Throwing litter on the streets, not turning off the TV after watching it, keeping the water running when brushing our teeth, not unplugging our chargers are things that some people, consider as insignificant damage to the environment. On the other hand, we readily blame big factories and business leaders for the awful amount of carbon they release when manufacturing their products. Either way, the majority of the world’s population particularly the people living in developed countries play a major role in the destruction of the environment, which in turn causes climate change. It may sound stark to put it this way, but the reality is equally ruthless.
Daleep Mukarji’s excerpt from The Church Has Left The Building raises awareness on the severe impact that carbon emissions from western countries have on climate change in the world. As a result, developing countries find themselves struggling the most to cope with this situation, as they suffer droughts, hurricanes, floods and extreme heat. The climate changes almost yearly and communities are left stripped of their crops, because of droughts plunging them into more severe poverty. Christian Aid, among others, has launched a campaign to fight against climate change, but it shouldn’t be only left to global organisations to proactively tackle the issue. If we really want to prevent future natural disasters and reduce the risk of global warming’s effects, we must all be concerned about the current climate situation enough to want to bring about change.
For many, the issue seems hopeless and for others, they don’t see why they should care. However it is the responsibility of the church to rise as an army, to fight for the conservation of our good old nature. There are too few people who care and Christians need to make the difference. Why should we take accountability to rescue the environment? Because we know better! We believe that God created the world and the Bible states that God reveals himself through nature. The glory and beauty of God are to be seen through His creation. An evidence that the environment matters to God is the fact that He sustains it all the time (Colossians 1: 16-17). Concurrently, if we love God we also want to love his creation. None of us would be happy to see our hard work being destroyed and undoubtedly, it is no joke to God to witness his once perfect creation, being constantly polluted and even harnessed to harm others.
Considering that the poorest people in the world are the most affected by climate change and its result, it becomes a justice issue where Christians should intervene. We shouldn’t forget that one of our callings is to establish righteousness on earth (Jeremiah 22:3), hence fight for what is right and against any type of injustice. Let’s join hands to support the poor as they have very limited means to confront climate change and let’s do all we can possibly do to reduce our energy consumption! We need to face the issue, raise awareness of its urgency and take action as soon as possible. All for one in this battle!
You can find out more about why we need to care for the environment by following this link
http://www.tear.org.au/downloads/resources/paperTheologyTearFundEnvironmentJuly07.pdf
How can you help?
-pray for the conservation of environment and for the Spirit of God to convict businesses which significantly abuse the environment
-pray for effectiveness of organisations campaigning against unnecessary carbon emissions which affect the climate and poor countries
-join or donate to a Christian or an ethical environmental organisation:
http://www.christian-ecology.org.uk/
http://www.arocha.org/int-en/index.html
-reduce your consumption of water and electricity
-raise awareness about the issue when you have the opportunity
