Updated Thursday, May 15, 2008

Evangelicals launch campaign against global warming 'alarmism'

By Adelle M. Banks

Religion News Service

WASHINGTON - Evangelical leaders who reject arguments that climate change is human-induced but are nevertheless concerned about the environment are trying to gather 1 million signatures of people who agree with them.

The "We Get It!" campaign, launched May 15 at the National Press Club, includes a brief declaration that states "God created everything" and there is a God-given mandate to "tend his creation" and care for the poor.

"Our stewardship of creation must be based on biblical principles and factual evidence," the four-paragraph statement reads. "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 the latest in the back-and-forth battle between different strains of evangelicals. Some believe action is needed to protect the environment because human activity has caused its degradation, while others believe the notion of human cause is a fad and alarmist.

"We're here to say evangelicals as a whole, evangelicals even as a significant part, have not suddenly embraced man-made catastrophic global warming alarmism," said E. Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance, one of the partner organizations leading the campaign.

Other participants in the launch of the new campaign included Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.; Institute on Religion and Democracy President James Tonkowich; and Family Research Council President Tony Perkins.

"You can be green without being gullible," said Perkins. "We do believe we have a stewardship issue to care for the environment but we also have a stewardship issue to care for the economies that support families."

Endorsers include leaders in the Southern Baptist Convention, including at least two who declared in a separate recent initiative that past denominational declarations on the environment had been "too timid."