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A different view of man's relationship with
nature
Other evangelicals beg to differ.
A group of Jewish, Catholic and Protestant scholars calling themselves the
Interfaith Stewardship Alliance offered one such rebuttal in 2000 in a
declaration that asserts, among other things: "Many people believe that 'nature
knows best,' or that the earth -- untouched by human hands -- is the ideal. Such
romanticism leads some to deify nature or oppose human dominion over creation.
Our position, informed by revelation and confirmed by reason and experience,
views human stewardship that unlocks the potential in creation for all the
earth's inhabitants as good. Humanity alone of all the created order is capable
of developing other resources and can thus enrich creation, so it can properly
be said that the human person is the most valuable resource on earth."
The group's scientific underpinnings are provided by the likes of Roy
Spencer, a research scientist at the University of Alabama in Huntsville and
former senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight
Center. Spencer contends that a lack of data prior to 1950 makes it difficult if
not impossible to compare current and past cycles or predict future ones.
Determining how much human activity contributes to warming is equally
unknowable, Spencer says.
An emphasis on real rather than potential
problems
The ISA relied on this scientific view in 2006 when, adopting a new
identity as the Cornwall Alliance, it took aim at the ECI's recently released
"Evangelical Call to Action." The rebuttal, backed up by an abundance of
scientific references, argues that :
While climate change certainly is real, distinguishing the human impact from
naturally occurring variations is next to impossible.
There is no reliable evidence that the consequences of warming will be
severe or that their impact will be felt disproportionately by the world's poor.
The real harm to the poor will occur if fossil fuels are made less
accessible or more expensive and slow the pace of modernization in the Third
World.
Elaborating on this last point, the Cornwall Alliance states: "It is immoral
and harmful to Earth's poorest citizens to deny them the benefits of abundant,
reliable, affordable electricity and other forms of energy merely because
it is produced by using fossil fuels."
Apply this moral lens and initiatives such as the Kyoto climate treaty are
seen in a less than favorable light. Paul Driessen, a senior policy advisor on
the environment for the Congress of Racial Equality and a member of the Cornwall
Alliance, contends that Kyoto could cost 1.3 million jobs in America's black and
Hispanic communities in 2012, the year it would go into effect. The consequences
of higher-cost, less-accessible energy in the undeveloped world, where 2 billion
people still do without electricity, would be far more dire, Driessen argues.
One suspects that Spencer, Driessen and their Cornwall Alliance cohorts, more
concerned about hunger today than possible global warming impacts tomorrow,
would see Jesus loading up the school bus and heading for the soup kitchen.
Of course, they and everyone else attempting to answer the question of what
Jesus would drive might be wrong. Maybe it's an unanswerable question.
After all, as Patton the born again Christian notes, "Jesus made the
universe. He's not looking at the world the way we are."
Philipp Harper is a free-lance writer based in south Georgia
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