The New Values Voters: Climate Change

[cbayer]

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/religion/news/2012/10/02/40301/the-new-values-voters-climate-change/


Environmental activists gather outside the White House in Washington, Monday, August 22, 2011, as they continue a civil disobedience campaign against the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast.

By Catherine Woodiwiss | October 2, 2012

For years, polling analysis on the environment has been grouped with other policy concerns like the economy and national security, rather than with “culture” issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. But when the idea of environmental stewardship and care for the earth is articulated as a moral concern, this takes priority with voters above those traditionally listed culture issues. For their part, faith groups on both sides of the aisle are becoming bolder in their commitment to tackling climate change as a moral issue.

All faiths work for a healthier planet

There is no doubt that the economy is the first priority of this election. But a grassroots movement at the nexus of science and faith has been growing across party lines in an effort to tackle climate change.

Due in large part to economic concerns, climate change, energy, and environmental issues had declined somewhat in priority among polled Americans since 2008. But numbers are rebounding, and the organizing energy at the grassroots—especially among faith groups—helps tell us why.

Unified faith-climate activism has recently been in abundance—from the more than 60 religious leaders putting themselves at risk of arrest in Washington, D.C., at the Keystone XL protest in August 2011 to faith groups kicking off the first-ever nationwide antifracking rally in July 2012. Earth Week 2012 boasted meetings, rallies, lobbying, and services from interfaith and multifaith action groups as well as denomination-specific conferences and prayer breakfasts. And new coalitions have sprung up this year—among them the Young Evangelicals for Climate Action and the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate—that represent newly energized faith communities and a new willingness to work across different political and religious sensibilities in tackling the common challenge of climate change.

more at link

[dimbear]

1. "All faiths work for a healthier planet."

The fundamental engine of climate destruction is human overpopulation.

The fundamental engine of human overpopulation is religion.

[cbayer]

2. The fundamental engine of human overpopulation is lack of education, birth control and

human sexual drives...

not religion.

[dimbear]

3. The best way to see my point is with a world globe. Point to the countries which are

very religious, then those that are very overpopulated. Then point to the countries making a substantial effort to control their populations.

You do make a good point, tho. Lack of education and lack of birth control often have the same prime mover: religion.

Egypt's recent effort to alter the age of marriage for girls to 9 years old comes to mind. Just one of a hundred examples.

[cbayer]

4. Your points may be valid and they may not be.

China instituted strict laws to control population because they recognized they had a problem and they had a government which could enforce such laws.

There is a correlation between the economic status of a country and it's degree of religiosity, so I am not sure you can make a clear distinction between level of poverty and religiosity in terms of over-population.

I would also argue that the Egyptian example has to do more with the exploitation of girls and women in general than it does with religion.

If you missed it, I highly recommend watching the new PBS series "Half the Sky".

In many places, the only groups working to stop the serious abuse of women and girls are religiously based.

[dimbear]

5. The Egyptian inclination to marry 9 year olds is associated with an outburst of

indulgence in Sharia law. Islam unfettered.

Everything having to do with world poverty is complicated. That's why the simple visual tool, the globe, is so useful.

Of course it's also helpful to understand why religion endorses and encourages irresponsible reproduction. It does so in order to grow.

Here in the USofA we also have the peripheral effect of the endtimers. They don't care what happens to the planet because they're almost done with it.

[cbayer]

6. Many evangelicals have decided that taking care of this planet, which they

consider a gift from god, is a religiously based responsibility.

There is, as always, the good, the bad and the ugly.

[dimbear]

7. On the other hand, most evangelicals vote Republican, and so the weight of their

movement falls on the wrong side of the scales. There are always the valiant exceptions, but for the most part the evangelicals are a drag on the environmental movement.

There's a third race in the trifecta beyond irresponsible reproduction and endtimes thinking -- the idea that God won't permit anything really bad to happen. Climate change denial and religion at the very least are walking hand in hand.

[cbayer]

8. While there is truth in much of what you say, I think you do too much lumping

and not enough splitting.

Without data to back it up, statements about most may be conjecture.

These issues are complex. The article is about how some religious groups are changing, particularly in terms of their values. How about we celebrate that?

[dimbear]

9. I'm good with anybody, anytime, accepting stewardship of the planet.

In a sense, what we as Americans do isn't really critical. The issue is going to be decided in India, China, Pakistan, Indonesia, and so forth. If they follow our bad example, sadly, the world is toast.