Creationism and Climate Change

Religious beliefs and scientific findings have been at odds for millennia. For scientific “heretics” who have, under some notion of blasphemy, been imprisoned, tortured, burned at the stake, ridiculed or otherwise terminated with extreme prejudice, the conflict was/is super-real. But as we face storm surges, fading shorelines, raging wildfires, extreme droughts or extreme flooding, disease migration and crop failure – and the political and economic disruption that follow – the realities of climate change are punishing or threaten to punish billions of us. While 97% of scientific research confirms that man-made greenhouse gasses have been the principal causes of global warming, too many political leaders, reaching out to their religiously ultra-conservative constituents, remain climate change skeptics.

First, let’s look at the underlying beliefs of such traditional Americans. “Since 1982, between 40% and 50% of adults in the United States say they hold the view that ‘God created humans in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years’ when Gallup asked for their views on the origin and development of human beings. A 2011 Gallup survey reports that 30% of U.S. adults say they interpret the Bible literally. These beliefs are often contradictory. A 2009 poll by Harris Interactive found that 39% of Americans agreed with the statement that ‘God created the universe, the earth, the sun, moon, stars, plants, animals, and the first two people within the past 10 000 years,’ yet only 18% of the Americans polled agreed with the statement ‘The earth is less than 10 000 years old.’” Wikipedia. There isn’t a single shred of hard scientific evidence to support these numbers; the earth and life on this planet are millions of years old under all substantiated scientific inquiries.

But with the current Congress fully controlled by a political party with a very large number of climate change deniers, it becomes relevant to look into the beliefs of such policy-makers. The January 12^th First Draft RSS feed from the New York Times reports on a Yale study that generated the underlying numbers, and the report shows anything but unanimity within the new GOP majority: “Listening to Republican leaders, you’d think that party members across the board question or deny a human link to global warming.

“Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the new majority leader, has made it a priority to block, delay and deny funds to President Obama’s climate change regulations. In 2012, every Republican presidential candidate but one – former Gov. Jon M. Huntsman Jr. of Utah – questioned or denied the science of climate change. In the last year’s elections, many Republicans chose to dodge the issue with a simple phrase: ‘I’m not a scientist.’

“But Republican voters are deeply divided on the issue, according to a survey analysis out on [January 12^th] from the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. It found that 56 percent of all Republicans support regulating planet-warming carbon pollution. The divide is more apparent when Republicans are asked to define their ideology: 62 percent who called themselves moderate Republicans said that climate change is real, but just 38 percent of conservative Republicans and 29 percent of Tea Party Republicans agreed.

“‘There’s a simmering struggle within the Republican Party to define their stance on climate change,’ and Anthony Leiserowitz, an author of the study. ‘It’s part of the bigger struggle you’re seeing within the Republican establishment and the Tea Party.’” At some time, does that Tea Party segment leave the Republican Party? And then fade away into history’s obscurity? Or do they recast the GOP as the Cotton Mathers of today?

If they are right about climate change, and we implement climate change-appropriate policies anyway, what’s the worst that can happen? Cheaper energy prices, decentralized power generations that makes terrorist attacks more difficult, new jobs in these sectors, job loss in sectors where old-line methodologies and fossil fuels are taken off-line, etc.? Economic growth has not stopped where environmental rules are enforced. And if climate change is man-made and real? The cost of massive disasters, from storms, floods and fires to productivity losses from fallow farms, the spread of insects and disease to new regions, disposed farmers turning to armed revolt and terrorism (the ISIS effect) and loss of land mass in coastal regions most certainly exceeds any measure of losses in “economic growth.”

So the GOP is either going to make things a whole lot worse… or if they do have a “Come to Jesus” reality check, perhaps they can be a huge part of a much-needed commitment to solve or at least mitigate the disasters associated with climate change. We can actually pray that this is happens and happens soon.

I’m Peter Dekom, and if we ignore nature’s warnings, nature will respond as expected.