On Monday, October 8th, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a group of scientists convened by the United Nations to guide world leaders, released a report that depicts the immediate and long-term consequences of climate change, which include a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires and a mass die-off of coral reefs as soon as 2040 — a period well within the lifetime of much of the global population. The report is clear: the consequences of human-induced climate change will be felt with greater severity and much sooner than we previously thought.
The consequences of human-induced climate change will be felt with greater severity and much sooner than we previously thought.
I work with churches and their congregants to understand the realities of climate change, become better stewards of creation, and find their voices to speak to public officials about common sense climate policy. On my best days, I have the privilege of speaking with college students, business leaders, and elected officials about the work of the Climate Witness Project. It feels as though we’re collectively moving the needle a bit more day.
On my worst days, as my friend John put it, I fear I’m merely rearranging furniture on the Titanic.
How do we think theologically about reports depicting a broken world?
How do we think theologically about reports depicting a broken world? How do we hold the warnings of a planet that could be uninhabitable in one hand, and in the other , cling to God’s promise to restore all things?
In Scripture, God punishes Sodom and Gomorrah for their sins (Gen. 19:1-29), the Israelites are cast into exile for turning from God, and we’re reminded that all will be judged according to their works (Rev. 22:12). But I’m not sure this scriptural lesson applies here; the poor and vulnerable across the globe contribute least to greenhouse gas emissions, though they are the ones who will be pushed off their land when sea levels rise, forced to cultivate new crops when the land dries up, and thrust into repeated patterns of disaster clean up and rebuild year after year after year.
It’s time we deal with a difficult truth.
There is near-unanimous scientific consensus that climate change is a direct result of the burning of fossil fuels by human beings, and we run a high risk of ending up in a world of food shortages, wildfires, forced migrations, and accompanying and inevitable geopolitical crises. It’s time we deal with a difficult truth.
Unless climate change is mitigated with unprecedented commitment, our worst fears will become reality. Caring for creation is often perceived as a peripheral task for a select tree-huggers in each congregation, rather than what Scripture tells us it is: a God-ordained to all who bear the Imago Dei to live in such a way that the world flourishes and doing so knowing that we, along with aspen trees, sunflowers, and waterways, are part of God’s glorious creative act.
So what are we left with? We’ve got this call to be stewards. And we live in such a way that scientists agree is both killing the ecosystems and people on this planet.
Caring for creation is often perceived as a peripheral task for a select tree-huggers in each congregation.
To ignore, to plead indifference, or to assume God wouldn’t allow the worst of scenarios to come true is, I believe, to live in sin. To know you’re called to care for creation and to knowingly live in such a way that leads to its death and destruction is to be complicit in sin, and death, and to the suffering not only of the poor, but of all people.
We may not be dropping bombs on some country in the Middle East, or committing ethnic cleansing, but we’re slowly allowing the poor and vulnerable to bleed out. Maybe that’s how we need to think about this. Our inaction on climate change is not only not loving our neighbor, but it will kill them.
We’re slowly allowing the poor and vulnerable to bleed out.
It’ll take me composting, you biking to work, our neighbor shutting off those lights, and us collectively advocating for policies and supporting candidates who are ready to protect the poor and vulnerable. In the same way that none of us can escape the consequences of inaction, all of us must work together in order to restore a hurting a world. And so this must be said: overhauling our energy grid and committing funding, research, and infrastructure to renewable energy at a scale and pace unprecedented in the history of humankind is a tall task. It’s the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.
To quote the title of a recent New York Times article, “Stopping Climate Change is Hopeless. Let’s do it.”
I have to get out of bed each day and have to believe we can do this. There’s a sliver of hope found in Canada adopting a national price on carbon pollution, Middle Eastern and Western European nations investing millions in carbon sequestration technologies, and small groups of beautiful people from Iowa to Ghana tackling this issue in their backyards, and we must keep going.
Small groups of beautiful people from Iowa to Ghana are tackling this issue in their backyards.
I don’t think we can avoid at least some degree of permanent damage at this point, but for argument’s sake, let’s say we were. I would still understand my calling as a tree-planting, justice-pursuing Jesus follower. The moral necessity to act justly is not extinguished based on outcomes or circumstances, but is ever present and at all times. We must not give up hope.
The CRC's Climate Witness Project is putting together a 7-session workshop series around the book Cooler Smarter designed to help individuals and families that want to get serious about reducing their carbon footprints. Each workshop will take place at a different congregation throughout Grand Rapids, MI and will be facilitated by a Climate Witness Partner.
[Photo by Zbynek Burival on Unsplash]
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