I don't have to change the world all by myself, I just need to partner in the work God wants us to do.

I think the biggest pushback comes from people who perceive me to be a threat. Having bloggers who are dedicated to making up false information about you, having anonymous people write nasty emails and letters, having organizations file legal requests for your work-related emails, and all the other things that happen can be very depressing and discouraging.

If we smoke, there's no magic number of cigarettes, or number of years, that we can smoke before we know we'll get lung cancer.

I feel that one of the most important things I can do is connect climate change to the values, the faith, and the issues we already care about. And if, in the process, I have to sidestep around some very explosive mines, I will do that.

The first thing we can do as individuals and as communities, like a school or a university or a church, is cut our energy use. Do an energy audit or measure our carbon footprint using online carbon calculators that are free, easy, and cheap. Get a list of the ways that we can stop wasting so much energy and save money.

People have taken advantage of the very well-trodden pathways that divide science and faith on other issues, such as creation, evolution, and the age of the universe, to pigeonhole climate change as yet another variant on the same theme.

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.