Because climate change is real, and it is happening at a rate unprecedented in history to our knowledge.

Because it is, according to our best estimates, likely to have devastating consequences on the environment if we do not take action, including “untold human suffering”, the loss of millions of human lives and hundreds of millions in poverty, as conservative estimates.

Because the science behind this is not some newly invented fad - it has been known since the late 1800’s, and there have been warnings for over 100 years. For example, this 1912 article:

(Fact checked)

Because we have every reason to believe the predictions of experts on this — recent predictions from mainstream scientists have turned out to be accurate, even those made long before we had the computational power we do today. Prediction failures have typically been underestimates.

Because the need is urgent. Due to multiple positive feedback factors, the longer we delay action, the more likely we are to hit tipping points and lose any chance of controlling climate change.

Because responses to date have been entirely inadequate — we cannot simply act as if someone else will sort this out:

• Few countries are meeting even the modest targets set at the Paris agreement. This should not surprise Christians, because we understand that the primary obstacles we face are those rooted in the human condition — namely, human fear, greed, selfishness, pride and folly — and so change will naturally be far too slow.
• It is looking increasingly like that we are facing a situation as bad as hundreds of millions flooded by 3⁰C warming or even global warming’s worst-case projections.
• In 2018 we broke all previous records in carbon emissions, and again in 2019.

It’s like we are driving the world’s population in a giant bus towards a cliff edge, and, at the global level, we’ve still got our foot pressing on the accelerator.

Because looking after the planet is part of the original job that God gave mankind, and this has never been revoked. For example, Genesis 2:15:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

Because the Christian understands that planet earth is not our property — it belongs in its entirety to God:

The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,

the world, and all who live in it;

(Psalm 24:1)

Because, unlike the deist, for a Christian the owner of this planet is not a stranger, but a Father, a Friend, and a Saviour. So when we trample on and destroy His property it is a very personal matter.

Because there is a place in hell reserved for those who destroy God’s world:

The nations were angry,

and your wrath has come.

The time has come for judging the dead,

and for rewarding your servants the prophets

and your people who revere your name,

both great and small –

and for destroying those who destroy the earth.

(Revelation 11:18)

Because wisdom combined with simple self-interest says that we should look after the planet that sustains us physically.

My son, do not forget my teaching,

but keep my commands in your heart,

for they will prolong your life many years

and bring you peace and prosperity.

(Proverbs 3:1-2)

Even some of the stupidest of animals know not to soil their own beds, or how to prepare for the future.

Because Christians understand that all of us are made in God’s image, with far greater intelligence than animals. Therefore to fail to act with wisdom brings disgrace on our Creator.

Because Christians have been re-made in the image of Christ, who is “wisdom from God” to us. To fail to act with wisdom brings further disgrace on the one who is not only our Creator, but our Saviour.

Because even if we would rather be stupid, the Bible commands to at least have a small amount of common sense when it comes to looking after the environment we are going to live in and which we need to sustain us. For example, in Old Testament law:

When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees people, that you should besiege them? However, you may cut down trees that you know are not fruit trees and use them to build siege works until the city at war with you falls.

(Deuteronomy 20:19-20)

Because the heart of climate change denial is often a “wiser than thou” scepticism, an “everyone else has fallen for this, but not me, I’m smarter than all the experts” attitude, which, according to the Bible, is the very height of folly:

Do you see a person wise in their own eyes?

There is more hope for a fool than for them.

(Proverbs 26:12)

Because the many fallacious (and increasingly creative) arguments that people often come up with to avoid facing the truth about climate change are, in themselves, sinful abuses of the minds that God has given us. Even if the consequences were not serious, as Christian we should make efforts to avoid such things.

Because to claim, without credible specific evidence, that thousands of climate scientists are involved in some deliberate conspiracy to fool us is slander, which is a sin:

But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips.

(Colossians 3:8)

Because to dismiss the testimony of thousands of scientists on the basis that they may be motivated subconsciously by any number of wrong motivations is Bulverism (text version), which is perhaps the greatest intellectual illness of our age. Christians ought not to be prone to Bulverism because they ought to read C.S. Lewis.

Because Christians ought to read their Bibles, and in that way escape from Bulverism. A Christian is someone who knows “the heart is deceitful above all things”, and has learnt to apply this to their own heart before they apply it to anyone else’s.

Because if we insist on playing the Bulverism game, we can just as easily come up with reasons why we Christians might be psychologically predisposed to not believe in climate change or take it seriously, despite the good evidence for it. For example:

• The difficulty we have, just like everyone else, in admitting we’ve been wrong, especially about important things — things we may have even said from a pulpit.
• The difficulty of facing truly terrifying possibilities in the future, and the idea that we may have caused them.
• The lifestyle changes we will have to make once we admit we’re wrong. Including, even, changing who we vote for, and admitting that to friends.
• The ‘religious threat’ that we as Christians feel from environmentalists, in terms of a message that contains moral content, and an existential threat that demands a response, just like our own (the kind of thinking that is evident, for example, in the article Thinking Green — The New Religion).
• The Christian narrative that likes to see Christians as the greatest force for good in the world (William Wilberforce etc.), and therefore struggles to accept a scenario in which Christians are not leading the way — in fact many seem to be doing quite the opposite.

None of these prove climate change is happening, just as none of the inverse motivations we come up with prove it is not. We actually have to look at the evidence.

Because to go and search the internet for the tiny fraction of climate scientists (or very confused economists) who will say something you want to hear is what psychologists call confirmation bias. But, for moral and theological issues such as this, the Bible puts it more starkly - it is gathering round teachers to say what your itching ears want to hear.