Carbon dioxide, produced by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil and released by plant life when it dies, is the principal heat-trapping gas believed to be contributing to global warming. Increasingly, local congregations are doing more than releasing statements or writing to the president. Since 1948, he has gazed across his wheat fields knowing that his crop depends on elemental forces beyond his control. Earth revolves in its orbit. The sun rises.
Clouds release life-giving water.
The soil nurtures. He says his observations are only anecdotal. Yet when Bush rejected the Kyoto Protocol, signed by the United States and more than 100 other nations in 1997, the confluence of Reitmann's belief and common sense was too much to ignore. We need to improve it, if anything. Not all religious bodies agree with their counterparts in the green movement.