"We're Doing God's Science"

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Houghton and I have nearly reached Abergynolwyn, where we'll catch a train back to the trailhead at Dolgoch Falls. He points to some deep holes on a hillside across the valley. "Those are old mine shafts," he says. "There was quite a bit of mining in this area in the nineteenth century -- mining for slate, for copper; some lead mines."

In those days the consequences of consumption lay close at hand. Today's global economy buffers us from the effects of a lifestyle that ravages the world. Each person in the United States consumes about 120 times the amount of resources as someone in Bangladesh. That disparity is -- or should be -- the great moral issue of our time, says Houghton.

He believes that the challenge of global warming offers the developed world a chance for moral regeneration, and in that sense might be good news -- which is the literal meaning of the word gospel. It's a point of view shared by Michael Northcott, an Anglican priest and friend of Houghton's. I'd spoken a few days earlier with Northcott at the University of Edinburgh, where he is a professor of ethics.

"Living lower down on the food chain environmentally will also be good for our souls," Northcott told me. "Jesus reckoned that wealth was the biggest threat to human spiritual health. Jesus didn't say it would be very hard for a gay person to get into the kingdom of heaven, or that it would be very hard for a divorced person. He said it would be very hard for a rich man. Cheap energy has made us rich. We will need to be a little less rich, I think. Right now the world's developed nations aren't prepared to do that, but I think it's entirely possible as an outcome." 

In the absence of a morally transformed global community, Houghton says the developed world must take some practical steps now. The single most pressing challenge, he says, is to make sure that all new coal-fired power plants are equipped with technology that captures and stores their carbon dioxide emissions. China is building two coal-fired plants every week. And since a typical plant lasts 50 years, decisions about their design will affect emissions for decades to come. "We've got to get on with it," says Houghton. "We need that investment in carbon capture now!"

Despite all the challenges, Houghton remains optimistic for three reasons. First, he believes the technology and funding exist to solve the problem. He cites estimates that moving to a carbon-neutral economy would require less than 1 percent of the world's GDP. Second, he says the scientific community is committed to solving the problem. Finally, what sustains him the most is his belief that God cares for creation.

Houghton spends much of his time now trying to relay that third point to his fellow evangelicals, especially in the United States. Over the past few years he has become friendly with Richard Cizik, vice president for governmental affairs of the powerful National Association of Evangelicals, which represents some 50,000 American churches. Cizik attended a meeting that Houghton organized at Oxford, at which a number of leading climate scientists talked about global warming.

"At the end of the meeting Cizik told me he never realized that scientists could be so humble, which I thought was interesting," Houghton says. "He was impressed by the reluctance of scientists to say more than they were absolutely sure of. He describes it quite publicly as a Damascus Road experience on his part."

Since that meeting Cizik has faced an uphill battle in trying to convince his fellow evangelicals that efforts to halt global warming should be high on their political agenda. "Scientists are perceived by evangelicals to be Darwinian evolutionists," he told me in a telephone interview. "Most evangelicals reject evolution. So they reject what scientists say about climate change. Climate change becomes a victim of the evolution debate.  But I'm persuaded that evangelicals can change their minds. They can get out of their iron-cage, anti-science way of thinking and become the activists behind climate change. Because if not us, who?"

Houghton says that Cizik's efforts are crucial. "The biggest problem in the world is getting the American religious right on board, because if that happened, the whole thing would be transformed."

On the morning after our hike, while sitting in Houghton's home, I notice a coffee table book called Private Views of Snowdonia, a collection of photographs of the park, accompanied by short essays. One of the photos shows Crib Goch and Moel Siabod, two peaks in Snowdonia. It carries a text by Houghton. Before catching my train to London, I ask him about the mountains.

"They're some of the finest ridge walks in Britain," he says. On the day he climbed Crib Goch and Moel Siabod, the mountains were covered with mist. Occasionally the mist broke, revealing spectacular vistas. It was, he says, a gradual process of disclosure, offering brief glimpses of a previously hidden reality. "I think heaven must be rather like that."