The Theology of Climate Change Denial

When Galileo obtained one of the first telescopes from its Dutch inventor, he set busily at work examining things like the surface of the moon and discovering the moons of Jupiter.  The response from the Inquisition was fascinating.  The telescope, they declared, was a creation of the Devil designed to lure faithless souls to damnation by presenting them with false images of worlds not in accord with scripture.  If science contradicts belief then science, not belief, must be in error.  That of course is the mark of the “close your eyes and believe harder” branch of theology that we thought abandoned soon thereafter.  Not so.  Only one hundred years after the Scopes trial, the hard facts of science are once again being challenged, this time by the theologians of the “Don’t blame my SUV” community.

Twice this week, I have been astounded by the theological bent that climate change denial has taken.  By the way, personal note, I am a person both of faith and of science; I find no conflict between them.  The first experience this week was after I gave a short lead-in about the recent IPCC report before a group discussion on the impact of climate change on world food supplies.  A participant announced firmly that he could not accept climate change because 1) a friend back in 1980 had predicted a six inch rise in sea level by 2000 and been wrong, and 2) Eisenhower had warned against grant-seeking scientists at the same time he warned against the military-industrial complex.  I tried to encourage the “regret-free” approach recommended by the IPCC, and hope I at least left him thinking, but I’m doubtful.  Theology is a hard mistress.

The second experience this week was reading the column by Charles Krauthammer in the Washington Post in which he chastised climate change action advocates on the basis of the inherent uncertainty of science.  This is of course much like the Inquisition’s position in 21^st century language.  The science behind climate change has to be a fantasy created by the Devil.  Krauthammer, for example, accused advocates of attributing climate change as the cause of every extreme weather event.  In fact, climatologists and other knowledgeable advocates have been very careful to state that no one event can be attributed to climate change with any certainty.  Instead, they look to the frequency of extreme events as one of many measures of change.  He also criticized over-reliance on computer models, when in fact many of the findings are things like long term (thirty years or more) temperature changes, changes in ranges of species and glacial melting, all observable fact.  And all the findings in the IPCC report are very carefully annotated with degrees of certainty, many of them over 95 percent.  Aside from that, has Charles stepped outside lately?  My brothers on the gulf coast have warned me not to go there between the end of April and the end of September because of the increased heat.  Those moons of Jupiter are really there, Charles.

Theology is a language for talking about sacred things.  When one encounters it, a natural question is, what is the sacred thing?  A charitable explanation is that it is the classical conservative position that the present should not be sacrificed for an uncertain future.  All well and good.  But advocates these days, perhaps too conservatively, are not arguing unreasonable sacrifice; they argue for “no regrets” actions proportional to observed change which will result in good outcomes whatever eventually transpires.  Unfortunately the sacred word that pops to mind in many cases is “Mammon.”  The actions which in many cases are required to ameliorate or adapt to climate change are often community wide, not for the direct personal benefit of any one individual. Personal treasure is threatened, and that is intolerable.

The IPCC report notes that climate change will require cultural and social adaptations as much as it does technical ones.  Perhaps the greatest of those is that we are really going to have to learn how to work together, often altruistically often for the benefit of unborn grandchildren.  In our modern, “follow your own bliss” American culture, that will be very hard for many.  We need to work on this.