Religions join warming debate

WASHINGTON -- Some religious leaders agreed yesterday on the need to confront global warming, while others questioned the climate change threat.

The Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church and a former oceanographer, told the Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee that most religious people have reached accord on the need to act.

"While many in the faith community represented here today may disagree on a variety of issues, in the area of global warming we are increasingly of one mind," Schori said. "The crisis of climate change presents an unprecedented challenge to the goodness, interconnectedness, and sanctity of the world God created and loves."

There was a clear divide among witnesses called by the Democratic majority on the committee and those chosen by the Republican minority.

Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary said many Southern Baptists " are not convinced that the extent of human responsibility is as it is portrayed by some global warming activists."