"A new study released by The Barna Group provides the most comprehensive look at the Christian community and environmental issues."

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When asked to identify the primary motivation for lifestyle changes, three-quarters of Americans (74%) indicated that their behavioral change resulted from their general concern about the environment rather than their specific concern about global warming (10%). Across the faith spectrum, adults were more likely to be motivated by wanting to take better care of the environment, rather than specifically by anxiety about global warming.

Global Warming

One of the most widely debated environmental subjects is global climate change: whether it is happening, what causes it, and what to do about it. Americans maintain a wide range of opinions about whether global warming is real. The margin is three-to-one of those who are certain it is happening (63%) versus those who are not certain (22%). Another 15% of Americans have not made up their mind on the issue. Those who are very certain that climate change is happening (40%) outnumber those on the opposite extreme by a four-to-one ratio (11% are not at all certain).

What makes Americans skeptical about global warming? The survey explored five common objections and discovered that roughly half of Americans maintain some reluctance about climate change for each of the following reasons:

# 49% of Americans contend that some solutions proposed to help global warming would have a negative influence on the poor, especially in other countries
# 48% believe the earth has undergone climate change before and the current warming is not primarily caused by human activity
# 47% indicate the news media have made global warming a bigger story than it deserves
# 47% agree that the U.S. economy is not strong enough right now to take on the problem
# 46% say that if America leads the way tackling the problem other countries will not follow suit and it would hurt American businesses and workers

A majority of the Christian community, regardless of how it is defined, believes that global warming is happening. Still, only a minority of churchgoing Catholics (36%), non-mainline Protestants (36%), and mainline Protestants (45%) are very certain climate change is occurring.

Evangelicals are among the most skeptical population segments when it comes to global warming - just 27% firmly believe global warming is happening. In particular, evangelicals express the greatest caution regarding their perception that media has hyped the story (65%), their belief that cyclical climate change is not primarily caused by human activity (62%), and their concern that proposed solutions would hurt the poor, especially in other countries (60%). Interestingly, evangelicals’ concern about the impact global warming policies will have on the poor is the one shared point of skepticism also held by secular Americans (atheists and agnostics).