“If you love the creator, take care of the creation.”

While the site of this bumper sticker on the back of one of the most environmentally damaging modern day amenities as a stream of exhaust is released from below may be paradoxically amusing, it does raise a most pertinent issue in the increasingly important conversation about environmental issues among evangelical Christians.

Yet although the discussion is heating up even in the political arena, as people are beginning to understand that the drastic consequences of climate change are not a hoax, why are evangelicals about as lukewarm as the oceans are becoming?

While it is hard for us, as middle class evangelical Americans, to feel the direct impact of climate change, just ask one of the 1,836 people who lost everything, including their lives, to Hurricane Katrina; or the 20,000 people who lost their lives to the 2003 heat wave in Europe, both of which are scientifically believed to have been intensified by climate change.

The scientific community is more and more definite that the longer we wait to take action to reduce and reverse global warming the harder it will be and the more drastic the consequences. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 2001 report stated, “There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.”

Over the last 30 years, ocean temperatures have risen by one degree. While this may seem insignificant, the IPCC has released that the number of Category 4 and 5 hurricanes worldwide has more than doubled.

As temperatures rise and natural disasters continually increase in intensity, the urban poor are those most greatly affected. Droughts are dryer, floods fiercer and hurricanes more devastating. And as seen in the impact of Hurricane Katrina, the poor suffer most, for they are most often lack adequate resources to cope with intensifying conditions. The 20,000 killed in Europe’s heat wave were mostly the poor and elderly. Summers of increasingly intense heat, are projected to be typical in the next 50 years.

The first commandment says it all. Love your God, and love your neighbor. Ignorance of the necessity for drastic action to address the environmental crisis of climate change violates this basic and underlying tenet of the Christian faith.

The problem is real. And we as evangelical Christian Americans have a mandate to address it.

Not only is our beloved God the creator of the very earth we are exploiting, His call for us to care for our neighbors should cause us to see this devastation as a mandate to get involved. Now. Not tomorrow, or next month or next year—because that may be too late.

While individual actions such as replacing energy expending light bulbs for those more energy efficient, and committing to recycling, are necessary and helpful, larger scale creation care action is required from businesses, organizations and institutions to seriously combat climate change, insuring our world will last as long as the Creator intended.

Universities have a unique responsibility as role models in their communities and in training their students to be leaders in developing solutions to stop and even reverse global warming. Azusa Pacific University is an institution with not only this humanitarian responsibility to each other but a sacred responsibility to our Creator.

Styrofoam still overflows trash receptacles multiple times per day alongside recyclable paper, aluminum, glass and plastic, and florescent lighting still illuminates campus housing.

The consequences are deadly. If we as evangelicals don’t also start taking significant action now, we may be eager for the cool climate of heaven sooner than we think.