Why All The Concern Over Carbon?

US climate commitments at the Earth Day summit signal an urgency Christians should support for eschatological as well as ecological reasons.

President Joe Biden opened a two-day virtual climate summit on Earth Day by committing the United States, the world’s second largest greenhouse-gas producer after China, to reducing emissions 50–52 percent below 2005 levels. It’s an ambitious goal, one that the US is not on track to come close to meeting. Emissions this past year were projected to be down more than 20 percent, mostly due to the pandemic’s impact on human activity. But with restrictions easing, pressure mounts on the world to return to normal, which is bad news for the atmosphere since this means releasing carbon to levels higher than has ever happened naturally in over 20,000 years.

Jesus foretold environmental demise on a cosmic scale while standing in the temple courts, symbolic of creation itself as the abode of the Almighty. Jesus cited ancient apocalyptic language about the darkening sun and moon, famines, earthquakes, and war (Mark 13:5–25).

Jesus’ grim forecast nevertheless provides solace in God’s sovereignty and concern for his people (13:13). The Lord will watch over human life (Ps. 121:7–8). Unfortunately, this solace sometimes mixes in nationalist politics and laissez-faire economics alongside long-held suspicions of science as a secular displacement for faith. Christians have expressed skepticism over government rules restricting economic activity, and skepticism over scientific predictions of the future given past inaccuracies. Currently, over a third of evangelicals say there is “no solid evidence” that climate change is happening.

If only this were true. Instead, an overwhelming body of evidence starting in the mid-1800s aboard ships and progressing to recent tracking from satellites, geologic data, and computational analysis all converge to affirm the earth is getting hotter. More than 90 percent of earth scientists concur and point to humans as the primary cause. Rising tides, extreme weather, and hotter temperatures notwithstanding, climate change unheeded threatens to destroy economies, render parts of the world uninhabitable, and exacerbate disparities between rich and poor. Exactly what this may look like remains to be seen—consensus on warming isn’t consensus on its future effects—but the worries are real. Read More