Current Event: Cowardly or Courageous III

Well, this is only sort of a current event (and its sort of two related current events). But I think it's close enough. And the ambiguity of whether its an event or not should make dichotomizing it all the more fun.

The first half of the event is this: the White House has agreed to study whether polar bears should be placed on the endangered species list. This would not be all that unusual (lots of mammals make the endangered species list, you know?), except that the condition threatening them is climate change (better known by his horror-movie name, global warming). I quote the WaPo:

"As global temperatures have risen, Arctic ice -- which polar bears depend on to hunt for food -- has shrunk. In September, the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that summer sea ice had declined to a record minimum, and studies suggest the Arctic may be ice-free in summer by the end of the century. Some polar bears in Alaska and Canada have become noticeably thinner and less able to reproduce in recent years; the population in Canada's Western Hudson Bay has dropped 15 percent over the past decade... 'It's pretty easy to make a connection between what's happening to sea ice and what might happen to polar bears...'"

I'm sure we're all familiar with the "Global Warming is a Myth" cottage industry, so I'm going to link this to another (relatively) recent event: the statement released by many leading evangelicals regarding Christianity and climate change, the Statement of the Evangelical Climate Initiative, which puts forth the claim that acting against the threat of global climate change is a moral imperative for Christians:

"Because all religious/moral claims about climate change are relevant only if climate change is real and is mainly human-induced, everything hinges on the scientific data. As evangelicals we have hesitated to speak on this issue until we could be more certain of the science of climate change, but the signatories now believe that the evidence demands action."

You may determine what portion of this you would like to consider in terms of the cowardly/courageous dichotomy.

Courageous (What part, you ask? I make the rules so I don't have to say). I suggest that, if you are not persuaded of the reality of global climate change driven by human agency, you should follow the link to the Evangelical Climate Initiative provided above and consider the evidence put forth.

Posted by eatingbark at February 9, 2006 1:17 PM