Salon - As underscored by the current consternation of conservatives with Pope Francis over his encyclical on global warming, religion is perhaps the most confounding variable when it comes to grappling with the issue of climate change.
Katharine Hayhoe, who teaches at Texas Tech, is one person who was particularly puzzled by evangelical objections to climate change. Hayhoe is both a climate scientist and an evangelical Christian herself, and, as a Canadian largely removed from the polarizations of American political culture, she saw nothing in her evangelical faith more compelling in relationship to global warming than a strong moral imperative to care for God's creation. That all changed when she married an American, and then found out how differently he saw things.