Katharine Hayhoe is an atmospheric scientist who has documented the impact of climate change.
She's also a Christian and the wife of Andrew Farley, an evangelical pastor from Texas. In her opinion, the two are not contradictory, and fighting climate change should be a Christian concern.
"We've bought into the idea that we have to be a certain kind of person to care about climate change," Hayhoe said during her Wednesday talk at Westminster College's Hancock Symposium.
As the director of the Climate Science Center at Texas Tech University, member of the Department of Interior's South-Central Climate Science Center and author of about 125 peer-reviewed works - including the 2014 Third National Climate Assessment - Hayhoe's credentials as a scientist are indisputable.
However, she said, facts aren't enough when talking about climate change. She cited a study that showed one's acknowledgement of climate change had little to do with one's level of science education.
The biggest predictor was where they fall on the political spectrum. Age and race also contributed.
"You can see that this is about identity," she said.
Hayhoe said people tend to think only tree-hugging, bleeding-heart, godless liberals believe in or care about climate change. That isn't and shouldn't be the case, she added.
Her talk addressed three common myths she thinks, contribute to that ideological divide.
Myth 1: It isn't science
"(People see climate science) as an Earth-worshipping religion," she said. "They think you choose to believe in it, to the exclusion of God."
However, when Hayhoe is asked whether or not she "believes in climate change," her answer: no.
"Climate change is real, regardless of what we believe," Hayhoe said.
Throughout her career in science, Hayhoe has seen too much evidence for global climate change to doubt it. The data comes from thousands of studies, instruments and lines of reasoning; she doesn't believe those studies are the results of bias on the part of scientists.
"As my husband said, a thermometer is not a Democrat or a Republican," Hayhoe said.
Even casting aside temperature data, she said there's still many other indicators. Permafrost near the North Pole is thawing. In Kyoto, Japan, people have tracked the dates cherry trees bloom for 1,100 years; recently, those trees have been blooming three weeks earlier than before. An increased frequency in heavy rain events points to warmer air, which holds more moisture.
"There is ample evidence that God's creation is warming that anyone can see," she said.
She said there's plenty of evidence climate change is the result of human action. Past global climate events have been caused by variations in the amount of the sun's energy Earth receives, or natural weather cycles.
However, Hayhoe said, the sun's energy output has been on a downward slope since the 1970s. Additionally, the last ice age ended about 18,000 years ago, based on evidence from ice cores and preserved tree rings.
"According to ice-age cycles, we should be back in another ice age within the next 1,500 years," she said.
Since about 4,000 B.C., the Earth's temperature has slowly been dropping. It shot back up around the time of the Industrial Revolution, Hayhoe said. That points to a connection between all the carbon-emitting fossil fuels in use at the time and the climate's rise.
Hayhoe urged Christians not to be threatened by science.
"One of my favorite verses is from 2 Timothy (1:7)," she said. "For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind."
Myth 2: It only matters to polar bears
Polar bears ended up as the face of climate change with good reason, Hayhoe said. The decrease in polar ice has negatively impacted their ability to hunt fish and seals. But they're not the only ones in danger.
"Two-thirds of the world's largest cities are located within a few feet of sea level, and the sea level is rising," Hayhoe said. "Even with all the money in the world, you just can't pick up a city of millions of people and move it."
Climate change intensifies problems like water distribution. Dry areas are getting drier, and wet areas are getting wetter. It also likely impacts conflicts and global strife, Hayhoe said. Syria recently experienced a drought, which drove farmers into cities, where they got swept up in the refugee crisis.
"Climate change exacerbates so many of the risks that we already face today," Hayhoe said. "I care about climate change because it's exacerbating almost every humanitarian problem on the planet."
She said climate change has the heaviest impact on developing and poor countries, which have fewer resources to offset it. She believes people, especially Christians, should be concerned for the less fortunate.
"But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him?" she said, quoting 1 John 3:17-18.
Myth 3: It's too expensive to fix
According to Hayhoe, working to offset climate change by moving to renewable energy sources will have a net economic benefit.
For one, the fossil fuels that contribute to climate change also hurt human health through pollution.
"Just burning fossil fuels and also burning wood in homes kills over 5.5 million people every year," she said. "It impacts the poor disproportionately."
The cost of fossil fuel-related sickness and deaths in America totals about $87 billion annually, she said.
She also said the burgeoning renewable energy industry has benefits. It creates new jobs and helps people in developing nations.
About 1 billion people around the world have no access to electricity, she said. But renewable energy is helping solve that problem. In Africa, rent-to-own solar panels have been deployed in the hundreds of thousands. In India, solar-generated energy is so affordable it's undercutting coal.
In America, renewable energy sources are creating new employment opportunities. According to a U.S. Department of Energy report, the solar energy industry already employs twice as many people as coal, gas and oil power generation combined.
"I'm not going to sugar coat it: There are winners and losers," Hayhoe said.
In other words, some people will lose jobs - but more jobs will appear. She mentioned one situation where a wind farm company in Wyoming offered to hire and retrain coal miners.
That company is based in China. Contrary to popular belief, China is actually making great progress in the renewable energy field, Hayhoe said. She added it's on track to spend $360 million in developing renewable energy by 2020, and is shutting down a coal power plant every day.
Why she cares
Hayhoe said there's an abundance of evidence proving climate change is real, and poses a clear danger to today's world. It's worth addressing, she added.
However, Hayhoe still hears from people who think climate change isn't a Christian concern. In fact, she said, she frequently receives hate mail from Christians.
"My guide for how to respond is in my heart: The love of God," Hayhoe said.
She explained the Bible doesn't address climate change directly, but it encourages people to care for the Earth and care about other people.
Some Christians have taken up the climate cause. She mentioned groups like Climate Caretakers and Young Evangelicals for Climate Action.
"Let's think about how we can work together with hope, not fear, in a spirit of what unites us, not divides us, to change the world."