This is not alarmism. It is happening now.

The Church Times (21 October 2011) recently published an article by Dr Peter Forster, the Bishop of Chester and a trustee of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, aimed at discrediting what he describes as 'global warming alarmism'. The Rt. Revd. David Atkinson wrote to Church Times in response to the article on behalf of Operation Noah. We reproduce his letter below.

Church Times published the letter from Operation Noah (and others) on 4th November, along with three others refuting the bishop's article. A further letter supporting the bishop came from a past president of the Mining Institute of Scotland.

In the same issue, Church Times also carried an article by Cambridge professor Bob White FRS, who has written an authoritative book on Christianity and climate change, arguing that the scientific evidence for global warming is conclusive. Professor White's article is reproduced on the website of the John Ray Initiative, an educational charity connecting environment, science, and Christianity.

Article by the Bishop of Chester on the Global Warming Policy Foundation website

Article by Professor Bob White on the John Ray Initiative website

Update (23rd November 2011): the Guardian reports that the energy secretary, Chris Huhne, has attacked Lord Lawson's influential climate sceptic thinktank, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, as "misinformed", "wrong" and "perverse".

Letter from Operation Noah

From The Rt. Revd. David Atkinson

Sir,

It is a pity that Bishop Peter Forster (Comment, 21 October) has aligned himself with the Global Warming Policy Foundation.

The foundation, set up by Lord Lawson, claims to be open-minded about the ‘contested science’ of global warming. However, rather than the proper caution necessary to scientific research, their primary concern seems to be to deny an overwhelming, growing, body of evidence for human-induced climate change.  The GWPF, and much of Bishop Peter’s article, seems to be driven by very narrowly focused economic concerns.

The foundation’s frequent arguments against the scientific evidence, reiterated by Bishop Peter, are unconvincing. The warm period in mediaeval Europe, which the GWPF routinely claims contradicts the findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says nothing conclusive about global trends. The increase over the last 100 years of ‘only about’ 0.8 degree C is hugely significant to climate stability at global scale. Any benign effects from plants growing more quickly in some places are far outweighed by the harm already being experienced from severe weather events, acidifying oceans, melting ice caps, growing food insecurity, and species extinctions.

This is not alarmism. It is happening now and is likely to intensify. Curbing carbon emissions is not to pretend that we can ‘control the climate’. It is to say that humanity’s choices and actions have an effect on our environment for good or for ill, and for those effects we are responsible.

The question for Christian people is how best to care for God’s earth which has enabled civilisation to develop, and work within planetary boundaries which make for human flourishing and the well-being of all creatures. Bishop Peter says that the moral issues are complex. They are, but scientific evidence is clear. So is the biblical call to do justice for the vulnerable and for future generations, and to protect the ecology of which we are part.

David Atkinson (Assistant Bishop, Southwark)
On behalf of Operation Noah