Religious Conservatives Embrace Proposed E.P.A. Rules on Climate Change
Religious Conservatives Embrace Proposed E.P.A. Rules
By THEODORE SCHLEIFER JULY 30, 2014
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Members of religious groups rallied outside the Environmental Protection Agency in Washington on Tuesday. CreditStephen Crowley/The New York Times
WASHINGTON — The Rev. Lennox Yearwood punched his fist in the air as he rhythmically boomed into the microphone: “This is a moment for great leadership. This is a moment for our country to stand up. This is our moment.”
But Mr. Yearwood’s audience was not a church. It was the Environmental Protection Agency.
The E.P.A. on Tuesday held the first of two days of public hearings on its proposed regulation to cut carbon pollution from power plants, and mixed in with the coal lobbyists and business executives were conservative religious leaders reasserting their support for President Obama’s environmental policies — at a time when Republican Party orthodoxy continues to question the science of climate change.
More than two dozen faith leaders, including evangelicals and conservative Christians, are expected to speak at the E.P.A. headquarters in Washington by the time the hearings conclude on Wednesday.
“The science is clear,” said Lisa Sharon Harper, the senior director of mobilizing for Sojourners, an evangelical organization with a social justice focus. “The calls of city governments — who are trying to create sustainable environments for 25, 50 years — that’s clear.”
Ms. Harper was one of about 20 interfaith activists who quietly sang “Hallelujah” and Jewish spirituals in a prayer circle outside the environmental agency’s 12th Street entrance here on Tuesday. Mr. Yearwood and three other faith leaders spoke at the hearings on Tuesday. Some 20 others are to make remarks on Wednesday.
Although many of the faith leaders come from traditionally progressive congregations, like black churches, synagogues and mainstream Protestant denominations, others were more conservative Christians who reflect a growing embrace of environmentalism by parts of the religious right. This week’s hearings on the new E.P.A. rule gives them an opportunity to make their argument that climate change hurts the world’s poor through natural disasters, droughts and rising sea levels, and that it is part of their faith to protect the planet.
“I have been called by God to speak out on these issues and believe it is my conviction as an evangelical Christian that we must be stewards of God’s creation,” the Rev. Richard Cizik, a former top lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals and now president of the New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good, plans to say Wednesday at the E.P.A. hearing in Washington, according to his prepared remarks.
The agency is also holding hearings this week on the regulation in Atlanta, Denver and Pittsburgh. About 1,600 people are scheduled to speak.
Five years ago, only 34 percent of white evangelical Protestants agreed that solid evidence existed that the earth was warming because of human activity, according to a poll by the Pew Research Center. An additional 31 percent said that no evidence existed proving global warming whatsoever. Recent polling shows that many evangelicals are still skeptics.
“For the most part, people in the climate advocacy movement are ignoring a number of various biblical texts that are more specifically relevant to the issue,” said E. Calvin Beisner, spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance, an evangelical organization opposed to the E.P.A. rule. “They’re quoting broad general texts that everyone would agree with.”
But in recent years a number of well-known conservative religious groups have embraced global warming as a serious concern.
The National Association of Evangelicals first began pushing for an assertive climate change policy during the George W. Bush administration. The Christian Coalition, founded by Pat Robertson, lobbied in 2009 and 2010 for a climate change bill that ultimately failed on Capitol Hill.
“Rather than letting our faith dictate our politics, we’ve gotten to the point for many of us where we’re letting our politics — typically what the Republican Party says — dictate our faith,” Katharine Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian who is a climate scientist at Texas Tech University, said in a telephone interview. “Caring about God’s creation and caring about God’s people is entirely consistent with caring for your neighbor.”
In addition, groups like the Evangelical Environmental Network have seen explosive growth over the past five years, said the network’s president, Mitch Hescox, by making a different argument than typical environmentalists make.
“This is not about polar bears. It’s not about future life. It’s about current reality and children’s health,” Mr. Hescox, a Republican who was scheduled to speak at the E.P.A. hearing in Pittsburgh, said in a telephone interview. “We’re not going to get anywhere if it remains a liberal issue.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/us...ules.html?_r=0
