DALLAS (ABP) — On Nov. 3, a Canadian film team will release in U.S. theatres The Great Warming, a movie about climate change and the initiatives aimed at reversing its trend toward permanent ecologic damage.
Unlike other recent environmental movies, like Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, The Great Warming portrays evangelicals as a group with the potential to push governmental policies toward sustainable living. It also has hearty endorsements from the National Council of Churches, the Evangelical Environmental Network, and the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life, all of which have urged churches to host screenings and discussion groups about the movie.
Richard Cizik, vice president of the National Association of Evangelicals, was featured in the film. He said his newfound passion for “creation care” comes straight from God — a conversion of sorts to the environmental cause. Now he tells other believers that if they are to be obedient to the Scriptures, there is no time to lose.
“Climate change is real and human induced, No. 1,” he said. “No. 2, it calls for action soon. We're saying action based upon a biblical view of the world, God's world. And to destroy, if you will, to deplete our resources, to harm this world by environmental degradation, is an offence against God.”
The movie stresses that point. It was produced in Canada and initially released in 2004 as a three-part series on Discovery Canada. Narrated by musician Alanis Morissette and actor Keanu Reeves, it begins by presenting the science behind climate change. In general, scientists estimate the atmosphere has about 30 percent more carbon dioxide now than in the 1800s. That's bad because increased carbon dioxide levels can change weather patterns, sometimes slowly, but always with consequences.
For instance, the increase in greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide has caused average global temperatures to rise one degree in the past 100 years. Scientists predict temperatures to rise 2.5 to 10.4 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 100 years. And even though the change seems inconsequential, the slightest variation in temperature can cause a rise in ocean levels, flooding, drought and extreme cold or heat.
The primary cause of the increased levels of carbon dioxide, according to most scientists, is the burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil and natural gas. When consumers burn those fuels for heat, transportation and electricity, they add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, which increases the warming capability of the natural greenhouse effect.
“We have a flow of carbon from the atmosphere through the living system and back to the atmosphere,” Mike Apps, the senior scientist at Natural Resources Canada, said in the movie. “Where is this extra carbon coming from? It's not because the plants are breathing out more carbon. We're burning fossil fuel, and when we burn fossil fuel, we release carbon dioxide into the cycle.”
Historically, evangelicals haven't cared much for talk about climate change. Cizik said that's because “environmentalism has a sort of a ‘left wing tilt.'” Plus, many pastors have never preached about caring for creation. Once congregants begin hearing sermons about the environment, he said, they'll realize it's an important issue.
The response will become significant when evangelicals change not only their lifestyles but their votes. Evangelicals comprise between 40 percent and 50 percent of the Republican base. Cizik said he believes if the largest group in the Republican coalition would demand its leaders work on climate change, clean air and pure water, then GOP leaders would listen.
Up till now, however, evangelical constituents have hung back, and Cizik has written about his ideas as to why.
“… [T]he disconnect between the recognition that there is an obvious problem and the willingness to adopt an obvious solution is explainable only by the fact that there are vested interests, political interests, who lobby against environmental action,” Cizik said. “Second, there is an ideological predisposition against regulation. And third, [it's] simple inertia. But the first cannot be dismissed, and there are oil and gas vested interests who have a reason not to want to take action on climate change.”
The movie, though, does provide an inlet for evangelicals to act on the issue within their own tradition — and that's what has attracted churches nationwide. According to Cizik, evangelicals need to sense they can speak to the issue with their own voice. Once they focus on that, they will conclude that environmentalism is “not a bad word.”
So far, that focus on letting evangelicals interpret the facts on their own has endeared the movie to Christian leaders. In an interview on Vermont Public Radio, producer Karen Coshof said she wanted The Great Warming to focus on solutions to the problem, not “just beat people over the head with a negative message.” And one of her key messages involves the spiritual and moral sides of environmental concern.
Gerald Durley, the pastor at Providence Missionary Baptist Church in Atlanta, became aware of that moral duty when he saw a screening of the movie last May. A pastor deeply devoted to civil- and human-rights issues, he said he was “shocked” to learn about the “self-serving demands that lead to massive fossil-fuel burning” and the lack of aggressive exploration for renewable energy sources.
In a letter about the movie, he wrote that since the faith community prides itself on being in the “prevention and healing business,” environmental concerns must become integrated into its daily life and standard messages.
“These essential messages must be mandatory teachings throughout all faith traditions if we are to survive,” he said.
To that end, he has led his church in replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones, and he encourages church members to adjust thermostats to save energy. For him, it's all about simple solutions to effect a big change.
“All great movements are grassroots initiatives,” he said. “I believe that's what happened during the civil-rights movement, and I believe that's what's going to happen now with the overall environmental movement.”
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