Evangelical Climate Initiative

Click here to read an article from an Orlando newspaper on the Evangelical Climate Initiative. It is a movement among evangelicals to start paying attention to global warming. A bulk of the article is an interesting interview with Evangelical pastor and ECI spokesman, Joel Hunter.

I really liked his answer to this question:

OW: The ECI is being attacked by Chuck Colson and Jim Dobson, who say the evidence supporting global warming is not conclusive. Why should Christians listen to the ECI and not Colson and Dobson?
Hunter: First place, every time we come up with a general health scare there will be people who have a general investment in that field who for years come up with scientific evidence that says this isn't conclusive. They did this with tobacco. They did this with asbestos. There's always going to be a skepticism that has kind of a protectionistic attribute to it.

I have tremendous respect for Chuck Colson and James Dobson, but I think they're working off an old agenda. The old agenda is that the only way to approach this issue is to put in more government regulation, and that will hurt business. And I've heard the argument that if you hurt business, you hurt the poor.

That's an old paradigm. We are for – and you can read this at our website – we are for market-based approaches. We believe the economy can actually be stimulated by doing what's right, rather than suppressed.

I honestly don't know enough about global warming to have an opinion. But I applaud evangelicals who are willing to think both biblically and intelligently. I am very happy to see us get to a place where evangelicals care about issues because it is the right thing to do...rather than the "right-wing" thing to do.