eco church: the why

The world needs our help. All of us, however small or large our own impact might be. It all adds up. it all counts.

On the fourth of November 2016, many of the worlds nations gathered in Paris. During the meeting, it was agreed by leaders of the world that we have to keep the rate of heat caused by global warming to below 1.5ºC. This is called the Paris Agreement, and the deadline to achieve this rate was set for 2030. We are at a crossroads in history. We change, or we risk suffering from an ongoing chain of effects beyond human control that is a threat to life and the whole planet. We are starting to see this climate emergency materialise all across the world even now and broadcast on the news. There is a growing trend of more frequent events such as flooding, droughts, forest fires and shifting seasons with warmer summers and colder winters.

Every day there are species of animal that are going extinct. Over the last hundred years across the world we have seen an exponential loss in the number of animals on our planet, and number of species of animals. Climate change has sped up the extinction rate of animals a thousand times over. This may seem abstract, but a quick internet search will tell you what species have disappeared from your own local area. This is the result of decades of deforestation, plastic waste, unchecked mining and drilling for natural resources including coal and oil, and greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere all around the world in pursuit of wealth and the furtherment of human progress. Up until recent years, we didn’t understand the full cost. In many ways we are still learning. It’s difficult sometimes to see what impact this might have on our day-to-day lives. One big example is the number of insects has plummeted. Your initial response might be ‘good, yuck!‘ However, insects are an essential part of the whole food chain, and essential for pollinating the plants of all of the fruit that we eat, and all of the crops that are grown. Without insects we run out of food.

It is staggering to believe that the 21st century has the most scientificly and technologically advanced generation in human history, and yet we are the ones destroying the only home we have. In a way, it is one of the easiest and at the same time one of the hardest crisis’s humanity has ever faced. It is the easiest becuase we know exactly what to do to fix our world. The hardest because we live in a society where we have placed more value on individual status, fame, money and power over and above the earth that our society lives on. We need collaboration and trust between nations across the world that have previously known conflict and war. To act costs. To act will cause unknowable shifts to our economy and society.

We are learning that how we go about our normal day-to-day lives can have a positive or a negative impact on the world around us. We have to make a difference. We have to lay the foundations despite not knowing what the result will look like. Everything counts. Every action; from going to a protest, petitioning your local MP, to using green energy in your home, recycling your milk bottle and buying less plastic. Everybody. There are billions of people on earth. What would it look like if a billion people acknowledged that the earth is in trouble and decided to help. The solution then? Don’t do it alone. Tell people; Family, Friends, Colleagues, the people on your street. Absolutely everyone.

Our world is breaking. But it’s not broken yet. We have a God given mandate to be good stewards of this earth. We need to recognise our responsibility for the sake of the everyone living today, and our future generations.

The All Saints eco church group has been set up in recognition of this calling on our community so that we can do our small part in the wider effort to save our world from irrevocable harm.