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Yesterday, a group called the Evangelical Climate Initiative issued a statement during a press conference which, among other things, called for national CO2 emissions reductions.  One thing is certain, whoever handles PR for this group deserves a raise, because the story got out (Salon, BBC, Christianity Today).

BoingBoing also noted today that Michael Chrichton was recently received an award for “journalism” presented by the Association of Petroleum Geologists because of his recent novel State of Fear, which disputed many claims made about global warming.  Now I place both myself and Michael Chrichton in the same category of people who know essentially nothing about climate science and must therefore rely on expert opinions.  Admittedly, there is some dissent even among experts regarding climate change, so I clicked over to Chrichton’s sight to see what he had to say.

What I found there was a story about eugenics and how it was all the rage once and everyone wanted to study it at major universities and it was supported by both politicians and celebrities.  As a result, voices speaking against eugenics were marginalized.  Chrichton makes a good point here that dissenting voices shouldn’t be silenced.  Thankfully, in our enlightened age, both the pros and cons of eugenics are publicly debated.  Wait a minute… that’s not how the story ends.  After the holocaust, we all saw the danger inherent in eugenics and many of the ideas people were so keen on fell out of favor and today no resonable person is interested in eugenics.  In the end, Chrichton’s story provides no help… unless his message is to listen to those who are right and ignore those who are wrong.  Gee, thanks Michael.

In any case, back to Evangelical Christians.  Even with the big todo yesterday, there was still a big buzz about the fact that Ted Haggard, who has said that he believes that human-indiced climate change is occuring, did not lend his support to the initiative.  This is in part because of a letter written by a group called the Interfaith Stewardship Alliance asking that the National Association of Evangelicals, of which Haggard is President, “not adopt any official position on the issue of global climate change.”  Their argument: “We are evangelicals, and we care about God’s creation. However, we believe there should be room for Bible-believing evangelicals to disagree about the cause, severity and solutions to the global warming issue.”  This may be true, but I would submit that no Bible-believing Christian, who also believes what many scientists have predicted regarding the effects of climate change, can afford to take a neutral stance on this issue.  Honestly, who appears to be silencing whom in this instance.  If Christians disagree, then let there be a debate!  Let people take sides!  The potential consequences are just too great for the issue not to be discussed.