4 Ways to Answer Skeptics on Climate Change By Terrence Henry Email

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How do you convince people climate change is real? The answer until now has largely been one of science, data and facts. But an emerging voice in the scientific community is taking a different tack: emphasizing religious stewardship over statistics, and advocating awareness of climate change as a spiritual responsibility.

One emerging voice of the faith-inclined climate change community is climatologist Katharine Hayhoe, who also happens to be an evangelical Christian. Hers is a fascinating tactic, especially considering that only slightly more than half of white evangelicals believe in climate change, less than other denominations, according to a recent poll by the Public Religion Research Institute. The poll also found that white evangelicals are significantly less likely than other religious persuasions to believe climate change is caused by humans. Hayhoe is a professor at Texas Tech in Lubbock.

The spiritual scientist wrote a list of ways to engage evangelicals on the subject of climate change for Science & Religion Today: