The memory still smarts from my university days twenty some years ago. Liberal arts students had to take one mandatory science course. Now I could have done what most people did: taken what is informally known as a "bird course"—that is, Introductory Astronomy, where you got a passing grade just for showing up in class.

But, no, I foolishly opted for Biology 101, proceeding to barely eke out a C-minus in spite of working twice as hard as in any other course!

Never before and never since have I worked so hard and done so poorly. So, Einstein I ain’t!

All of which is to say that I, like most of humanity, am utterly unqualified to evaluate complex scientific data and form any kind of educated opinion on difficult, controversial matters of that nature. My mind just doesn’t work that way, and I just don’t know enough.

So what am I (or you, for that matter) to do about global warming? It’s about as complex a scientific issue as possible. It involves planet-wide climate patterns, complex and inter-linking chemical reactions and processes, all entangled with decisions and policies that are embedded within the very social and economic order of the entire human race at this time.

So yeah, it’s a bit complex.

There appears to be a broad scientific consensus that human activity is contributing to global climate change. What the broad, long-term effects of this change will be appears to be debated among scientists. As well, the seriousness of the problem, and how to solve it, appear to be debated among scientists.

Neither I nor (probably) you can go much further than such appearances.

So what are we—the unscientific we who are the majority of people—to make of this? Since we cannot, ourselves, really figure out what’s going on with the weather, what are we supposed to do?

We who are Christians, what are we supposed to do? And what difference does our religion make, anyhow?

Whether humanity is facing global annihilation (on the one extreme) or it’s just a load of alarmist propaganda (on the other), what difference does it make to be a follower of Christ?

I see two ways in which being a disciple of Jesus does in fact condition how we are to respond to the issue of global climate change.

First, we can practice the virtue of humility. So we don’t know what’s really happening. Well, OK, then, let’s not pretend we do!

We may not be smart enough, educated enough, or have the time and resources to really get a handle on the big picture of the environment. Fine. But let’s be simple and honest about that.

There’s no shame in saying those three magic words: "I don’t know."

We are saved, and our life is secured by the blood of Christ and by the love of the Father—not by having everything figured out all the time.

We can, and should, learn whatever we’re able to. We can, and should, pay attention to what all those "people with letters after their names" tell us. They’re not infallible, but they probably know more than we do.

It’s OK not to have the answers. It’s OK, even, not to understand the question! What is not OK is to pretend we know more than we do, because we read some article in some magazine or on some website somewhere that said something we agree with!

Humility is called for from the Christian soul confronted with questions beyond us. And global warming is certainly a question beyond me at any rate!

But what, then are we to do? If we don’t really know, and can’t really know, the full truth of what’s happening on our planet, then how are we to live? That’s where the second virtue comes in.

This is the virtue of self-denial. After all, we have to do something, right? There is (at very least) a widespread opinion among scientists and experts that the human race needs to cut down on its use of fossil fuels.

Even if you disagree with that opinion or are unsure about the whole global warming issue, is it not the Christian spirit to live simply, anyhow? Are we not called by the Gospel to deny ourselves, to renounce greed and avarice, and to practice penance?

We who are Christians, regardless of what we think about the environment and the political issues surrounding it, can surely take a good hard look at our way of life simply for the sake of Christ and what he calls us to, and for the sake of the poor, with whom we are called to share our possessions.

We can’t ourselves change the vast industrial economic complex of the world, but we can change our own way of life, right now, if we wish.

For example, do we need to drive everywhere? Walking and biking is good for us, good for the air, good for the pocketbook, and good for fostering community in our cities.

Do we need to chill our houses to refrigerator temperatures in the summer? Or keep them toasty hot in the winter? God invented iced tea and hot chocolate for a reason, after all!

Let summer be hot and winter be cold, and let us gather as brothers and sisters around cool and hot drinks as did our ancestors.

Do we need to eat and drink as much as we do? Do we have to eat food that must be shipped to us from around the world?

Fasting is a lost art in much of modern Christianity. Perhaps we need to revive the spirit of fasting and penance, whether it’s for the environment, the waistline, or for our brother, the poor one, who is starving, and our sister, the afflicted one, who needs our prayer and fasting to sustain her.

In North America in particular, we are besotted with and in bondage to comfort. Our tendency is to want and to seek to have every appetite filled, every desire met, every possible creature comfort on tap, all the time. Every kind of produce filling the supermarkets year round, and fifty types of salsa, soda or cereal available to us in every store.

This level of utter comfort, being catered to in our every desire, is not especially Christian, and it is not good for us. Self-denial, so deeply a part of our Christian spiritual tradition, so often downplayed or downright denied in the modern Church, may be on its way back. It may be forced on us, if the worst environmental scenarios play out as predicted.

If so, let us rejoice! Perhaps God is using this most difficult issue, this most contentious and complex issue, this hurt we human beings seem to have done to our world, to bring us out of our bondage to material comfort, greed, and self-indulgence, and back to the spirit of the Gospel.

It is this very Gospel, and the Lord who proclaims it, that is our true healing and good, and the true healing and good of the world.

Humility and self-denial, along with prayer, charity, listening, flexibility, detachment, faith, hope and love, are the very attitudes we need to meet all the issues of the day, whether global warming, moral chaos, or terrorism.

Coincidentally, they are the very attitudes that we grow in as we open our hearts more deeply to the grace of God in Jesus Christ, and the sanctifying presence of the Spirit. When we allow his grace to heal us, we will know how to heal our world.