By Angela Singer
As a Christian and a scientist, Dr Bob White takes a hard line on climate change, asking why we have been so slow to take action on an issue that hurts our global neighbours.
Bob was in New Zealand recently as guest speaker at seminars on “climate change, science, and religion”. He talks on the subject of climate change and Christian responsibilities with some authority; being Professor of Geophysics at Cambridge University in the United Kingdom and Associate Director of the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion. Bob is also the co-author of the 2007 book Christianity, Climate Change and Sustainable Living.
At his Victoria University of Wellington seminar in March, Bob was armed with some startling facts: combined searches on Google (through power usage) contribute to global warming as much as all plane travel; cows contribute 18 percent of global warming, more than all the world’s transport; 43 percent of New Zealand’s greenhouse gases come from cattle and sheep; the best thing that New Zealanders can do to reduce global warming is eat
less meat. Bob says this is something that he has done and has found difficult;
“I love meat but I now eat it once or twice a week”.
For New Zealand, Bob foresees our big global warming issue being climate refugees. “Because everyone has the same rights to the Earth’s resources, this is a moral and ethical issue that we affluent peoples are causing,” he says.
So why then is contemporary Christian environmental concern so muted on these issues? “Perhaps”, says Bob, “some Christians have considered the environment secondary to more important matters of evangelism, and I say that as an evangelical Christian. Maybe some have felt the need to distance themselves from “being seen as Green” because they thought others would associate them with paganism or New Age spirituality. Whatever the reason, the result is that the environmental flag has been flown by the largely secular Green movement.”
Bob says that whilst some Christians are resistant to environmental concerns, the secular media can be similarly unwelcoming. “I was being interviewed on the radio about some of the things that people can do to cut emissions. I replied that most car trips are less than 2 km, so people should walk more and leave the car at home. The interviewer said, ‘Professor White you are on DRIVE TIME RADIO!’ and promptly cut me off”.
Bob says that from a Scriptural perspective, Christians should be leading the environmental agenda. “The existence of our universe is the result of God's creative activity. God shows his commitment to the material world not only by upholding it moment by moment, but by becoming incarnate in it and taking a human body with all its limitations, in the person of Jesus”.
We are living in a fallen world and much of the world’s pain and its suffering are a direct result of human sinfulness, Bob says. “There is sufficient food in the world to feed everyone, yet we allow food stockpiles to grow in one part of the world while people starve in another; people in one country die for lack of common medicines while medical resources go to needless cosmetic surgery.”
It is time for Christians to recognise the problems we face and act, Bob says. “We live on a planet of finite resources and what you do in your own backyard, such as using gas-fuelled barbecues for example, has a global impact. It’s a sad fact that those who suffer most from the consequences of climate change had no say in my contributing activities.”
“Christians in high-income countries can hardly claim to be loving their global neighbour when the consequences of their actions may lead to suffering and an increased probability of an early death elsewhere. To refuse to do so when the consequences of our actions are already clear is not only reckless but sinful.”