"A Climate for Change"

Katharine Hayhoe is a Christian scientist and her husband Andrew Farley is a college professor, linguist and pastor. Together they make a great team in this timely book. Scientists really can be, and many are, Christians. God didn’t make smart, intelligent and scientific minds just for the “other side”. And I am the center target audience for their book, “A Climate for Change”. Growing up in the 70’s, I can still recall the first time I heard the word “recycle” and the beginning of the annual Earth Day observation. This is Christian scientists’ explanation, and look, at a volatile subject these days, global-warming. As they point out, this subject has fallen into a red state vs. blue state arena of politics. And it needs to be de-politicized.

If we are true Christians, we are not afraid to look at all the facts of any given subject. There is always room for doubt. C.S. Lewis said, “Now that I am a Christian I do have moods in which the whole thing looks very improbable; but when I was an atheist I had moods in which Christianity looked terribly probable.” Doubt is very much a part of our faith. Whether we let it manage our faith or our faith manages our doubt, is the question. We are more susceptible to doubt when we stay isolated and uninformed. If we limit ourselves to a mindset without looking at the options we develop wrong perceptions and those will always lead us to wrong conclusions. Hayhoe and Farley do an excellent job of making what could seem like a science class easily understood, complete with graphs and figures, that I’m sure will help those that are more visual learners to understand. They explain the differences between natural occurrences and those created by humans. They are concise and organized in their presentation.

I did not expect to be totally converted in my doubt of this subject by the time I finished reading it, but it did point me to a word we should all be familiar with, Christian or not. Stewardship. God gave us a wonder planet to live on. And we have some very clear evidence, by many that are not bought and paid for by a political party, that it needs some help. Hayhoe and Farley do conclude with some very real and easy solutions that you and I, and our children, can do. The key is to get everyone on board and understand the facts. And this is a great book for understanding those facts. Being open-minded is not a sin.