Thanks Rick, you finally provided a link.

However, you had written:

What I am referring to is the position stated by many southern politicians that God controls our lives and the climate and the bible says he would not allow AGW to occur

One lunatic doesn’t make many. As you talked of “many”, I assume you have evidence of “many” making such a claim.

On a side note, if you read that article, it also mentions:

Inhofe also says that Richard Cizik, the former Vice President of the National Association of Evangelicals, was bought off by environmentalists and “has been exposed since then to be the liberal that he is”

Personally, I think there are probably very few Christians who don’t believe in AGW because God won’t allow it, but people are happy to portray it this way because of their anti-religion bigotry.

http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/james-inhofe-says-bible-refutes-climate-change

Rick, you are changing what you are saying.

You had said that many Christians believe that AGW isn’t happening, because God won’t allow it to. I asked you for proof. You have provided none. Instead, you have shown that some Christians believe in the End Times and looming disaster. The two things are the complete opposite, because the End Times state that there will be disaster on Earth i.e. if anything, the End Times are actually SUPPORTIVE of climate change.

And just because someone believes in the End Times, it doesn’t mean they believe we shouldn’t look after the planet.

So I will ask you again – please provide evidence that Christians believe that God would not let AGW to occur.

Thank you.

“Many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time,…”
“A 2002 Time/CNN poll found that 59 percent of Americans believe that the prophecies found in the Book of Revelation are going to come true. Nearly one-quarter think the Bible predicted the 9/11 attacks.”
“their votes are heavily swayed by an electoral base that accepts the Bible as literal truth and eagerly awaits the looming Apocalypse. And that, in turn, is sobering news for those who hope for the protection of the earth, not its destruction.”
“Today, most of the roughly 50 million right-wing fundamentalist Christians in the United States believe in some form of End-Time theology.”
OK, you get the idea:
http://grist.org/article/scherer-christian/

Paxton,
I agree there is uncertainty about the impacts of GW. There are many variables when you are talking about weather and climate over 100 years. But it’s pretty certain that the results will be ugly. Many of the anomalous events we’ve seen in just the past decades are pretty frightening – for example, the heat and drought and fires in the U.S. West. The longer term outlook is far worse.
The uncertainty we are talking about is not about conditions will be neutral or somewhat worse, it’s really about just how severe the suffering will be.
Ruddiman is certainly a qualified scientist so his views should be taken seriously. And, they are fascinating ideas. My feeling is though that he is an outlier. The vast majority of climatologists disagree. But, his story does show us that there is uncertainty in some of the details and possible different ways of looking at the problem. I’d have to believe his views on fizzled out ice age is pretty much irrelevant to all the evidence around AGW. Even if true, it doesn’t help in facing the current situation.
I couldn’t agree more on the importance of conservation and a global carbon tax. I kind of like James Hansen’s idea of returning the tax directly to the public. This would remove most of the economic disincentive that are inherent in other approaches.

rickflick, I included the last two observations in my last comment to illustrate that although we know humans are causing climate change, there is still great uncertainty as to the ultimate impacts.

My source for the comment about the overdue ice age is environmental scientist and climate historian William Ruddiman. Wikipedia has a good synopsis of his views. Among other things he claims the anthropogenic climate change has been happening since the origins of agriculture 10,000 years ago, and that based on historic trends and solar cycles, we are overdue for another ice age. He’s not, nor am I, claiming that we “would be worse off” without human carbon emissions, but only to point out the complexities of earths climate, and the uncertainties of anthropogenic effects.

The second claim, that fossil fuels will run out before the worst effects of climate change are realized” I heard from a Cal Tech professor who did an extensive mathematical analysis of estimates of recoverable fossil fuels. I didn’t find his argument convincing, but he is a reputable scholar. I can’t remember his name right now, but could probably find it if you are interested.

I spent most of my career as an energy systems engineer, including research on increasing the efficiency and lowering the cost of photovoltaics, and I agree with you on the urgency in adopting alternative sources. However, energy efficiency and conservation are also essential, and currently provide the most bang for the buck in many cases. A global carbon tax is urgently needed to level the playing field for alternative sources, but seems to be politically impossible at present. When there is no cost to pollution, it will not be mitigated.

@paxton, good post.

@rick, but you have STILL not shown Christians who are climate change deniers because they believe God will not let the earth warm. You have shown that Evangelical Christians are more likely to be deniers, but this is because Evangelical Christian tend to be right-wing Conservatives, and right-wing Conservatives are climate change deniers, this isn’t because of religion.

Your analysis sounds pretty good but I have to comment on your last bit.

“Some say that we’re it not for the greenhouse gas increase we would be heading into another ice age.”

Are you suggesting that global warming is really a good thing because without it we would be worse off? I’ve been following the issue for a long time now and I haven’t heard a new ice age mentioned by any climate scientists. Who are the some that say that? If you’re referring to some bozo on Fox news, you should probably ignore it.

“They say that fossil fuels will run out before the worst effects of climate change are realized.”
At the rate we are burning carbon we will run out of fossil fuel by 2088. That’s about one human lifetime. And if that happens, the amount of CO2 discharged will be enormous. And indeed, due to latency in the atmosphere and oceans, the worse effects will probably happen beyond that date. But I have trouble conceiving of that happening. The effect would be predictable and catastrophic. In order to avoid major ecological disruptions we will have to leave most of that fossil fuel in the ground – thus the urgency in adopting alternative sources.

Here are a couple of links to evangelical global warming denial.
The first link discusses religious environmental denial and some suspected causes.
The second link documents a PEW poll that shows evangelicals are the most strongly in denial.

http://goo.gl/WtgFsR

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2009/apr/17/climate-change-religion

In addition, I have seen video of evangelical ministers talking about there denial. Perhaps you could spend a few minutes and search Youtube for them.

We know that ambient CO2 levels have increased from 280 ppm to over 400 ppm in the past 200 years. We have good historical data over hundreds of thousands to millions of years showing a very high correlation between CO2 levels and global temperature. Yes, there is a great deal of natural variation in weather, and we are right to be skeptical in attributing particular storms or even five year droughts to human activities. But glaciers have been melting all over the world for 50 years and more, arctic ice cover is decreasing and the Greenland and Antarctic ice packs are melting at increasing rates. Even if we can’t determine the precise contribution of human activities to any recorded temperature rise there is virtual unanimity among climate scientists that temperatures and sea levels are rising and will continue to rise due to human activities, and the more carbon we put into the atmosphere the greater these effects will be. The details, the timing, and the costs are still uncertain. I think some people exaggerate the danger. Many species will die, but anthropogenic climate change will certainly not threaten life on earth, nor will it threaten human existence, unless the stresses lead us to kill ourselves via a nuclear holocaust. But seems likely sooner or later regardless of climate change. Some say that we’re it not for the greenhouse gas increase we would be heading into another ice age. Se say that fossil fuels will run out before the worst effects of climate change are realized. The end of fossil fuelsay be a greater shock to the system than Climate change. In either case we should reduce our dependence on fossil fuels asap. Those who believe end times are near do not see either climate change or the exhaustion of fossil fuels as a problem.