Questioning climate anxiety

Premier Unbelievable? hosts a wide range of opinions about all kinds of issues – theological and political, material and spiritual. So it was somewhat unusual to have Brian McLaren giving his own point of view on a recent show, ‘Life after doom: how to live a life of wisdom, resilience & love in unpredictable times’. 

Given the title, it’s not surprising that climate change was discussed. Environmental campaigners are often more apocalyptic than Christians these days, although there are plenty of other concerns about the future of humanity, from the threat of artificial intelligence to the violent divisions in our societies.

What struck me about McLaren’s views about climate change is how materialist they are. His solutions to climate change are to vote, and to talk and persuade others of the importance. Is this different to what an atheist climate change activist might say? 

As we shall see, McLaren’s narrative is a bit different from some of the other Christian speakers who have discussed climate change on Unbelievable? in the past. They balanced their concern about global warming and calls for action with a hope that is deeply rooted in Christian faith and trust in God. 

I find McLaren interesting, because when I first started to explore Christianity, I read one of his books and was really persuaded by it, probably because it was so close to my secular, liberal beliefs at the time. But as I have written elsewhere, the more that I searched for Christian faith, and eventually found it, I realised that the liberal beliefs I once held were a limited way of looking at the world. 

Perhaps the other speakers later in this article will give another dimension to the debate from a Christian perspective. 

How bleak is our future, according to McLaren? 

McLaren sounds pessimistic. He says that although there have been breakthroughs from a climate activists’ point of view, such as more solar panels, car batteries and so on, he is concerned. “Technology is just amazing, and so people see a positive breakthrough and then they think ‘oh good everything’s going to be fine’,” he said. 

According to McLaren, the bad news is that politics and corporations are a “subsidiary of the fossil fuel industry” and he calls for us to challenge our “easy answers” and “cheap hope”.

He goes on to discuss comparisons between environmental “false hope” and the sign above the Nazi death camps that manipulated prisoners by giving the false promise “work will set you free”.

What’s the answer for climate change, according to McLaren? 

He says that in between the two extremes of “complacent apathetic wishful thinking” and “despondency and resignation” is “a zone that calls us to action”. 

However, McLaren believes that we’re not going to solve climate change by reducing our carbon footprint as individuals. The answer, he says, is political. “The two most important things we can do: first we can vote,” he told host Andy Kind. “We can vote for people who care about the Earth who are more realistic…voting actually matters because the changes we need ultimately are systemic changes, we have to reorganise our entire ways of living to live more sustainably with the Earth.”  

He seems to put a lot of trust in government. Are they really the answer? Can they be trusted to solve problems of global importance, of the very future of humankind? Are the policies of any of the political parties really providing a solution? And finally, if governments impose climate action on their people who are not persuaded themselves – isn’t this authoritarian? Perhaps McLaren is betraying a partisan political outlook here. 

Next, he believes people need to hear more about climate change. “Second, is we should talk to everybody we can…somebody says: ‘Hey how are you doing today?’ you say: ‘Well I’m doing great but it’s another day where I think we need a new relationship with the Earth.’”

Is ‘climate change’ so certain?

According to Pew Research, US evangelicals are the least likely to believe in global warming. In November 2021, Premier Unbelievable? invited questioning Hugh Ross from Reasons to Believe onto the show to debate with a fully paid up climate campaigner,  Antonia Godber, about the science. 

Using his physics background, Ross wrote the book ‘Weathering Climate Change’, where he questioned some of the dogma we are used to hearing about the subject. For example, Ross points out that the Earth’s climate has been unusually stable in the past 9,500 years. 

“The entire ice age cycle is characterised by really radical climate instability, we’re talking the global mean temperature jumping up and down by eight degrees centigrade over timescales of just two or three centuries,” he says. 

Although he is cautious about climate change dogma, Ross doesn’t deny that there is trouble ahead, and in some ways paints an even more worrying picture than usual. He believes that based on previous cycles, we may see a new ice age ushered in, global warming or not. “I would argue this is far worse than the global warming scenarios that are being painted by the alarmist,” he says.

Ross points out that carbon is not the only problem. He claims that “black soot” from India and China is falling on Canada and already causing dramatic increases in temperature. His solutions are also different to the typical climate activists – using natural gas instead of coal, and a special kind of nuclear power using ‘uranium thorium’. 

Read more:

Climate anxiety — ’Delay means death’

Life after doom

Resurrection, miracles and climate change

Should Christians break the law?

The emotional impact of climate fear 

Talking about the potential destruction of the Earth obviously causes a lot of anxiety. In the same Unbelievable? debate, Godber said she helps increasing numbers of “eco worriers” – new parents who are terrified of what will happen due to climate change. 

Her message is pretty frightening. She says the term “climate change” is inadequate, and that “climate breakdown” is better, “because the systems are breaking down, our life support systems are breaking down”. 

She adds: “We’re literally racing towards the edge of a cliff…our wealthy western lifestyles are literally stealing from the poor. How can we justify continuing that when Christ himself said to do the exact opposite?” 

