Scientists and evangelicals tour Alaska

JUNEAU, Alaska, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- A group of five U.S. scientists and five evangelicals is touring Alaska this week, observing the effects of climate change in the northernmost U.S. state.

"The goal of our trip is to witness together what human-caused climate change is doing to our world," said trip co-leader Eric Chivian, director of the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment. "While this collaboration may come as a surprise to some, it makes perfect sense. Both scientists and evangelicals see life on Earth as sacred and share the same deep sense of responsibility about protecting it."

The trip's co-leader, the Rev. Richard Cizik, vice president for government affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, said, "The idea is for all of us to experience what human activity is doing to God's Creation so that we can understand the urgent importance of caring for it."

The group will visit, among other places, the Portage and Exit glaciers to see the rapid, unprecedented melting of glacial ice, and the Kenai Peninsula, where more than 3 million acres of spruce trees have been killed by the effects of global warming.