Church Leaders Are Begging Their State's Senator To Give Up Global Warming Denial

Four Christian church leaders in Montana are urging their state’s Republican senator to quit rejecting the widely accepted science behind man-made global warming . 

The one Catholic priest and three Protestant clergy criticized Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) in an op-ed  published by the Missoulian Thursday for failing to understand climate change’s role in a widespread fish kill in Yellowstone National Park last summer.  

“We cannot remain silent while a U.S. senator from Montana chooses willful ignorance of the greatest threat this state has ever faced and which is already causing extreme damage to our cherished Montana environment,” said the church leaders  the Reverends Amy Carter and Laura Folkwein of the United Church of Christ in Missoula; the Reverend Susan Barnes of the St. Andrew Presbyterian Church in Billings; and Father Robert Grosch of the nearby St. Patrick Co-Cathedral.

“The simple moral truth is that United States is by far the world’s largest historic contributor to the climate crisis and therefore bears the greatest responsibility for addressing it,” they added.

The church leaders slammed Daines for having the “audacity” to challenge the overwhelming scientific consensus that emissions from farms and burning fossil fuels are trapping heat in the atmosphere and causing the planet to warm. Not unlike the years of public skepticism over smoking’s role in lung cancer, many people still doubt the science behind global warming thanks to a decades-long campaign to seed doubt funded by companies with money at stake. 

Daines, who earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering before entering politics, received a paltry 3 percent lifetime score from the League of Conservation Voters, which ranks lawmakers by how they vote on environmental legislation. He did, however, earn a 16 percent score for last year. In 2012, he told Montana Public Radio he believes the climate is changing, but doubts how much humans are effecting it.   

Christian leaders have become increasingly vocal about advocating against climate science denial. In recent years, some Evangelical pastors have preached “creation care ,” presenting scriptural evidence that God compels Christians to maintain the environment. Nonprofit groups such as the Evangelical Environmental Network, Restoring Eden and Care of Creation have sprung up. Pope Francis has repeatedly called for action to halt climate change, and urged President Donald Trump   who rejects global warming as “a hoax ” and moved to increase greenhouse gas emissions to reverse course on his climate policies.