NewsBusters has a story on strange goings-on with NASA's climate data, involving the Goddard Institute and its director, James Hansen, who last year made headlines when he claimed the Bush administration was censoring his ideas about global warming. Now, Stephen McIntyre, who helped expose problems with the infamous "Hockey Stick" climate graph, is wondering if Hansen isn't doing some censoring of his own--that is, changing the Goddard Institute data sets without notifying the public. I don't know enough about this to make a judgment, but go check out McIntyre's post.

What do the public, particularly Christians, think of global warming? According the latest Barna Research poll, 51% of America's born again adults view global warming as a "major" problem facing the country. Predictably, a higher percentage of Democrats (67%) than Republicans (38%) felt threatened by warming, and humorously--as I see it--many more atheists and agnostics (69%) than evangelicals (33%) felt global warming was a major problem.

That's partly because evangelicals believe moral and spiritual issues are the biggest threats we face. Atheists and agnostics, on the other hand, are not only ambivalent when it comes to moral issues, they also don't think there's any deity looking out for the planet. In their minds, our entire destiny is in our own hands, and our entire destruction might be lurking around the corner, whether in the form of climate change, a meteor, or whatever. Evangelicals are less concerned because they believe God is in control. To a worried atheist, that's very worrying.

However, just because many evangelicals and other Christians don't think warming is the biggest threat our country is facing doesn't mean they aren't concerned about the possible effects--especially the humanitarian effects--of climate change, such as storm activity. They just aren't yet convinced climate change is being driven by human activity. When it comes down to actually helping those effected by the climate, evangelicals and Christians, as it turns out, are the first in line to lend a hand--and open their wallets.