Climate Change

WASHINGTON -- An evangelical leader whose organization sponsored a prayer event on environmentalism believes that global poverty is strongly connected to man-made climate change.

Evangelical Environmental Network President Mitch Hescox, who worked in the energy business before becoming a pastor, told The Christian Post that combating man-made climate change is where his desire to evangelize and to care for the poor meet.

"God called me to it because I have a desperate passion for caring for evangelizing people and for caring for the poor," said Hescox. "How we care about creation care determines how we care about human life. Because the impacts of poverty, of disease, water shortages, is all related to how we steward the creation." more >>

News of California's Salton Sea drying up has spread across the internet as new reports indicate it could result in an environmental disaster.

The once-flourishing resort location is shrinking and therefore getting saltier. This could cause "clouds of toxic dust " to spread across Southern California, according to BBC. As a result of the drying, toxins selenium and arsenic could be released from the lake bed.

Once a part of the Colorado River Delta, the inland sea holds water left over from when the Grand Canyon was carved out. more >>

Actress Lucy Lawless was arrested Monday along with six other Greenpeace activists after spending four days atop an oil drilling ship in New Zealand.

Lawless and the other protesters climbed the 174-foot drilling tower of the Noble Discoverer in Port Taranaki, New Zealand. The Shell-chartered ship was scheduled to leave this weekend to drill five new exploratory wells in the Arctic.

The 43-year old actress, best known for her titular role on the TV series "Xena: Warrior Princess" and for her recent role on the Starz series "Spartacus," sent out a series of tweets from the tower during the protest. more >>

The majority of Christian evangelicals agree that global warming is man-made and that drastic action needs to be taken now to avoid serious repercussions, according to a study by the Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL).

The New Jersey CCL chapter said that research confirmed a link between religious communities and environmental activism.

“The perspective of the evangelicals is: Human-induced climate change is real, and the consequences of climate change will be significant and will hit the poor the hardest,” Lynn Whitney, CCL member and a local Unitarian Universalist Church leader, told The Daily Record. more >>

The Evangelical Environmental Network has praised the passing of Mercury and Air Toxics Standards by the Environmental Protection Agency.

It has been 20 years since Congress passed the Clean Air Act that limited environmental emission by companies. The new standards, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “will slash emissions of these dangerous pollutants [mercury, arsenic, acid gas, nickel, selenium, cyanide] by relying on widely available, proven pollution controls that are already in use at more than half of the nation’s coal-fired power plants.”

The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) has worked tirelessly on the issue of mercury poisoning and pollution, spending over $200,000 on ads and campaigns to raise awareness. The network’s website states: “Christians are called by our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ, to love our neighbors and do unto others as we would have them do unto us.” more >>

In a new initiative to go green, Seattle has become the latest city in the United States to ban the usage of plastic shopping bags.

Plastic shopping bags will be banned from grocery and other retail stores in an attempt to lure shoppers into using reusable bags when they shop.

The new initiative will not ban stores from carrying bags altogether, but it would charge a five cent charge for consumers that want to purchase paper bags to carry their goods. The initiative was passed by a unanimous vote in Seattle’s City Council on Monday and is the second time that the city has attempted to curb the usage of plastic and paper bags for consumers. more >>