Regarding your report in the August NZ Baptist on the Clearing the Air forum on climate change:
As the name suggests, the aim of this forum was to cut through all the confusing reporting on climate change, and hear directly from those who are working closest to the data. In this way we hoped to give church leaders the best possible opportunity to make well-informed judgements on the claim that climate change is real and human-caused.

It is disappointing and rather frustrating to see yet another journalist fogging the issue with an article that mixes reporting with mis-reporting, and coloured with a very strong element of personal opinion (“Clearing the Air,” August NZ Baptist).

In introducing climate change as a “phantom behemoth,” Ms. Wardlaw gives the reader little opportunity to form a balanced opinion, sadly betraying the spirit of the forum. There are also several regrettable points in her article that need correcting or explaining.

First, the reason that the programme included eight presenters speaking “for” human-caused climate change and only two “against” is that there simply are not many qualified people who doubt that climate change is human-caused. We could find only two university lecturers in the country who take that position, and both declined our invitation, leaving a journalist and an ex-politician to rebut presenters from universities and Crown Research Institutes on the “for” side.

Second, Ms Wardlaw misquotes TEAR Fund director Stephen Tollestrup as saying that the conflict in Sudan was due to weather rather than religion. In actual fact, Mr Tollestrup made the point that a number of conflicts between religious groups have their basis in scarcity of resources, and this scarcity is often due to failures of natural ecosystems. This is a well-researched point (for example, see Jared Diamond’s book Collapse), and increasingly researchers are concluding that climate change is exacerbating the failures of resources such as crops and water supplies.

Third, it was disappointing to see the article conclude that scientists are “like Old Testament prophets bearing an infallible word.” The scientific community will not allow anyone’s word to be held as infallible, and enshrines critical debate in its “peer review” process. The concept of infallibility is as foreign to most scientists as it is to most Baptist pastors.

Knowing several of the forum speakers personally, I have been impressed with their humility and their personal integrity, as shown by the hard lifestyle choices they make to reduce their own “carbon footprint.” Just as we give weight to our church leaders who have high personal integrity, I believe we owe a fair hearing to such scientists.

I would encourage all readers of NZ Baptist to base their opinions of climate change on what the best-qualified people are saying. One way to do this is to download the forum presentations, which will shortly be available on VisionNetwork’s website (www.visionnetwork.org.nz). Or watch for the forum resource pack that will be available on CD from February 2011.

On a positive note, Ms Wardlaw accurately recognised that the main message of the forum, and the point on which all agreed, was the need for all of us to care for God’s creation. Our hope in organising the forum was that regardless of what conclusion New Zealand Christians come to on climate change, we will all recognise the importance of caring for God’s earth.

– Richard Storey
Organising Committee, Clearing the Air 2010

Maryanne Wardlaw replies:

Just a couple of clarifications – Stephen Tollestrup did actually say that the conflict in Sudan was not about religion. Whatever other factors are at play in Sudan, religion is significant. Secondly, the quote likening scientists to prophets was attributed to an attendee. He was expressing his own faith in those who are raising the alarm about human-induced warming, a faith displayed by others at the forum but which the information prior to that quote would leave open to questioning.

I entirely agree that most speakers were marked by their humility and integrity. If there had been space and time to explore the related topics, Richard’s work with A Rocha and the ecology presentation by his wife, Dr Liza Storey, would have been worthwhile.