The opening paragraphs of the article read:

A new coalition argues Christians need not heed warnings that millions will die from human-induced global warming and says we should seek more practical ways to help the world’s poor.

Human emissions of carbon dioxide are not the main cause of global warming, the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance (ISA) said in a document released in July. The ISA, a loosely affiliated group of more than 130 theologians, scientists, policy analysts, and others, said the consequences of global warming for the poor have been exaggerated.

Activities that produce carbon dioxide—such as “breathing, building a fire to cook or keep warm, driving a car or tractor, or burning coal to produce electricity … [are] morally good and necessary activities that God intended for us,” said Wayne Grudem, research professor of Bible and theology at Phoenix Seminary. “It seems very unlikely to me that God would have set up the earth to work in such a way that these good and necessary activities would actually destroy the earth.”

The ISA is responding to the Evangelical Climate Initiative’s February statement “Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action,” signed by 97 evangelical leaders. The statement claimed that “[m]illions of people could die in this century because of climate change, most of them our poorest global neighbors.”

This is from the other side of the global warming debate from yesterday’s post. I skimmed the longer report called A Call to Truth, Prudence, and Protection of the Poor: An Evangelical Response to Global Warming, and was pleased to see that it seems to avoid the distortions of science that plague much of the Evangelical/Conservative discussion of global warming and climate change.

I’m still riding on the fence on this one, but again I’ll say that I’m pleased to see Evangelicals thinking about environmental issues.

Grace and Peace