I’m going to be on Laura Ingraham’s conservative talk show at about 11:15 AM EST today (listen by clicking here. Call in and participate in the show by calling 1-800-876-4123).
I’m hoping we’ll have a lot of visitors here on the blog from conservatives and Christians who are concerned with the stewardship of this great planet we have been blessed with (Welcome!). Treating our home with care and respect is neither a liberal nor conservative issue.
Creation care is a sanctity of human life issue.
Wherever we stand on global warming, we can all agree that the pollution caused by burning fossil fuels causes huge damage to living species and makes toxic the land, air and water that human beings depend upon for sustenance.
We can also all agree that a switch to renewable energy sources will help make us independent of shrinking reserves of foreign oil, increase our national security, help stabilize our economy, and provide energy for generations to come.
Perhaps, too, we can agree that, wherever we stand on global warming, much of the rest of the world believes in it, and they want windmills and solar panels and other ways to generate clean energy. The United States could be the leader in this new industry, or we can stand by and let others make the profits.
In other words, whatever our philosophical stances on global warming, doesn’t it appeal to conservative and liberal agendas alike to work towards a wholesale shift away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy?
Besides, conservation, by rights, should be a conservative issue. Writer Kit Stolz once posted on the environmental website Grist:
In a speech reprinted on the American Enterprise Institute’s site, Steven Hayward pointed out:
If you were the proverbial Being from Mars dropped onto the American scene, nothing would seem more natural than to assume that environmentalism would be a conservative enthusiasm. Among other obvious things conservative and conservatism share the same etymological root with conservation and conservationism, and while conservationism and environmentalism may not be identical, they are clearly blood relatives.
More pointedly, in a Sunday column for the Dallas Morning News two weeks ago, Rod Dreher — the author of “Crunchy Cons” — wrote:
Conservatives are supposed to be cautious by nature and in principle. But when it comes to global warming, conservatives are the loudest voices advocating recklessness. What, exactly, is conservative about sneering at overwhelming scientific evidence?
Below, I’ve included two videos of Reverend Pat Robertson discussing his concerns with our failures to take care of our planet.
But first, I wanted to say that, in things relating to human health, security and happiness as it relates to the well-being of our planetary habitat, there is no “other side.” There is only one big our side–the human side.
How can we all live happily and safely together?
It’s in that spirit that I wanted to highlight the Evangelical Climate Initiative, “a group of more than 85 evangelical leaders who—as a result of their commitment to Jesus Christ and concern for His Creation—have signed the statement entitled Climate Change: An Evangelical Call to Action.” Here are some extracts from their Call to Action statement:
- “…many of us have required considerable convincing before becoming persuaded that climate change is a real problem and that it ought to matter to us as Christians. But now we have seen and heard enough to offer the following moral argument related to the matter of human-induced climate change. We commend the four simple but urgent claims offered in this document to all who will listen, beginning with our brothers and sisters in the Christian community, and urge all to take the appropriate actions that follow from them.”
- “Claim 1: Human-induced climate change is real.”
- “Claim 2: The consequences of climate change will be significant, and will hit the poor the hardest.”
- “Claim 3: Christian moral convictions demand our response to the climate change problem.”
- “Claim 4: The need to act now is urgent. Governments, businesses, churches and individuals all have a role to play in addressing climate change.”