The controversial subject of global warming continued to swirl in confusion in March. The second largest denomination in the United States, the Southern Baptists, signed an initiative at their conference titled, A Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change. Just one week earlier, at the 2008 International Conference on Climate Change, weather scientists heard how the past winter was the coldest in 100 years.

A resolution approved by church leaders last year showed skepticism that global warming was an issue. This year they decided that attitudes should change and they urged that messages from the pulpit should be more about the environment and that all Baptists should keep an open mind when considering environmental policy. The initiative stated, “our cautious response to these issues in the face of mounting evidence may be seen by the world as uncaring, reckless and ill-informed.”

Meanwhile, at the conference held in New York City, scientists discussed the science of meteorology and some concluded that the Earth was actually entering a period of cooling. They declared that some of the assumptions that were used to build the computer climate models were flawed and that if correct data had been entered, the results are much different than what is popularly published today.

Read the opening remarks for the New York conference at www.heartland.org/NewYork08/newyork08.cfm.

Links

• www.heartland.org/NewYork08/newyork08.cfm