Following World Climate Day, Wednesday March 26th, two very different news stories appeared in the Church Times on the ways in which Christians are challenging those whose actions are fuelling climate change.
On 28 March, the paper reported on a meeting of Latin American church leaders who have called for action over Amazon rainforest, ahead of the COP30 climate talks to be held in Brazil later this year.
Some 50 church leaders gathered in Brasilia last week to prepare a “Call to Action towards COP30”, to be presented to the Brazilian Minister of the Environment and Climate Change. “We witness the destruction of the Amazon, other ecosystems, and the people who live there, caused by large-scale agriculture, mining, and fossil-fuel extraction.” the Call to Action said.
According to the article, Brazil has been criticised for bulldozing parts of the rainforest to improve access to the Amazon city of Belém where the COP30 summit will be held.
Read full the story here.
And on 4 April a very different story recounted attempted citizens’ arrest in the UK of oil executives, by a group including the Revd Helen Burnett, Team Vicar of St Peter and St Paul, Chaldon, Surrey.
Talking about the oil company executives, Ms Burnett said, “These people are personally responsible because of the work they do… The result of their work is planetary breakdown.”
Read the story here.
These two stories highlight the fact that as Christians we cannot simply turn the other way as God’s creation continues to be plundered, and nor can we simply expect others to take the strain. Each of us need to find those ways – which work for us as individuals – in which we can actively protest and work together to reduce the threat to our planet adapt our lifestyles accordingly.
To quote Ms Burnett on a previous occasion: “As vicars, we have the ‘cure of the souls’. That’s not some mere ephemera that flies off to heaven: it is the fully integrated body and spirit — the spiritual and physical well-being of the people in our parishes.”