Chivian Joins TIME’s Most Influential List

When a New York Times reading, latte-sipping, Prius-driving, Harvard liberal met a Bud Light-drinking, SUV-driving, Bible-thumping conservative at a restaurant almost three years ago, it goes without saying that they hardly expected instant chemistry.

But bond they did. And in the years since then, their friendship has created a new organization to combat the destruction of the environment, landing the two on TIME magazine’s list of the 100 Most Influential People in the World, which was released yesterday.

Eric S. Chivian ’64, director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School, said he felt a certain degree of trepidation in meeting Evangelical minister Richard Cizik. But the two were able to put aside their differences and fashion a program to protect the global environment called the Scientists and Evangelicals Initiative.

“The bringing together of the scientists and the Evangelical Christians is a rather unusual event, since these two groups have really been at odds for a very long time,” Chivian said. “Recognition by TIME Magazine was an indication of how important it is to bring all groups together to capitalize on areas they agree on.”

Chivian, who shared a Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 for his efforts to prevent nuclear war, cited stem cell research and the long-standing debate over evolution as points of contention between scientists and the Christian Right.

Despite the inherent difference in method and substance of the two fields, Cizik—a leader of the National Association of Evangelicals, which includes 45,000 churches and over 30 million members—said that he believes science and religion are dependent on each other.

“Science without religion loses its ethical guide, and religion without science lacks the means and resources to understand the world,” Cizik said. “This is a kind of synthetic approach to the environment that draws on our mutual strengths.”

The combined efforts of scientists and evangelicals to raise awareness of environmental issues—what Cizik terms “creation care,” a reference to the Bible—included the release of a report urging the federal government to act on climate change.

Chivian and Cizik also led a 10-person expedition to Alaska last August to witness firsthand the impact climate change has had on the lives of the Inupiaq, whose island is eroding into the Chukchi Sea.

Oceanographer and climate expert James J. McCarthy, the master of Pforzheimer House who attended the Alaska trip, said that he hopes that the collaboration between the two groups will serve as an example to both the public and policy makers.

“This is not an issue that should have political sides,” said McCarthy, one of the three American scientists on the scientific panel that was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with Al Gore ’69 last year. “By working with two very disparate communities, people in the political realm will see that unless we work together, we can’t solve this problem.”

—Staff writer June Q. Wu can be reached at junewu@fas.harvard.edu.

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