How a top climate scientist, an evangelical Christian, is working to convince skeptics about climate change

Katharine Hayhoe
(Washington Post photo by Matt McClain)

Katharine Hayhoe walks a fine line: an evangelical Christian, she's also a climate scientist who speaks to dozens of audiences a year and has made it her mission to help skeptical Americans understand climate change, Dan Zak reports for The Washington Post.

Hayhoe, a director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University and the lead author on the U.S. government's latest National Climate Assessment, believes that caring for the environment is a divine commandment. "We humans have been given responsibility for every living thing on this planet, which includes each other,” Hayhoe said at a recent conference. "We are called to tend the garden and be good stewards of the gifts that God has given us."

The major barrier she faces in convincing Christians isn't that they believe the Bible doesn't value conservation, or that they reject the conclusions of scientists. "Religious people who deny climate science are generally spurred not by theology but by an assumption that climate science is based on political beliefs — namely, liberal ones. Converting nonbelievers on political grounds seems next to impossible," Zak reports.

Hayhoe makes headway though, mostly because of her ability to speak the language of her audience. "Her skills of communication do seem miraculous by the standards of modern climate politics: She can convert nonbelievers — or, to put it in her terms, make people realize that they’ve believed in the importance of this issue all along," Zak reports. "She knows how to speak to oilmen, to Christians, to farmers and ranchers, having lived for years in Lubbock, Texas, with her pastor husband. She is a scientist who thinks that we’ve talked enough about science, that we need to talk more about matters of the heart."

Hayhoe doesn't like being called a climate evangelist, though. "She sees herself more like Cassandra, who predicted the fall of Troy but was not believed, or Jeremiah, whose omens were inspired by selfish kings and cultish priests in ancient Jerusalem," Zak reports.

"We are warning people of the consequences of their choices, and that’s what prophets did," Hayhoe told Zak. She gets a lot of backlash on social media, including occasional death threats, but told Zak that the Bible tells people not to live in a spirit of fear.