Ross’ response to this is that there are real and workable solutions to climate instability. “We can offer people a hopeful solution to the climate crisis we’re facing, one that is workable, one we can do relatively immediately,” he said. “Then I think our young people are not going to have this spirit of depression, but we’ve got to get the word out – the word is, there are win-win solutions.”

The news is pretty terrifying, isn’t it? 

The topic of how climate change anxiety is affecting people’s mental health was also raised in the Matters of Life & Death podcast with Tim and John Wyatt, but they brought a more even-handed perspective. They discussed an alarming 2022 IPCC report, which was summarised by Tim: 

“What scientists were saying was basically that there is a very brief window of time, possibly to the end of this decade alone, for us to act to avoid irreversible catastrophic destruction from climate change. 

“Three and a half billion people are described as highly vulnerable to climate crisis. And they say if rising temperatures [are] not kept to around 1.5 degrees Celsius, we’re going to see sweeping destruction of ecosystems, habitats and entire species. So it was a pretty, pretty depressing gloom laden summary.”

Tim believes that activists are being so apocalyptic in order to encourage action by making sure “that the quotes that go with it are as terrifying as possible”. 

But is the rhetoric misleading? Tim points out that even if the worst case scenario in the report does come to pass, according to the predictions, “the world in 2100 is going to be better than it was in the year 2000.” 

The terrifying rhetoric has had a serious impact on younger generations. In a survey of 16–25-year-olds, “more than half of them said that they believe, ‘humanity was doomed’,” said Tim. “Three quarters said that the future was frightening. 55 per cent said they believe they would have fewer opportunities than their parents. And 39 per cent said they were reluctant to have children at all.” At the same time, there has been a decline in mental health in younger generations. 

John’s point is somewhat more optimistic than McLaren – that the action taken by car manufacturers and governments means that even the worst predictions of this report may not come true: “Christians need to be very fundamentally involved in creation care, whilst at the same time, no we don’t fall into this terrible pessimism and doom about God’s world.”

Against catastrophising: a balance between God’s powerful action and man’s responsibility

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John uses a metaphor of a river of “God’s plans and purposes” to contrast with fatalism and pessimism. “We are called to make good choices here,” he says: 

“Now is a bit like throwing something into the river, which has downstream consequences. But we cannot affect the long term direction of the river, the river is under God’s providential concern and care and his purposes…that gives us a sense of liberation, because it doesn’t all rest on us. It doesn’t all rest on fallible human beings creating the future.

“That doesn’t mean we can act irresponsibly. But it isn’t all on our shoulders…our calling is to live our lives fully now not cowering, expecting catastrophe to wipe us from the planet.”

A theologian urges balance, too 

Professor Tom Wright in this pre-pandemic conversation titled ‘Is the world doomed?’ on Ask NT Wright Anything also gives a more balanced message. He believes that caring for creation is very important, but that we can trust God for the future at the same time. 

“Part of the Christian belief in human responsibility is that God wants us to take care of our world,” he said. “The danger with some of what I hear at the moment is that it’s panicky, it’s just: ‘Oh, dear, we’ve got to stop everything now’.” 

Can we trust the science, anyway? 

Professor Wright urged us to go to science for the answers to the climate crisis and to God for our hope. But are there limits to this? 

It was pointed out on another Matters of Life & Death podcast with Tim and John Wyatt that climate science isn’t necessarily trustworthy, citing the news that a researcher admitted he left out information that balanced his climate concerns in order to get a paper published in ‘Nature’.

God’s power is outside of science and offers us hope

Of course, there has long been an interesting dialogue between people of faith and people of science about its limits, which has important bearings on how we look at the future of our world. For example, an interesting Unbelievable? conversation took place at Southampton University in February 2019 between die-hard atheist Peter Atkins and committed Christian mathematician Professor John Lennox, asking: Can Science Explain Everything? 

“What is claimed is the God who creates the Universe and sustains it, is not subject to laws as if they were laws of the land – he set up the regularities and he can feed a new event into them,” said Professor John Lennox. “And the claim is that God raised Christ from the dead by an input of colossal power.”

Lennox describes people who experienced that power in the “here and now”: “When you see addiction to drugs transformed, food on the table, broken relationships mended…I wouldn’t sit here for a nanosecond if I didn’t believe that these promises that Jesus made, actually can be fulfilled in a person’s life today.”

Professor Lennox summed up: “Science is wonderful. But the God who gives us a world in which science can be done is even more wonderful, and I’m very thankful that it’s not an abstract set of intellectual disciplines, but a person who said: ‘I am the way and the truth, and the life’.”

The two distinguished scientists didn’t discuss climate change directly. But the point made above by Prof Lennox echoes the other more balanced Christian responses to the climate crisis. Yes, we must act to avert disaster, and we may have to face the consequences of sinful choices. 

However, we can remember that God is in charge, and his resurrection power is available for all kinds of seemingly impossible situations – on the personal individual level, and at the level of the whole world and ecosystem, too. 

Heather Tomlinson is a freelance journalist. Find her at www.heathertomlinson.substack.com or on twitter @heathertomli.