The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life recently announced results of a survey about people’s opinions on climate change.
The survey carried out last year among 1,502 American adults asked people if they believed there is solid evidence that the average temperature on Earth has been getting warmer over the past few decades. The survey showed the white evangelical protestants are the biggest non-believers in climate change with 31% saying that they believe there is no solid evidence. 22% of white catholics were also non-believers, and the figure for people unaffiliated with any religion was 18%.
Results for other religious groups are not reported due to small sample sizes.
These beliefs are held despite the International Panel on Climate Change (Fourth Assessment Report) declaring in 2007 that warming of the climate system is unequivocal – as evident from observations, and most of the recent warming is very likely (>90% probability) to be the result of human activity.
In the UK, many religious leaders agree that climate change is happening – most prominently Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams who regularly talks about our “moral obligation” to do something about it. The Church of England owns 135,000 acres in the UK, yet unlike other large institutional landowners such as the Forestry Commission and the Crown Estate it does not pro-actively look at facilitating renewable energy projects such as wind farms on its land – the evidence suggests that in fact – it actively prevents it.
At a recent Yorkminster lecture, the Archbishop said “we are capable of changing our situation“. However in 2005 the Dean and Chapter of St Pauls Cathedral (Church of England) who own a large area of land near Bradwell on Sea in Essex pulled out of a large wind energy project.
The registrar Major General John Milne and the Canon had agreed a deal with npower renewables to host a wind farm on St Pauls land and further to this significant sums were spent on environmental work for the project. However further to some pressure from an aggressive local anti-group St Paul’s representatives decided to shelve their involvement saying that it had only reached “the consultation stage”. It appeared as though a few neighbours not liking the idea was a more significant issue than the threat of climate change and this was enough to make them deny any further involvement.
These events however did not stop St Paul’s Cathedral hosting a series of seminars on the need to deal with climate change in 2006. I attended one of these events at which someone had distributed leaflets posing the question “St Pauls Cathedral – Climate Change Champions or Climate Change Villains?”. The leaflet contained the full story of the Cathedral pulling out of the wind energy project – leaving only the local landowner involved. At the seminar the Church spokesperson chose not to answer my question when asked about the Church’s position relating to on-shore wind energy. This however was made up for by David Attenborough saying that people who objected to wind farms because of visual effects “were missing the whole point”.
The events also did not stop the Bishops of Bradwell objecting the eventually proposed 10 wind turbine project at Bradwell (despite their organisation having done a deal for a wind farm on the same land) – on the basis that “Bradwell is simply not the place“. Conversely people seeking retreat at the Christian – Othona community centre adjacent to the proposed wind farm site were very much in favour of the project.
The video below about the floods in Bangladesh reminds us of why all organisations and people need to take direct action to combat the effects of climate change.
