I remember the moment back in the 1990s when I first learned about global warming.

I'd heard about the danger of nuclear winter, but never global warming.

One Sunday at church I preached about environmental stewardship, and I lived in a college town,

and we had a lot of students, and a student came up to me, and she said, I noticed you didn't mention global warming. I said, I never heard of it. She sent me a lot of students and a student came up to me and she said, I noticed you didn't mention

global warming. I said, I never heard of it. She sent me a link and that link took me online to

a little video of the Arctic ice sheet shrinking and I couldn't unsee what I saw. I became more and more knowledgeable about global warming, climate change,

and eventually became something of an environmental activist doing all I can to help people understand and respond.

But I know that whenever I talk about global warming or global climate change, I'm working against two things.

First, catastrophe bias. Our brains are wired to set a baseline of normalcy and assume what

feels normal has always been and will always remain. As a result, we minimize threats and are vulnerable to disasters if they develop slowly.

Global warming and climate change is perfectly designed for our catastrophe bias to dismiss.

But that's not all. We also face cash bias. Our brains are wired to see within the

framework of our economy, and we see what helps us make money. It's very hard to see anything

that interferes with our way of making money. I can't help but think of one of Jesus' most

confrontational sayings from Luke 16.

He said, no slave can serve two masters,

for a slave will either hate the one and love the other,

or be devoted to the one and despise the other.

You cannot serve God and wealth.

Basically, Jesus is saying, living an economy that where slavery was the

norm in the Roman Empire, something that everybody would understand. If you have two different

people ordering you around, you're going to figure out which one you love and which one you love less or hate.

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