PBS has an interesting story online about how evangelical Christians are starting to behave as if they’d be up for an alliance with greens.
Their national assocation has been asking churches to get their energy consumption down, quoting scripture about how you shouldn’t let anything go to waste. Since evangelicals are about a quarter of the electorate this is good news. The only reason not to get too excited is that there is one marginally green party in the US right now, and it’s the Dems. Will climate change override school prayer and gun control and gay marriage and all the other “values” issues that tend to keep evangelicals in the GOP?
The alternative, I guess, would be to hope evangelicals will help to forge a greener Republican party. But as long as said party’s funding comes from the energy industry… Well, may the Lord be with them. But, as my own, more cynical, American subculture would say, like, good luck with that.
Image: flickr/gruntzooki
It would be easy to feel deflated today. Obama’s expressed a new willingness to accept some offshore oil drilling. McCain’s been gaining a little traction in polls, narrowing the gap to maybe 3 points, maybe zero, and part of it may be his aggressive advocacy of new drilling (offshore and in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge) to lower gas prices. On the face of it, not the most inspiring bits of news.
The happy flipside: the polls also show that energy is the top issue for voters, ahead of Iraq. That’s a stark contrast with 2004, when large swaths of the nation obsessed over gay marriage even as the war became a full-on disgrace. The upside of every American getting whaled in the head with $4/gallon gas every week is that as a result the electorate is actually thinking about the most important issue. When was the last time that was the case? 1944?
Image: flickr/416style
