Let's Meet With Trump Voters 2.0 - Let's Talk With Southern Fundamentalists About Global Warming

[hatrack]

EDIT

I spoke with people of faith in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina and Virginia, and it became clear that the primary barrier to climate action is the fact that it’s been yoked with the liberal agenda. Climate activist and author Anna Jane Joyner, whose father is the pastor of a megachurch in North Carolina, writes that she grew up lumping “environmentalists in with hippies and liberals and all the other people who were probably going to hell”.

Dr Lucas Johnston, a professor of religion and environment at Wake Forest University, explains that “there is a longstanding antipathy toward environmental sentiments in Christian, and especially evangelical circles, because they have, for centuries, been imagined as pernicious and dangerous, and possibly bordering on paganism.”

I asked former six-term South Carolina Republican congressman Bob Inglis why discussing climate change is so difficult in the south. A proponent of growing the eco-right and setting the free market upon the challenges of climate change, he called the environmental movement a bird with a left wing so large it can’t fly straight. (Ed. - Fuck you, Bob). Climate change is “rarely talked about in the language of conservatism”, he explained. “If you want someone to have a conversion moment, it helps for them to hear it in their own language, from someone they trust.”

Inglis has been trying to start the conversation in conservative southern circles since having his own conversion moment on a trip to Antarctica in 2006. A scientist drilled into the ice, and Inglis saw, firsthand, the Industrial Revolution’s impact on the ice record, which revealed a long period of stability with a sudden uptick in carbon dioxide levels. He accepted then that burning fossil fuels changed the chemistry of the atmosphere. He was later booed at public events for stating his belief in climate change.

EDIT

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/dec/19/talking-with-evangelicals-about-climate-change-south

[violetpastille]

1. It's not the message it's the medium

Last edited Thu Dec 20, 2018, 11:49 AM - Edit history (1)

This is sadly correct.

White dudes of unremarkable countenance? You can be of great help here. Engage other white dudes.

"Remember when we were kids and we could fish xyz? Remember the Blah Blah woods how we would go out and look at Playboy and bury it. Those woods are all gone now...Yeah. You can't catch anything it that river. Too much pollution. You didn't have to worry so much about what happened at work because you always knew there would be something you could catch."

But make the connection to the environment personal. Something that belonged to them. Something of theirs that has been destroyed. Something they will not be able to give their children.

Because it's true.

[hatrack]

2. Doesn't matter, 'cuz Jesus will make them a shiny new swimmin' hole really soon . . .

Just wait faithfully, because as we all know, everything will be better after you die.

[violetpastille]

3. I'm not ready to give up.

I have a long way to go on the journey myself.

I don't have an electric car yet, and I am still eating meat. Lots of smaller changes but big ones too.

And I will. But someone telling me I'm stupid isn't going to get me there any faster. I can only start where I am. You can only meet me where I am.

[Girard442]

4. There are lots of issues where Evangelical leaders have sold out their flocks for money and power.

Really, where in the Bible does it say we need to support the oil industry or the gun manufacturers? Until Evangelicals on the ground come to some sort of understanding that they're being played, it's hard to have much optimism about them changing their minds.