Rising Costs of Energy, Goods and Services Will Hurt the Poor the Most; Hundreds of Leaders Warn of Lost Jobs, Call for Justice for the Poor

Contact: Melinda Ronn, Cornwall Alliance, 917-743-7836, Media@CornwallAlliance.org

WASHINGTON, May 12 /Christian Newswire/ -- Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, made the following statement today:

"Despite the fact that the scientific case for dangerous, manmade global warming is crumbling in the wake of Climategate and other revelations of scientific malpractice by leading alarmists and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, supporters of policies to fight global warming are still pushing for restrictive energy policies.

"But those policies will hurt working families and the poor by driving up energy prices. And since energy goes into everything we consume, these rising energy prices will make everything more expensive--especially the most basic things like food and clothing and shelter.

"American evangelicals strongly support greater energy freedom, not restriction."

(Over 500 evangelical pastors, theologians, academic leaders, scientists, economists, and others have signed the Cornwall Alliance's Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming, warning that restrictive energy policies would "destroy jobs" and unjustly oppress the poor.)

"Despite support from small vocal groups like Ronald Sider and Jim Ball's Evangelical Environmental Network and the Christian Coalition--a tiny shell of its former self--evangelicals continue to be less supportive of global warming policies than the general public, which consistently ranks the issue last or nearly last in a long list of concerns."

ONLINE RESOURCES

Pew Research poll: "Dealing with global warming ranks at the bottom of the public's list of priorities; ... the percentage that now says addressing global warming should be a top priority has fallen 10 points from 2007." http://stewards.net/aTGCfV

Gallup poll: "over the last two years [the public] has become less worried about the threat of global warming, less convinced that its effects are already happening, and more likely to believe that scientists themselves are uncertain about its occurrence." http://stewards.net/aBEoU9

Barna Research poll: "born again Christians - particularly evangelicals - [express] the most skepticism about the importance of global warming of any faith segment." "Young born again Christians are not much different than their parents when it comes to concerns about the environment. Despite expectations to the contrary, many young Christians seem to adopt a wait-and-see approach to global warming." http://stewards.net/c2stGW

Evangelical Declaration on Global Warming -- http://stewards.net/9wKocs

Prominent signers of the Declaration -- http://stewards.net/9Mdcdi