There seems to be a lot of talk (and action) around climate change at the moment. People protesting, arguing and just trying to get their opinion out there. So I thought I’d jump on the bandwagon.
As a Christian, there are a couple of things I believe to be true. One is that God, in all of
His mysterious glory has things under control. This planet exists because God wants it to exist. There is nothing that can be done by His creation (i.e. us) that would cause that to change. We can’t destroy what God doesn’t want to be destroyed. Some would take this as an argument against climate change. It’s not. There are things that we do that affect the world we live in. There are tragic events that happen to cause the planetary environment to shift. My question is though, is this permanent and will it cause the end of the world? I don’t think so.
The other thing I believe to be true is that God has asked us to look after His creation. We are to be good stewards of this gift. And I can’t honestly say that humanity is doing that. We need to seriously reconsider how we exist on this planet. We are not being faithful to what we are meant to be doing. It’s meant to be under our control (or dominion in older Bible translations). Severely damaging it is not what I would call having it under our control. Having it under our control means caring for it. Ensuring that it is the best it can be.
Is climate change real? Asking that question misses the whole point. Perhaps the question needs to be “Are we good stewards of the gift we have?”.
We need to be active in cleaning the place up. We need to reduce plastic production, we need to reinvent how we do manufacturing, we need to be better at being aware of how our choices affect each other and the planet. A good solid biblical principle is to love your neighbour. It applies as much to the world as it does to people.
Richard.