Finding God in Climate Destruction

A recent estimate calculates that some 300.000 people die every year as a result of climate change. This figure underlines the fact that climate change is not something which might possibly happen in a vague and distant future. Drought and the spread of disease in Africa, floods in Asia, mudslides in South America, extremely hot summers and bitterly cold winters in Europe, all remind us that destructive climate change is happening now.

But on a global scale climate change is not a sudden and apocalyptic event like in the movies; rather a slow piecemeal process.

Which is why we are often sceptical about it; we are like the frog in the slowly heating pot of water, unaware of the danger of a gradual, imperceptible increase in temperature. But even if the overall process is drawn-out and widely-spread, when it strikes a particular locality, it can come with sudden, terrifying and destructive force in the shape of a Caribbean hurricane or an Australian bushfire.

What do we make of this phenomenon as we stand before God? It may be helpful to see our God as a parent. The divine parent brings forth children, as human parents do, knowing full well that even though they are to some extent 'in their own image and likeness', nonetheless these kids will be themselves and therefore inevitably cause them grief. They will behave badly as babes; as adolescents they will rebel; as adults they might choose a completely different set of values to their mother and father. However the good parent's love, like God's, will not waver through all this.

Perhaps the most difficult thing for parents is when their children's behaviour becomes self-destructive – drugs, bad company and other unwise choices. Similarly for us with regard to the environment. It seems that we have chosen a consumerist development path which, while promising a better life for a minority, ultimately creates toxic side effects for all and particularly the poor.

So God, who suffers with us in this crisis, speaks words of wisdom to us in the condition of the cosmos.

This caring parent reminds us that because of our unparalleled power, ecological stewardship is required of us. As caretakers of this planet we are responsible not just to ourselves, but to our fellow creatures, from the largest whales or redwoods to the most microscopic organisms. Here the Catholic concept of the common good applies not just to humanity, but to all of creation. The native American leader, Chief Seattle put it thus: 'What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, man would die from a great loneliness of the spirit. For whatever happens to the beasts, soon happens to man. All things are connected.'

God who made creation good and who demonstrated this in the incarnation calls upon us to rise to the spiritual challenge contained in this crisis. This is not an airy fairy task; rather very down to earth. It means that everything we do is done with the earth in mind – what electrical goods to buy, choices about travel, about diet, how much we should work and the size and design of our houses.

In the climate crisis God calls us to a radical reassessment of our spiritual values and a fresh understanding of the very meaning of our lives as human beings.