We need to take this in both to understand how urgent things are and also to realise that we are not talking about more of the same only a bit warmer. Some people seem to think that it'd be nice to have a warmer climate. Unfortunately, the collateral effects are rather serious as this article helps us to understand. What we should also realise is that even a smaller effect will have some of these consequences and that the results politically over the next 50 years is that we should be preparing for population movements, disruptions of food supplies, tensions over basic resources like water, as Christians the question is do we prepare to be part of the solution to a threatened new dark ages and the potential 'mongol/hun/vandal invasions' or are we going to hide our heads in the increasingly warm sand?
I can't help wondering, either, whether the kind of legislation that western Anglo-saxon governments seem to be keen on passing -ostensibly to fight terrorism- is actually being framed more with handling the kinds of difficulties that are just beginning to be noticed and which will surely grow. I can't believe that there are not government think-tanks testing out these scenarios and thinking about what would be needed to meet them. Clearly, they think that more repression is our only hope; can we not develop other models which rely on Christian principles other than Augustinian/Constantinian?
To our bretheren who believe that this is all about the signs of the end I say: the church has loads of t-shirts for this already and we're still waiting. We all wish that this may not happen, but such wishes may not be fulfilled even if we persuade ourselves as Christians have done in former ages that they are right and think we have interpreted scripture rightly. And if you are wrong, you will have contributed to darkening the ages that follow ours; the verdict of history on you would not honour our Lord. In any case, if, when He comes, Jesus expects us to be doing what we are called to do and if His coming is to surprise us all [and this is the unambiguous message of the gospels on the matter], then what should you/we be doing but acting in the light of what we know and working for the common good and to lay foundations for the spread of the gospel? All of these considerations point to acting to help damp down climate change.
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Death, famine, drought: cost of 3C global rise in temperature
Filed in: global_warming, environment, science, climate_change, effects, politics
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Y'know Andii, despite this being my research area (environmental issues / catastrophe / Christian connectedness to it), I cannot bear to read anymore. It is like getting to saturation point on reading about the Nazi holocaust -- after a while I start to feel voyeuristic and macabre to keep on thinking and reading about the same raw data. I also know it can destroy my hope. Any ideas?
I know what you mean Jem. However, there are too many who still need to hear/see the raw data and to have a way to handle it Christianly that doesn't amount to a head-in-the-sand reaction. So While I don't automatically post these things on this blog [they are more likely to appear at thegreening.blogspot.com ] I think that occasionally a particularly clear article or whatever, should be flagged up.
I think you're right about the importance of hope given that despair ends up being so destructive. Some hope I see in the possibilities that things can be done. But for a warning to work it really does have to highlight the potential for catastrophe, or the tendency to apathy and laziness will allow the trajectory to hell to continue.
I think for me, at the moment, my own research interest in human corporate spirituality offers some hope in that the point of the Powers is to serve human welfare and they can be recalled to that, even if imperfectly. And I see signs that the existing systems are showing signs of change... But we need to keep leaning into those signs.
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