Climate Change

WASHINGTON – Unlike in the United States, there is little controversy among evangelicals around the world on whether climate change is real, said an evangelical representative at a press briefing on Capitol Hill.

“They know it is real,” said Deborah Fikes, executive advisor of the World Evangelical Alliance – a global alliance of churches in 128 nations and over 100 international organizations. But in the United States, many evangelicals deny climate change is real because they are “self-absorbed” and “lack [the] spiritual will” to change their lifestyle to help solve a problem that is life threatening, she said.

Fikes was a member of the delegation of evangelical leaders and leading climate scientists that briefed top White House advisors and U.S. Senate offices Tuesday about climate change. The self-described odd partners urged lawmakers to put aside their differences, as they had, and quickly act to address the climate change problem. more >>

The spiritual leader of the world's 300 million Orthodox Christians met with President Obama on Tuesday and raised the issue of climate change, following up on a conversation they had engaged in during the president’s visit to Turkey.

“The President with his kindness and openness received me and my delegation with love and honor,” said Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew to the press as he was exiting the White House.

During the more than half an hour meeting, Bartholomew talked about climate change and commended the president for his initiatives, urging him for an even more intensive campaign on behalf of ecological responsibility. more >>

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged religious leaders on Tuesday to push their governments to take bolder action on climate change at a key U.N. summit next month.

Religious leaders have “the longest, widest and deepest reach” in society, Ban told representatives of major faith groups gathered for the faith-based climate change summit in England, according to U.K.-based Guardian newspaper.

Faith groups run more than half of the world’s schools, operate more weekly publications than “all the secular press” in the European Union, control financial investments worth trillions, and own nearly eight percent of habitable land on the planet. more >>

Church bells across the nation rang 350 times Saturday to sound the alarm on the threat of global climate change in observance of International Day of Climate Action.

The number 350 represents the limit of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere that scientists say is safe – 350 parts per million.

In addition to the bell tolling, churches in the United States served sustainable food dinners and distributed fluorescent light bulbs, among other activities. more >>