Getting Their Message a Cross

Conservative Christians launch skeptical climate campaign

Posted at 5:21 PM on 16 May 2008

Conservative religious leaders have launched a "We Get It!" campaign that just goes to prove that saying something doesn't make it so. The campaign aims to gather a million signatures on a petition opposing climate-change action, with the argument that tackling global warming will hurt the world's poor. "Our stewardship of creation must be based on Biblical principles and factual evidence," says the petition. "We face important environmental challenges, but must be cautious of claims that our planet is in peril from speculative dangers like man-made global warming." The campaign is in large part a response to the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which urges climate-fighting legislation and notes that global warming ain't exactly going to be a party for the impoverished. So far, the We Get It! petition has less than 100 signers, but those include such climate-savvy luminaries as Focus on the Family Chair James Dobson and Sens. James Inhofe and Tom Coburn (both R-Okla.).

sources: Christian Post, The Oklahoman, Baptist Press, CNSNews.com
see also, in Grist: Southern Baptist leaders urge action on climate change

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Comments: (10 comments)

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heavy on the anthropocentrism too

Note this heart-warming statement in the Christian Post:

<<
According to the "We Get It!" campaign, Christians need to start by believing that God is creator of all things and that humans are the pinnacle of God's creation. As a result, humans are responsible for looking out for the environment, but first and foremost for their fellow man, which is the jewel of God's creation.

"Pinnacle"? "Jewel"?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 5:41 PM on 16 May 2008

on the other hand ...

"We are not alone ... ":

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-god_vs_alienmay16, ...

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 8:02 PM on 16 May 2008

james dobson

Hopefully everyone who reads this post will e-mail Dobson and the two gentlemen from Oklahoma. Here's yet another example where Christians behave in an unChrist-like fashion. Interestingly, I could find very little information on their website about how climate policy might actually hurt "the poor."

by jcrane at 6:48 AM on 17 May 2008

Climate change hurts the poor

The poor will likely be hurt more by climate change itself than by anything the rich do to ameliorate it. Think of Pacific Islanders and the residents of southern Bangladesh. Depending on how much the ocean level rises as the result of melting ice caps, these people may lose their homelands.

by JakobFabian01 at 8:15 PM on 17 May 2008

Hypocrisy...

Our stewardship of creation must be based on Biblical principles and factual evidence,"

Since when have conservative Christians ever cared 'bout whether Biblical principals are beased on factual evidence?

by Tasermons Partner at 8:53 PM on 17 May 2008

"conservative Christians"

It depends, Tas Par, on whom you are including as "conservative Christians." Evangelical Christians, and their fellow-traveler fundamentalist-types, can be called "conservative" in some important respects, and indeed they seem often to place very little stock in science.

But orthodox Christians of the more ancient tradition have in principle had no problems with accepting scientific discoveries and theories: all truth, whether religious or scientific or other, is from the same Author, and the different expressions of it cannot finally be in contradiction; to be wrong about Creation (i.e. to ignore science) is to be wrong about the Creator.

N.B., the condemnation of Galileo's work had mostly to do with Galileo's contradiction of what Catholic academic authorities took to be genuine national science, based on a strong tradition of Greek cosmology (strong, but not scientifically impressive, in hindsight). The condemnation of Galileo's work was not based on a literalist reading of biblical texts as those biblical texts were always more authoritative on every subject than any other kind of approach to truth.

So when we use such a term as "conservative Christian," we need to know just who we are talking about.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 11:31 PM on 17 May 2008

National science?

Is it a typo for rational?

--- G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan 'til ~1996
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html

by GRLCowan at 6:33 AM on 18 May 2008

wrong name

i think what they meant was the "whatever is valuable that you have, we get it" coalition.

by gzuckier at 8:13 AM on 19 May 2008

"we get it campaign"

What the leaders of the "We get it" campaign don't get is that ongoing environmental destruction especially global warming will be MOST HARMFUL to the impoverished in this world.

by Dad4theFuture at 9:12 AM on 20 May 2008

a small soapbox

"Our stewardship of creation must be based on Biblical principles and factual evidence"... Well, someone apparently failed to point out to blatancy of this contradiction to them. And as others have already said, yeah, changing to prevent global warming is not going to be easy, but think of what will happen if we don't. Maybe it's a matter of simply not understanding the concept; Christians could think of it like Pascal's Wager. Aren't we much better off trying to protect the environment and attempting to live sustainably than not, even if global warming isn't happening? Why take the risk? Everyone's a loser if global warming is real (nevermind all the other negative stuff happening to the environment that is scientifically proven to be occurring), but we could all benefit in the long run from trying to live sustainably.
One more thing... I've noticed that right-wing Christians tend to not care about the environment as much as less conservative Christians. (Conservative...conservation... hm, that's funny.) Many of my friends and family members who are far-right Christians claim both the reason stated in caniscandida's post (which we can also Biblically prove is flawed thinking), and also the "Why should we care? Christ is coming back" reason. Also as a concept Bibically-erroneous. No matter what form of Christianity or Islam you practice, I think the Golden Rule still applies... It's easy for people in the "First World" to sit back and not do a darn thing and call it the Will of God, but if I was living in a developing nation, I think I'd throw my stone in with living sustainably.
Okay, sorry, I'll give someone else the soapbox now.

by craze at 7:26 AM on 23 May 2008

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