Climate Change Debate

We face a persistent question: what do church people bring to the climate change debate? Professionals and policy shapers like to speak with authority on what are the threats to life on Earth. Their secular and scientific task has been to present the challenging facts on greenhouse gas emissions. As the studies, consultations and reports proliferate, we keep assessing our relevance and worth amid the expertise and rhetoric. We wonder how to elicit understanding and imagination to identify, justify and clarify a faith response.

Imagination and wisdom are high among the challenges. Moral imagination demands spiritual and alternative insights that help make a difference. The issues affect the hospitality of the planet and have consequences for generations that will follow us. The point is not to find all the solutions, but to foster ways so that every human enterprise can help contribute to an abundant life for all. The dream is towards a planet that is healthier, and people happier. The future is essentially in our hands.

A balance is needed. One that is both scientifically and religiously well grounded. We need to listen to the best science that we can. At the same time, we need to reflect on the best spiritual and theological wisdom. Put them together and we will have a clearer idea of how we need to behave and what actions to take. The responsibility for us church folk is that we be credible, literate and purposeful as we join the debates.

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