
How to Stop Being a Scapegoat for Climate Change
The latest scientific study is clear: We can stop being a scorned scapegoat for climate change.
But how do you do it?
That’s the question posed by a new study from the Christian Academy of the United States, a leading evangelical Christian organization.
The study, titled “Stop Scapegoating,” was published Monday by the Journal of Contemporary Ethics.
In it, the academy found that there is no better way to “stigmatize climate change” than by labeling it as a hoax and denying it as real.
The academy also pointed to recent studies that show a rise in extreme weather events and climate change, and concluded that the scientific consensus is that climate change is real.
In addition, the authors concluded that there are other ways to “combat the climate change epidemic” such as “publicly acknowledging and responding to the problem and taking meaningful action to address it,” among other things.
The Christian Academy’s findings are based on a survey of 1,000 Americans, including 9,000 adults, who said they attend a Christian church weekly or monthly.
The survey found that 63 percent of the American public believes that climate-related issues like rising sea levels are real, and 64 percent believe the problem is caused by human activities.
The researchers also surveyed 1,200 adults who are not Christian, and asked them whether they believed in global warming.
More than half of the participants, 51 percent, said they did.
About half of respondents agreed that “global warming is happening and humans have caused it,” and about a third agreed that climate is changing, or is not changing, and about three-quarters agreed that it is likely to continue to change.
“Climate change has become a political issue for many Americans, and many have chosen to dismiss the science and ignore its dire consequences,” the academy said in a statement.
The organization added that there has been a rise of climate-denying sentiment in recent years, and “the stakes are high” that this issue is “finally being considered and debated by American Christians.”