Big Think

Question: Why are some evangelicals suspicious of climate change?

Richard Cizik: I think it’s in part an anti-intellectualism and a suspicion of science. In other words it goes like this. Scientists believe in evolution. Scientists tell us climate change is occurring, so I’m not gonna believe what they say. So it’s a . . . it’s an innate suspicion against science per se. And yet what I’m saying and what others are saying – those of us that signed The Climate Initiative – is that science is our ally. Science enables us to understand what creation is telling us about itself – about itself and about its maker … God from our vantage point. And so science can be our ally rather than our enemy; and yet there are tens of millions of evangelicals who don’t see it that way. Now they’re coming on board. Let’s face it. Seventy five percent of evangelicals now believe that climate change is real, that it will impact the poor, and we have to do something about it. So that’s a big change from just two years ago.

Recorded on: 6/25/07