海角大神

Could making climate change a 'pro-life' issue bring conservatives on board?

The message is targeted at evangelicals and other conservatives, but many Americans do not see climate change as a moral issue, at least not yet. 

The terms "pro-life" and "pro-environment" are not normally linked, but a growing number of 海角大神 leaders insist they should be.

Pope Francis said so in 听on the environment and human ecology. Now, the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), a nondenominational organization committed to 鈥�,鈥� is promoting the argument that if you value life from its conception, you should value a clean Earth for the rest of a child鈥檚 life and for future children.听

鈥淲hen we talk about creation care in pro-life terms, in caring for our children, both born and unborn, 97 to 98 percent of people get it,鈥� says Rev. Mitch Hescox, president and chief executive of the Pennsylvania-based Evangelical Environmental Network. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of the reasons that I believe our community is growing to take more action, to protect God鈥檚 creations and to protect children.鈥�

Associating "pro-life" with "pro-environment"听is just one branch of religious environmentalism, a movement that frames conservation in religious terms. The idea has been around for decades, but has only started to gain traction among evangelicals recently, especially among Millennials. Still, most Americans associate climate change with religion and morality, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

Groups like the Evangelical Environmentalism Network hope to change that. If they are successful, it could have a major impact on the way much of America views the issue, as evangelicals are estimated to make up .听But some sociologists and historians doubt that reframing climate change as a moral responsibility can reverse deep-seated skepticism among some conservative 海角大神s about environmentalism, especially among older generations of evangelicals who have associated it with the culture wars over abortion and same-sex rights.

鈥淸The religious environmental movement] doesn鈥檛 appear to have gained a lot of traction,鈥� says Stephen Ellingson, a sociologist at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y., and author of 鈥淭o Care for Creation: The Emergence of the Religious Environmental Movement.鈥� 鈥淔or a small number, it is primarily a moral and religious issue, but for many it鈥檚 not seen that way. It鈥檚 not seen as important, I think, because the environment is so highly politicized ... in some ways, it鈥檚 framed really technically, as lobbying, litigation, and legislation.鈥� 听

The Evangelical Environmental Network and other faith-based organizations do not try to separate climate change from politics. Both EEN听and the San Francisco-based Interfaith Power & Light, which encourages environmental stewardship among religious groups, were on Capitol Hill the past two weeks. But the groups try to downplay partisanship by emphasizing a moral obligation for action.听

For Mr. Hescox, religion provides the 鈥渂iblical imperative鈥� to act, while so-called market-based solutions are the answer on how to achieve results. Since EEN is anti-abortion, he says, it believes all lives must be cared for from the moment of conception. But the only way he believes he and other conservative Republicans can get on board is through solutions such as cap-and-trade programs or a carbon fee and fee dividend. 听

鈥淚t鈥檚 the only way we鈥檙e going to breach the chasm to conservatives,鈥� he says.

Anti-abortionists have been highlighting the threats that pollution is thought to pose to unborn children for a dozen or so years, says Hescox. Rev. Jim Ball, the past president of the network, tied .

Pope Francis also integrated environmentalism and abortion in his second encyclical, 鈥淟audato si鈥�,鈥� when he wrote that environmental stewardship is simply 鈥渋ncompatible with the justification of abortion.鈥� But the pope seemed to argue that people who care about endangered species and the melting of polar ice caps , as Crux reported. The Evangelical Environmental Network鈥檚 argument appears to fit more into the religious environmental movement, linking morality to the environment, not the other way around.

Many 海角大神 denominations have long supported the modern environmental movement, in the 1960s and 1970s. Not evangelicals, however, writes Mark Stoll, a historian at Texas Tech University who specializes on religion and environmentalism.听

鈥淚n the late 1970s they seized on the notion of the 鈥榗ulture wars鈥� and , and secular humanism as contrary to 海角大神ity,鈥� he writes. 鈥淗ostile to environmentalism ever since, evangelicals cast even the solid science on global warming as a conspiracy against freedom and faith promulgated in schools and universities.鈥�

This skepticism has continued until the present day. In 2014, The Pew Research Center found only 28 percent of white evangelicals said 鈥渃limate change mostly because of human activity such as burning of fossil fuels,鈥� the lowest of any religious group Pew surveyed.

Those attitudes have softened among some millennial evangelicals, led by the likes of Jonathan Merritt, author of 鈥淕reen Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet.鈥�

A pro-life, pro-environment association, then, is about gaining a foothold among mainstream evangelicals and older generations, says Dr. Ellingson at Hamilton College.

鈥淚t鈥檚 almost like reasoning by analogy. 鈥業t鈥檚 like one of those issues for us. Then I can go ahead and support it,鈥澨齢e tells 海角大神 in a phone interview.

Katharine听Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist and political science professor at Texas Tech University in Lubbock and an evangelical 海角大神, says EEN鈥檚 argument makes more sense than the 鈥渃ognitive dissonance鈥� she describes among some conservatives.听
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鈥淪o often it seems like pro-life stops when you鈥檙e born. If you鈥檙e really pro-life, you should be pro-life from conception to death,鈥� she says, mentioning United Nations efforts to听.听

This strategy is being used in other conservative circles as well. Susan Bratton, an environmental science professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, says many conservative Protestants emphasize a humanitarian need to stop climate change. This includes helping communities under threat from natural disasters and food shortages. Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, president and founder of Interfaith Power & Light, says that when she visits conservative congregations in the South, she does not mention climate change. Instead, she focuses her message on clean air, clean water, and a clean environment.

Two years ago, in 2015, this moral framing of climate change had not yet resonated with most Americans, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. In the spring of that year, 10 percent of Americans viewed global warming as a religious issue, 13 percent viewed it as a spiritual issue, and about 36 percent viewed it as a moral issue. But if this reframing does take hold, it could have a widespread impact, according to the study鈥檚 authors. Americans tend to be more religious than citizens in many other industrialized nations, they write.