Updated Thursday, March 20, 2008

Avoiding climate conversation threatens irrelevancy

By Norman Jameson

BR Editor

Have you choked on the exhaust fumes of a passing bus? Or ridden your bike in a cloud of burning oil when an old truck passes?

You may have pulled a fish out of the lake and found its fins wrapped in filament; or you've seen a dead bird caught in a plastic six pack wrapper.

Maybe you live near Yucca Mountain beneath which waste material from nuclear reactors will remain deadly for thousands of years. Perhaps you've heard the world's best marathoner, Haile Gebrselassie, has said he will not compete in the summer Olympics marathon in Beijing because the air is so filthy and filled with particulates it might permanently damage his lungs.

You might have participated in a local river clean up that commonly pulls tons of trash from the waterways; or cleaned spilled oil from sea birds; or walked gingerly on a beach filled with syringes washed up from a medical dump; or had to stay inside during an "orange ozone alert" because the air was too dangerous for prolonged exposure.

Or, maybe you've traveled to Alaska where the locals can't use their snowmobiles for lack of snow, and where villages are sinking into thawing permafrost. Or to the Antarctic where meadow flowers brighten land once buried by glaciers. Or to the North Carolina coast where beach houses are falling into the water.

If you have experienced any of the above or other examples of human effect on the environment you probably applaud the "Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change" announced March 7. If you live in a hyperbaric chamber and have not experienced any such things, then you're likely a skeptic who remains unconvinced that human activity has any effect on our environment or climate.

Jonathan Merritt, the Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary student who pulled together a document and original support that included the current and two former presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention, including his father James; Southeastern Seminary President Danny Aiken and several college presidents and state Baptist convention executives, admits scientists are not unanimous over the human effect on climate.

And he wisely says unanimity is not required for action.

"We resolve to engage this issue without any further lingering over the basic reality of the problem or our responsibility to address it," said signers, which include me.

The fact is a large number of environmental scientists - the majority from my reading - are alarmed. Skeptics pull out contradictory reports of the minority and shout, "See, the sky is not falling. Go about your business."

I am disappointed in the vituperative reaction of prominent non-signers. Merritt, who was inspired to undertake the time consuming and massive task of preparing the document and garnering support completely on his own, has been personally vilified.

Critics cite his age and "student status" to imply he knows nothing of what he speaks. They say he is just a puppet for other persons. His personal mail has been filled with condemnation. And this from Christians.

Merritt represents the "young leader" and "next generation" that every Southern Baptist administrator yearns to bring into the fold. These are men and women who run with their ideas. They feel. They act. But when they come up with an idea not vetted with the gray heads around the council table they are "slapped down," says signer Danny Aiken.

Merritt's document does not argue the science. It offers no policy proposals. He is not trying position himself as an expert. The document simply calls for Southern Baptist Christians to drop the entertaining but time wasting exercise of arguing cause and act in a manner that reflects stewardship of the earth that God gave us to tend.

Aiken was the only Southern Baptist Convention institution or agency head to sign the document. Some ignored it. Others were offended because it called SBC efforts to date in this arena "too timid." Feathers riled, they wasted more time defending the virtues of timid resolutions passed in 2006 and 2007 and distancing themselves from a document Baptists under 40 thought was pretty cool. Aiken said he received no negatives in his mass of critical letters from persons under 40.

Here's a clue for people who think Baptists and other evangelicals are wasting their time talking about such things as global warming "when there is a world out there that needs to hear about Jesus." A Yale University poll says 71 percent of Americans believe global warming is occurring right now and 57 percent believe it is caused mainly by human activity.

They could be wrong. They could be right. The point is, majority of Americans are concerned about global warming. It's on their mind. They see it in the news, they talk about it. Some make lifestyle decisions and purchasing decisions influenced by their concerns.

If Baptists are not a part of this conversation; if Baptists kiss it off as far-fetched, fanciful and false; if Baptists "slap down" bright, young, eager, faithful minds among us who recognize, with the majority of Americans and the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, that this issue merits attention then we make ourselves irrelevant to those for whom it is a concern.

Do we really want to be any more irrelevant to the majority of Americans?

Here's another clue. A National Journal "Congressional Insiders Poll," showed that only 13 percent of congressional Republicans believe human activity is causing global warming, compared to 95 percent of congressional Democrats. Could it be that vociferous opposition to a biblical call to earth stewardship is based more on political alliance than scientific evidence or biblical mandate?

Do you want another reason why skeptics don't want to believe that human activity is responsible for negative environmental effects?

It's the same reason you talk about the weather and pray for "the world" instead of for your neighbor. You can't do anything about the weather and you can't win the world so no one expects you to. Your inaction is totally acceptable.

But if a thing is true - or you believe it, true or not - conscience and congregational mandate require you to act.