Climate change: the end of the world?

At every Mass we praise God as we say: “Heaven and earth are full of your glory.” This month we were presented with conclusive evidence showing just how far humanity has gone in violating God’s glory on earth by our destructive lifestyle.

The authoritative report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is alarming, though not very surprising. It confirms what environmentalists have long argued: that human activity is responsible for climate change, especially through the burning of fossil fuels, and that climate change is likely to have a catastrophic effect around the globe within the next century.

Calamities are likely to include an increase in destructive meteorological phenomena such as hurricanes, heatwaves, droughts and severe flooding. Some of these are already manifesting themselves. Disasters such as the Boxing Day 2005 tsunami in Asia will become more common. Inevitably, it is the world’s poor and vulnerable whose suffering will be worst.

The IPCC is going to issue further reports this year detailing exactly what devastation we may expect. Clearly the time for irresolution has passed.

The threat has been acknowledged even by some of those most obstinate in their abuse of God’s creation. US President George W Bush, in his State of the Nation address last month, confessed that “America is addicted to oil”, and called for alternative energy sources. When the oil lobby’s president—who refused to sign the already inadequate Kyoto Protocol because doing so was economically unpropitious—acknowledges the deleterious effects of fossil fuel consumption, then the ecological crisis must be acute indeed.

How harsh will history judge those who systematically denigrated environmentalists as alarmist “bunnyhuggers”, and continued in their polluting ways?

Some scientists say that it is too late to avert a cataclysm. According to them, the looming catastrophe can be only alleviated. Others suggest that determined action now can significantly reduce the scale of climate change. Either way, we are facing a crisis of hitherto unknown proportions—and this requires a response of hitherto unknown proportions. If we are going to take the threat to our future generations and to God’s creation seriously, our lifestyles and consumerist culture must change. The world cannot remain complacent.

The World Council of Churches in a statement titled “Ecumenical Earth” this month phrased the challenge forcefully: “The urgency of the threat of climate change requires our generation to take immediate action and go beyond simple declarations and statements. New alternative models of life are called for.”

Pope John Paul II called for such a paradigm shift 16 years ago in his encyclical Centesimus annus, even before the effect of air pollution on the ozone layer was widely known. Referring to the encyclical, the Compendium Of The Social Doctrine Of The Church notes that “the environment is one of those goods that cannot be adequately safeguarded or promoted by market forces.” Thus the onus is on governments and society to place the ecological obligation before profit motives, and to apply pressure on big business accordingly.

Such responsibility also rests with the individual as a consumer. We must address the ecological crisis by altering our daily routine and choices. In this, we will need conscientisation and guidance, in practical and ethical terms. We also need encouragement that concerted efforts are being made internationally to reduce the impact of climate change, and that our contribution to it is going to make a difference.

In May, the Vatican will convene a high-powered conference on climate change. Apart from highlighting pertinent issues, this will be an overdue opportunity for the Church to evolve its theology of the environment in order to render a form of global ethical leadership which politicians cannot be trusted to provide.