It's a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we're seeing.

We don't have a hundred years to fix climate change. We don't have a hundred years to wait until we've built all these bridges and rapport and scientific understanding and so on and so forth. We have to fix climate change with the people we have right now, and to a large extent with the perspectives we have right now as well.

If you can frame climate change as an alternate religion, or as one more of those issues where the pointy-headed liberal atheist scientists are trying to discredit the Bible, then you've already got a ton of people on your side who are concerned about heresy, other religions, or teaching evolution in schools.

We have to fix climate change with the people we have right now, and to a large extent with the perspectives we have right now as well.

My faith is an enormous motivator for me to engage as well, because climate change is not just an issue that affects the entire planet, it is one that disproportionately affects those who do not have the resources to cope with this change - those whom we are explicitly told as Christians to care for.

It is certainly true that conservative Christians are much more likely to doubt the reality of climate change than mainline Christians or the unaffiliated. But when we control for political affiliation and for the important role of thought leaders in determining our opinions on social issues such as climate change, most of the faith-related bias disappears.

The word "evangelist" means someone who spreads good news. Studying the impacts of climate change as I do, it's hard to come up with good news. In many ways I feel more like a Cassandra or a Jeremiah than a good-news evangelist.