{"id":2959,"date":"2015-12-07T09:00:30","date_gmt":"2015-12-07T17:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/scientists-enlist-the-big-gun-to-get-climate-action-faith\/"},"modified":"2015-12-07T09:00:30","modified_gmt":"2015-12-07T17:00:30","slug":"scientists-enlist-the-big-gun-to-get-climate-action-faith","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/scientists-enlist-the-big-gun-to-get-climate-action-faith\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists enlist the big gun to get climate action: Faith"},"content":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014<\/strong> The cold hard numbers of science haven\u2019t spurred the world to curb runaway global warming. So as climate negotiators struggle in Paris, some scientists who appealed to the rational brain are enlisting what many would consider a higher power: the majesty of faith.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not God versus science, but followers of God and science together trying to save humanity and the planet, they say.<\/p>\n

Physicist John Schellnhuber, founder of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, said he has been coming to these international talks for 11 years and essentially seen negotiators throw up their hands and say \u201csorry guys we tried our best.\u201d And no one protested. But this time, with the power of Pope Francis\u2019 encyclical earlier this year calling global warming a moral issue and an even more energized interfaith community, Schellnhuber feels the world\u2019s faithful are watching and will hold world leaders accountable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know they will be measured against the encyclical,\u201d Schellnhuber, a member of the Vatican\u2019s Pontifical Academy of Sciences, said Saturday at a Catholic Church event.<\/p>\n

In the first five days of climate negotiations, interfaith activists came, fasted, talked to media, buttonholed leaders and prayed. On Saturday night in a downtown Paris chapel, hundreds of people, many of them prostrated on the ground, sang and prayed for the climate negotiators and mostly for the world.<\/p>\n

Faith \u201cis much deeper\u201d than science, said Caroline Bader of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation.<\/p>\n

And so are their numbers. Bader said interfaith leaders recently handed top United Nations negotiators a petition with 1.8 million signatures begging for meaningful climate action. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe environment movement, which has primarily been a secular one, has realized that over the last 30 years or so it\u2019s not been that successful in achieving its goals,\u201d Joe Ware of Christian Aid wrote in an email from the Paris talks. \u201cIncreasingly it has looked to faith groups for help in mobilizing a broader movement of people calling for action on climate change. They are actually natural allies as almost all faiths have a theology of creation care at their heart.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scripps Institution of Oceanography scientist Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a non-Catholic who advised Pope Francis on climate and is on the pontiff\u2019s science academy, says he thinks this new alliance will play a major role in what he hopes will be a historic agreement.<\/p>\n

But for Ramanathan, now a member of the Holy See\u2019s delegation to the climate talks, it\u2019s more than science or history. About four years ago he had a moment that he called \u201ca revelation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was presenting a paper on glacier melt to the scientists at the pontifical academy. It was academic and laid out the conclusions in cold hard facts. But then the chancellor to the academy, a bishop, added one sentence to the end: \u201cIf we want justice and peace, we must protect the habitat that sustains us.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was quickly agreed to and Ramanathan started to look at climate science not as an academic issue but an issue of justice, because those who are hurt the most by climate change are the world\u2019s poorest 3 billion. He started volunteering, working with the poor and examining his own consumption habits, like how much he drives.<\/p>\n

Bishop Marcelo Sanchez Sorondo, chancellor of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, said Pope Francis\u2019 encyclical Laudato Si is less about ecology than morality and fairness.<\/p>\n

\u201cClimate change is a global problem with serious social, environmental, economic, distributional and political dimensions, and poses one of the greatest challenges for humanity,\u201d the bishop said Saturday. \u201cThe poor populations are the most severely affected even though they are the least responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pope Francis, called a rock star by young religious climate activists, was not in Paris. But as he spoke to faithful in St. Peter\u2019s Square Sunday he appealed to those deciding on climate change measures to show courage by also fighting poverty, saying \u201cthe two choices go together.\u201d<\/p>\n

He asked for prayers so that those making decisions on climate measures receive \u201cthe courage to always use as their criterion of choice the greater good of the human family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marcia McNutt, a former U.S. Geological Survey director and Science magazine editor who is about to become the head of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, can\u2019t say enough about the importance of the pope\u2019s message.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can argue the science until cows come home, but that just appeals to people\u2019s intellect,\u201d McNutt said. \u201cThe pope\u2019s argument appeals to someone\u2019s heart. Whenever you appeal to someone\u2019s heart that\u2019s a much more powerful message.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some ways, the enlisting of the faith movement is a sign of scientists\u2019 desperation, but it\u2019s also a realization of the need for a moral revolution on climate, said Ramanathan, who actually briefed the pope on climate in a parking lot.<\/p>\n

The world will not act enough on climate change, Ramanathan said, \u201cuntil we teach this in every church, every mosque, every synagogue, every temple.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow Seth Borenstein at http:\/\/twitter.com\/borenbears and his work can be found at http:\/\/bigstory.ap.org\/content\/seth-borenstein<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PARIS \u2014 The cold hard numbers of science haven\u2019t spurred the world to curb runaway global warming. So as climate negotiators struggle in Paris, some scientists who appealed to the rational brain are enlisting what many would consider a higher power: the majesty of faith. It\u2019s not God versus science, but followers of God and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":2960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-2959","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2959"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2959\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2959"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2959"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2959"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=2959"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}