Assessing the Influence of an Educational Presentation on Climate Change Beliefs at an Evangelical Christian College

Changing evangelical minds on climate change

“…One way of displaying these non-parametric results visually is to graph the direction of movement from pre-to post-test regarding participants' climate change beliefs. This was done in a previous paper for Houghton College (Webb and Hayhoe 2017). For each of the six questions, the number who moved to a more pro-climate belief were graphed against the number who did not change and the number who moved to a less pro-climate belief.…”

“…When the intervention was more intensive, significant gains persisted two years later (Burkholder et al 2017). One study examined the effect of a controlled intervention specifically on students at Houghton College, an evangelical institution in rural, western New York (Webb and Hayhoe 2017). After either attending a live lecture or viewing a nearly identical recorded lecture on climate change by an evangelical climate scientist who framed a discussion of the science, impacts, and solutions within the context of Christian stewardship and concern for our global neighbors, students displayed significant pre-post gains in their understanding and acceptance of human-induced climate change and the need for solutions.…”

Fisheries Volume 44 Number 11 November 2019

“…The interactions between religious beliefs and climate change perceptions are complex (Wardekker et al 2009 ), and strong religious beliefs are often blamed for divisive climate change perceptions (Smith and Leiserowitz 2013 ). However, religious messaging can provide avenues for effective climate change communication, as evidenced by Kathryn Hayhoe ' s interactions with evangelical Christians in the United States (Hayhoe and Farley 2009 ;Webb and Hayhoe 2017 ). Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian climate scientist, incorporates personal religious values and includes biblical text and spiritual commentary in her presentations (Webb and Hayhoe 2017 ).…”

“…However, religious messaging can provide avenues for effective climate change communication, as evidenced by Kathryn Hayhoe ' s interactions with evangelical Christians in the United States (Hayhoe and Farley 2009 ;Webb and Hayhoe 2017 ). Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian climate scientist, incorporates personal religious values and includes biblical text and spiritual commentary in her presentations (Webb and Hayhoe 2017 ). This builds trust with her evangelical Christian audiences, which helps to increase their acceptance of anthropogenic climate change and their awareness of potential climate change impacts (Webb and Hayhoe 2017 ).…”

“…Hayhoe, an evangelical Christian climate scientist, incorporates personal religious values and includes biblical text and spiritual commentary in her presentations (Webb and Hayhoe 2017 ). This builds trust with her evangelical Christian audiences, which helps to increase their acceptance of anthropogenic climate change and their awareness of potential climate change impacts (Webb and Hayhoe 2017 ). A similar approach may be effective on Andros.…”