Atheism impedes climate change action

The same applies to climate change: Given that an atheist seeks to maximise enjoyment and opportunity in this life, why sacrifice my job or standard of living for the sake of my grand-children? Atheists often wish to claim to want environmental action, but often what is advocated is costless action.

The only way that I see the atheist worldview providing motivation for action of the future is empathy for future generations/ that I feel better that the future is going to be better. But I'd suggest that economic self-interest would trump any empathy for future generation.

There is no rational reason as far as I can see that an atheist should view the world beyond their own lifetime. Costly environmental action where the benefits are to be reaped in the future is inconsistent with an atheist worldview.

Yet, the Christian worldview can give firm rationale and basis on which to take sacrificial action for the benefit of the environment.

The Old Testament book of Genesis provides a moral imperative to care for the earth. This book claims that the Earth was made by and belongs to God and we (people) have been entrusted to care for it. The Scriptures give a clear moral imperative for people to steward the earth. Christians who claim that dominion over the earth means we can rape and destroy it have misunderstood and misapplied this stewardship. Humans are given dominion over the earth underneath a larger and broader imperative to 'tend and care' for the world. We don't own the world, we are gardeners working for the owner. In this sense, climate change action becomes the imperative of the Christian: to ensure biodiversity, to protect the creatures God has made and to properly tend and care for his treasures of the earth.

Secondly, sacrifice is a Christian not a humanist virtue. Atheist Alain de Botton claims that 'sacrifice' is one of the virtues of the modern age. Yet it appears he has stolen this from Christianity because it doesn't flow from atheism. Self-sacrifice is a virtue at the heart of the Christian message. Jesus laid his life down for his people and Jesus encourages people to love in this same self-sacrificial way (Jn 13:34). Jesus said that anyone who wants to be great, must be a servant (Mk 10:44). Sacrifice and service of others is profoundly Christian. Climate change action requires sacrifice. It requires putting the needs others, most notably future generations ahead of our own. This flows naturally from the Christian world-view.

I cannot see how atheists can rationally hold the tension between maximisation of opportunity in the present and simultaneously sacrifice for the future. As our sunburnt country gets more sunburnt, sacrifices will need to be made. The atheistic worldview, very popular at the moment, does not offer a framework or foundation for future oriented sacrifice. Instead this framework pushes in the opposite direction – spend the children's inheritance to maximise my pleasure and opportunity now (and install another air-conditioner while we're at it). Alternatively the Christian worldview offers a robust framework and foundation for sacrificial action for the benefit of the environment; a worldview which provides clear imperatives for environmental action and care. A worldview which believes along with the Psalmist that, "the earth is the Lord's and everything in it." (Psalm 24:1)