Religious are less worried about climate change

NEW YORK — Most adults in the United States – including a large majority of Christians and people who identify with other religions – consider the Earth sacred and believe God gave humans a duty to care for it.

But highly religious Americans — those who pray daily, regularly attend religious services and consider religion crucial in their lives — are far less likely than other US adults to express concern about global warming.

Those are among the key findings in a comprehensive report released, Thursday, by the Pew Research Center, which surveyed 10,156 US adults, from April 11 to April 17. Its margin of error for the full sample of respondents is plus or minus 1.6 percentage points.

The survey says religious Americans tend to be less concerned about climate change for several reasons.

“First and foremost is politics: The main driver of US public opinion about the climate is political party, not religion,” the report says.

“Highly religious Americans are more inclined than others to identify with or lean toward the Republican Party, and Republicans tend to be much less likely than Democrats to believe human activity (such as burning fossil fuels) is warming the Earth or to consider climate change a serious problem.”

Responding to the findings, the Rev. Richenda Fairhurst, steward of climate at the non-profit Circle Faith Future, said the siloed culture in America sows further division instead of inspiring teamwork.

“I don’t know who that serves,” she said. “But it’s not serving the community — and it’s certainly not serving the planet.”

The poll found that about three-quarters (74%) of religiously affiliated Americans say the Earth is sacred. A larger share, (80%), feel a sense of stewardship — and fully or mostly agree with the idea that “God gave humans a duty to protect and care for the Earth, including the plants and animals.”

Religious Americans who show little or no concern about climate change also say “there are much bigger problems in the world, that God is in control of the climate, and that they do not believe the climate is actually changing.”

Many religious Americans are also concerned about the potential consequences of environmental regulations, including the loss of individual freedoms, fewer jobs or increased energy prices, the report says.

The survey also found that two-thirds of US adults who are religiously affiliated say their faith’s scriptures include lessons about the environment, and about four in 10 say they’ve prayed for the environment in the past year.

The views, the report says, are common across a range of religious traditions.

Three-quarters of evangelical Protestants and members of historically Black Protestant churches say the Bible includes lessons about the environment. Eight in ten US Catholics and mainline Protestants say the Earth is sacred and so do 77% of non-Christian religions, according to the poll.

But Christians, and more broadly, religiously affiliated Americans, are divided in their views about climate change, the report says.