Katherine Hayhoe is Paul Whitfield Horn Distinguished Professor and the Political Science Endowed Chair of Public Policy and Public Law at Texas Tech University. (Wow, that’s a long title!) She is an evangelical Christian (her husband pastors an evangelical congregation in Lubbock) and one of the country’s most important voices on the threat of climate change. Duke Divinity School’s “Faith and Leadership” website recently interviewed Hayhoe. Here is a taste of “How to talk about climate change with people who disagree with you“:
F&L: You’ve written, “The reason I’m a climate scientist is because I’m a Christian.” How did being a Christian make you become a climate scientist, especially when people may think of faith and science as being in conflict?
KH: I was very influenced by growing up in a home where my dad was both a teacher in a local church and a science teacher. The Bible tells us that God created this incredible universe that we live in. So what is studying the universe other than studying what God was thinking about when he set this whole thing up in the first place?
I was planning to be an astrophysicist. I had almost finished my undergraduate degree. I looked around, and there was this brand-new class on climate change. I thought, “Well, that looks interesting. Why not take it now?”
I took this class, and I was really surprised to learn, first of all, that climate science was the same physics I’d been learning in my physics and astronomy classes.
I was also surprised to learn how urgent it was, because I still thought of it as a future issue.
The third thing I learned — and this is what changed the trajectory of my entire career — is that climate change is an environmental issue, but it is not only an environmental issue. Climate change is also a poverty issue, a hunger issue, a water issue, a disease issue; it’s an economic issue; it’s a geopolitical issue; it’s a national security issue.
It’s taking all these inequalities that we already have — that so much of our Christian missions are dedicated to trying to address — and it’s actually making them worse.
Since the 1960s, the economic gap between the richest and poorest countries in the world has grown by as much as 25% thanks to climate change. If we think of all the work and all the effort and all the missions and all the organizations and everything that Christians have done to try to narrow that gap, well guess what? Climate change is pushing that apart even farther.
I could make a difference in people’s lives who are suffering today, as well as prevent measurable, quantifiable amounts of suffering in the future. I care about that because I’m a human, and I care about that because I’m a Christian. Jesus told his disciples in the book of John [13:35] that we are to be recognized by our love for others.
And what is climate change other than a failure to love? To love our sisters and our brothers and to love God’s creation? It says in Genesis 1[:28] that God gave humans responsibility over every living thing on this planet.
Because of what it says in the Bible, not because of what it says in the science, I realized that I as a Christian had to do everything I could to help with this urgent global issue.
F&L: We tend to think about climate change and climate action as folks falling into two camps: believers and deniers. How do those two camps talk to each other?
KH: I don’t like either of those labels. I don’t like the word “believer,” because I don’t “believe” in climate change. It is not a religion. The evidence, the data, is what tells us that the planet is warming.
We know it’s us. It doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not.
I don’t like the word “denier” either. All too often I’ve seen it applied to people who have questions. And frankly, in today’s environment, who wouldn’t have questions? It’s easier to find disinformation than it is to find correct information, sadly, especially if you go to certain Christian websites.
Read the entire interview here.