Climate Change Related Health Hazards and the Academic Responsibility of Evangelical Bioethicists

Abstract

This article will explore the academic responsibility of Evangelical bioethicists to address climate change related health hazards. First, it will provide evidence-based data on climate change related health hazards, which disproportionately affect the poor and vulnerable worldwide, and as such are a form of environmental racism. Second, it will look at responses to climate change. So-called “climate change deniers” in the United States—the majority of which are Evangelical—will be addressed and the argument will be put forth that, regardless of the causes of climate change, climate change bioethics is part of the Christian tradition of healing and justice. Focusing on climate health hazards builds consensus across partisan and denominational lines by addressing the result—not the cause—of climate change. Third, the article will confront the academic responsibility of Evangelical bioethicists in addressing climate change related health hazards using the paradigm of H. Richard Niebuhr’s homo dialectus. It will, fourth, offer public theology and biblical scholarship as ways to engage this matter of moral significance. The conclusion will urge Evangelical bioethicists to develop a framework, such as Evangelical environmental bioethics, to effectively address climate change health hazards.