As each year passes, the stark reality of the damage that humans are doing to the earth becomes increasingly obvious. Hardly a day passes without some climate-related story hitting the headlines. Often they are tales of gloom – the Arctic ice is melting, rainforests are disappearing, the world’s coral reefs are dying.
Global warming constitutes one of the greatest threats to the environment. Hundreds of millions of people are already affected by desertification, water scarcity, sea level rise and drought while the frequency and size of extreme weather events, including storms, cyclones, hurricanes and flooding continues to worsen.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which brings together the world’s top climate scientists, estimates that global warming will be in the range of 2.4 to 6.4 degrees Celsius by 2100. This would result in the warmest period on earth for at least 100,000 years. The problems that these higher temperatures will bring are already beginning to affect us. Failing crops and mass movement of climate-change refugees are already hitting the headlines, giving us a small taste of the realities to come unless we take drastic action to change the future course of events.
Rising seas will put an estimated 70 million Africans’ lives at risk of flooding by 2080, displacing the people least responsible for climate change. The challenge to curb this problem is immense and the next few years are crucial to limiting the worst impacts of climate change.
If everyone on the planet were to consume natural resources and generate carbon dioxide at the rate we do in Ireland, we’d need three planets to support us. We’re all responsible for global warming – it’s not just a problem for someone else to sort out. We need to take action now.
Twenty-five per cent of total CO2 emissions come from our homes, so our actions can have important implications. By reducing our household energy consumption, we can help take responsibility for global warming.
Everywhere we look there is a way to save energy without affecting the quality of our lives. Whether it be a simple change of habit, or a forward-looking home improvement project, sustainable living is good not only for the planet, but also for our health and well-being. We all have the power to significantly reduce our footprint by making low-carbon choices.
In our inter-connected world, the lifestyle we lead, the energy we consume, the pollution we cause and the waste we discard can cause harm to our neighbours. Plastic bags thrown away here can be found in the stomachs of albatrosses in the Pacific. Carbon emissions from the west cause extreme weather, and sea-level rise, in Bangladesh and Malawi.
The impacts are inequitable – poor countries are hit hardest and earliest when it is the rich countries which are responsible for three-quarters of greenhouse gases currently in the atmosphere.
Some doomsayers say the damage is done, there is no going back. But the Christian response must be one of hope. Hope because God has created a world that he judges to be ‘very good’. Hope because, in spite of repeated human failings, He has promised never to give up on His creation. And hope because it is not too late for us to do our bit to bring about change.
We must identify solutions and take our responsibilities seriously by making changes in our own lives, encouraging others to make similar changes, exerting pressure on our decision-makers and by getting involved in campaigns like Stop Climate Chaos (see www.stopclimatechaos.ie).