The latest survey released by the George Barna Group asked United States evangelicals to indicate which out of eleven choices were "absolutely necessary" for the nation to address within the next 10 years, and one of the expected answers was the matter of global warming. However, the survey says this matter ended up last on the list.
"What do evangelical Christians see as the top issues that our nation must get right in the coming decade? If you listened to the media you would be inclined to believe it was creating more government programs which are supposed to help the poor, expand government education, or to adopt radical policies to fight global warming. But if you actually listen to evangelicals you will find...the number one issue for evangelicals was improving the health of Christian churches, followed by upgrading the state of marriage and families, and improving the spiritual condition of the U.S. Last on their list is the environment. So much for the global warming hype," Family Research Council (FRC) President Tony Perkins said.
Voters in the United States, especially Democrats and members of the "liberal Left", have been disturbed since the 1990s when the "radical right" of American evangelical leaders began strongly identifying with the Republican party and its hard-line stances on issues such as abortion rights.
These citizens were disturbed even more when George W. Bush announced his plan to fund "faith-based initiatives", whereby religious leaders who wanted to make a difference in their communities could qualify for federal government money to help them. Although the initiative was open to members of any major religion, critics argued that it violated the Constitutional mandate of a separation of church and state.
With the Bush Administration reluctant to pass into law rigorous legislation to curb the emission of greenhouse gasses, those elements such as carbon dioxide and methane believed to be largely or even mostly causing global warming, critics see this latest survey result as just one more instance of that party which allegedly wants to legislate morality receiving the backing of another powerful interest group who wants to do the same while ignoring what many believe is the greatest threat to mankind's civilization and survival.
However, much has taken place in recent events to discredit "the global warming hype." NASA, from which a great deal of the climate data that have been entered into computer models has come, has found errors in a prominent global warming advocate and scientist's calculations, and with that has released corrections that go a long way toward overturning an "apocalyptic" climate change scenario about which, it has been turning out, there has not really been much scientific consensus anyway.
