This paper applies Toulmin's Argument Model to examine what specific actions Christians should take in response to global environmental challenges. Drawing on IPCC climate data, biblical passages, and scholarship in the sociology of religion, the paper argues that Christians — grounded in Genesis 1:26–28's call to dominion and stewardship — have both a spiritual and civic obligation to address climate change. It traces growing evangelical engagement with environmental issues, acknowledges internal resistance within Christian communities, and ultimately contends that Christian optimism and resourcefulness should be channeled into sustainable environmental action and preservation of God's creation.
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Using Toulmin's Argument Model, this paper explores the ways in which Christians should act in response to the environmental challenges facing the planet. There are many reasons that all citizens should be paying attention to the problems the earth is facing due to climate change and pollution. Christians, while they hold spiritual values that differ from those of Muslims, Buddhists, and other faiths, are citizens of the world and should be attentive to ways in which they can help reduce global climate change and make the planet safe and healthy for future generations.
Thesis: What specific actions should Christians take with regard to the challenges facing the world's environment and the need for preservation and restoration?
It is a well-documented fact that the planet and its vital ecosystems are being threatened and challenged by climate change, which is being caused in no small way by human activities. These threats and challenges are having a dramatic effect on wildlife, on the habitat that provides wildlife with the resources to survive and prosper, and on the sustainability of human beings and their communities throughout the planet.
Hence, all the world's people, including the Christian community, should be engaged in any and all behaviors that can help mitigate the conditions that are causing the earth to heat up.
The grounds for the assertion that the planet is being threatened by climate change are gleaned from empirical data gathered and published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an international organization of scientists — launched by the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization — that has dedicated more than twenty years to intensive empirical research on climate change.
The IPCC is composed of thousands of scientists from 195 nations. In its "First Assessment Report" (issued in 1990), the IPCC asserted that while there is a "natural greenhouse effect" that keeps the earth "warmer than it would otherwise be," emissions produced by human activities "are substantially increasing the atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), and nitrous oxide."
In the "Fourth Assessment Report: Climate Change 2007," the IPCC states that "warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level" (IPCC, 2007).
The global atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide "has increased from a pre-industrial value of about 280 parts per million (ppm) to 379 ppm in 2005" (IPCC). The IPCC reports that the "primary source" of this enormous increase in carbon dioxide "results from fossil fuel use" — that is, coal-fired and oil-fired electrical generating plants, plus internal combustion engines in vehicles that use gasoline and diesel fuels. The annual release of carbon dioxide produced through the burning of fossil fuels increased from an average of 6.4 gigatons of carbon (GtC) per year in the 1990s to 7.2 GtC per year in the period 2000 to 2005 (IPCC).
"Then God said, 'Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground…'" (Genesis 1:26, New International Version).
Because they place great faith in the Bible — specifically the commandment in Genesis 1:26–28 that gives humans "dominion over the earth" — Christians should be at the forefront of the movement to be stewards of God's creation. They should not only be concerned with redemption and the afterlife, but should also be alert to environmental issues. Laurel Kearns writes in the peer-reviewed Sociology of Religion that it was against the "anti-environmentalism of the Reagan administration" that Christians — who were ironically courted by Reagan — began to become focused on the environment. Kearns asserts that some churches are interested in becoming "creation awareness centers" rather than "barren edifices surrounded by parking lots" (Kearns, 1996, p. 3). The "anti-science bias" that many Christians, particularly evangelicals, had previously embraced — including doubts about evolution and climate change — must be replaced with common-sense applications grounded in real science, Kearns explains.
"Eighty-six evangelical leaders endorse climate action initiative"
"Some Christians prioritize afterlife over environmental concern"
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