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Comment by Florin_Andrei | Hacker News Reader

> If the US were split into the 50 states, you would have to get 50 governments separately to agree to carbon regulations, instead of one.

Sure, but then about half of those would actually do something about it.

Of course, the other half would keep thumping the Bible or Atlas Shrugged (or both), but even so that's a fraction of the current level of inaction.

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The Bible gives no good reason to deny climate change. The leaders of the two largest Christian groups, the Catholic Popes (specifically Benedict XVI and Francis) and the Orthodox Patriarch of Constantinople, have long been supporters of green policies.

And actually, as it describes humans as the stewards of God's creation, green policies should be essential to their acts as Christians.

However, in the US, specifically in the South since that's my experience, many actively deny climate change and refuse to pursue green policies, ostensibly on religious grounds though when discussing it with them it either makes no sense or they can't establish any. It's very frustrating. They see climate change and green policies as some sort of atheist, pinko, commie conspiracy.

I know. It's largely the literalists that go off the really deep end.

Literalists would be more likely to want to act as good stewards of creation.

Technically true, except those who claim to stick to a literal interpretation of the book are much more likely to perform a selective reading of it, keep what they like, discard what they don't. Ends up being just another bullshit name.

So what you're saying is "there are religious people and I don't like them"?

No, what I'm saying is - bullshit is everywhere, and religion does not have a special exemption from it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12798868

A good example is Jim Inhofe, the Republican chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. According to him, the Bible tells us that GCC is impossible because the atmosphere is under the control of God, and God would never allow anything harmful to humans like that to happen.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Inhofe

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