150,000 reasons

Why we should care about climate change
by Lucy AitkenRead

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few weeks ago at a Salvation Army meeting, we prayed for the brave people of Burma, the victims of human trafficking and the local fish. It was in a prayer time set aside for current issues, and in the previous week some bleach had spilt into the river, killing several tons of river life and damaging the local environment significantly. It didn’t feel obscure that we were praying for fish at the time, but in hindsight I realised this was probably the first occasion I had ever corporately prayed for anything non-human. This is strange, as being the chief stewards of the beautiful earth entrusted to us gives us reason to pray about the issues it involves. Praying for the restoration of this earth and for guidance in caring for it is as valid prayer as any. But… fish?

Over the last few years, theologians have articulated well why environmental justice must feature significantly on the Church agenda. The weight of Biblical passages that encourage us to care for creation have caused Tony Campolo to state that ‘rescuing the environment from impending disaster is biblically mandated’ and the Bishop of London to suggest that driving a fuel-guzzling car could be a sin. Yet still the Church fails to lead in areas of recycling, curbing consumerism and carbon emissions.

The fact is that some people are just not captured by the plight of polar bears, oceans and trees. In my husband’s student days, he lived in a Christian flat where debate flourished. Two flatmates were employed by the government to rescue New Zealand’s rapidly diminishing kakapo parrot population, and the other two were employed by Campus Crusade for Christ to rescue people from damnation/deprivation/other disaster. Neither party could fathom why the other would neglect such an important Christian theme.

That student flat possibly represents the Church well. There are those who have been captured by the ecological responsibility that is ours and others that, however hard they try, just can’t seem to divert any energy away from their passion for people.

This divided camp perhaps conveys that the theological conversation around the environment has failed. For climate change is about people. It is about the world’s most vulnerable people. If we are to follow one of God’s primary commands to love others as we do ourselves, we must care about this climate catastrophe.

Only a very small percentage of people in the developed world will ever be cast out of their home permanently, or face death, because of climate change. For those in developing nations, the figure is much higher. Climate change not only affects the world’s poor first, but worst. It is estimated that already 150,000 people die each year because of climate change. The faces of these dead will not be imprinted in my mind or that of my neighbours but in the bereaved of Africa and Asia. Out of this year’s summer bursts a stark picture of how different the impact of climate change is being experienced - flooding in the UK bought about the tragic deaths of nine people, but simultaneous flooding from the monsoons in India left 3,100 dead.

Climate change is more keenly experienced by those in poverty for many reasons: the temporary nature of their settlements, dependence upon nature for their employment, lack of access to disaster warnings, lack of access to health care and sanitation, lack of alternatives to staying in the disaster-prone area and awaiting the next one. The reasons are many and complex, but they leave us in no doubt that those in poverty do not have the resources required to cope with the consequences of the wealthy world’s behaviour.

Theological debate on environmental responsibility has built to a fascinating emporium of opinion; we are addressing deep questions of eschatology and going over ground which was long thought concluded in our search to place ecological concern within our faith. But we risk missing the moment for action because we are too busy formulating the reasons why we should take action.

When we recognise that climate change is about people, we realise that the theology is already established. The Salvation Army has long developed its biblical basis for meeting human need, tackling issues of injustice and fighting poverty. From Booth’s 3 S’s - soup, soap and salvation - through to today’s mission statement, The Salvation Army has always expressed a fundamental call to those experiencing poverty and injustice. We need to apply this understanding to this most recent issue of social justice, and we need to act now.

Recently in The Salvationist, the Chief of the Staff, Commissioner Robyn Dunster, declared ‘A Call to Action’ on global warming. The Chief said, ‘Of all people, we who are Christians have a mandate, an obligation to demonstrate our concern in intentional action. We can not leave it to action groups, political parties and governments.’ We are lagging far behind not just in our lack of recycled paper usage, but in being involved in the global solution-finding conversation. The Salvation Army is active in all the nations that climate change is ravaging, but we have left the conversation to the Greenpeaces and Al Gores of this world. Just this week, here in the UK, the government launched a huge ad campaign regarding our CO2 emissions. The roles have reversed, and rather than us leading the government on issues affecting those in poverty as we did in our glory days of employment bureaus and match factories, they are leading us.

The Salvation Army is firm in our theology of meeting human need, we have the grassroots work that enables us to be a global advocate, we have an Army of passionate and wise people as well as access to the imagination of the Creator of the world; we could be a formidable force on climate change. Time is well overripe for us to start caring about the 150,000.

Writer: Lucy AitkenRead has been working for the Salvation Army in New Zealand for the last few years but she recently moved back home to London, UK with her husband Tim. She is now doing post grad study in Social Policy and working on the activist team of Oxfam.

4 Comments to 150,000 reasons

1. Hear, hear!

   I do as a matter of fact think that salvationists should have a theology that has a place for fish (and all God’s creatures, great and small, not just humanity), but AitkenRead is right to say that we don’t need to await an amendment of our theology to amend our unneighborly ways.

   In addition to everything she says, I would suggest that we will also have to learn patience and steady resolve over the long term. Neither of these seem deeply ingrained in salvationists in my part of the world. We are largely products of a culture that wants measurable results and wants them quickly. Climate change doesn’t happen over night. If we are to be effective, we will definitely need people like AitkenRead who will ensure that the unglamorous work of crafting social policy and politicking to see that it is entrenched in the ways in which large bureaucracies and governments do business.
Jim Read on November 6th, 2007

2. Thank you, thank you, thank you! Christians should be at the forefront of environmental issues such as climate change. Who is better positioned to do so than children of the Creator? Grace to you and blessings on your work and influence.
Rochelle McAlister on November 8th, 2007

3. Lucy, it is wonderful to see such an excellently argued case for the environment from a Christian viewpoint. As someone who agrees wholeheartedly with the case you put, there’s little more to say except thank you!
Graeme Smith on November 8th, 2007

4. I most appreciate the fact that you point out the differences with which enviromental concequences are felt. Juxtaposing the developong world and our relatively meager expiriences can hopefully lend weight to the importance of these issues.

   Blessings.
Jonathan Taube on November 9th, 2007

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