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Appeal for dialogue on the impact of climate change
Church in the Bay - Media Release in the Herald: 10 Feb 2020
Source: TCN / Rev Dr Jacob Freemantle
Date Added: 2020-02-10
Category: General News, Issues - General, Issues - Environment,
Date Added: 2020-02-10
Category: General News, Issues - General, Issues - Environment,
Global warming is affecting humanity and nature at an unprecedented catastrophic level.
Hydrometeorological catastrophes such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods caused by climate change have already started to show in weather patterns. We are experiencing extreme heat, extra violent thunder storms, and drought.
There are direct effects of this extreme weather on agricultural and manufacturing production.
These catastrophes disproportionally affect the poor and vulnerable.
Unless all of us – church leaders, scientists, engineers, politicians and business professionals work together to craft solutions, we will die.
When the dams are running dry, it is not a political issue, but an invitation similar to that once made by Prophet Isaiah, “Come now, and let us reason together….though your sins be as scarlet…”
We must come together, not to point fingers or to indulge in monotonous blaming rhetoric, but with a humility of seeking to contribute for the sake of saving all we can, albeit from our small corner of the world.
As John Glenn, perfectly puts it, “To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way human being was meant to operate.”
Similarly, Barack Obama in a recent speech calling for urgent response on climate change, said, “for all the challenges we face, this is the one that will define the contours of this century more dramatically perhaps than others. No nation, whether it’s large or small will be immune from the impacts of climate change.”
We must therefore have the prayerful dialogue, so as to unleash the collective power of effective reasoning – or experience the disastrous impacts of climate change in action.
Let’s show that we care for the creation, not only as an instruction from God, but just for the sake of our lives and preservation of what we have so that generations after us will find something to thank us for.
Though contemporary times have taken us into an irreversible technological space, we can play our stewardship role in the restoration of the soul of this depleted environment.
We can discuss and implement ways of combating hunger through the introduction of healthy and nutritious drought-resistant crops, and utilising our small gardens for vegetables rather than depending on imported food produce.
We can do this as a revolution that will serve to curb the natural holocaust threatening humanity.
Sir Robert Watson, the chair of a massive multinational research effort to survey the impact of human development on national world, once said that we human beings are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods for security, health and quality of life worldwide.
Also, comprehensive analysis by scientists assessing the changes in global biodiversity have found that: there are currently a million species that are threatened with extinction; more than one third of world’s land surface and 75% of all fresh water resources are devoted to crop or livestock production; that 60 billion tons of renewable and non-renewable resources are extracted globally every year; that land degradation has reduced the productivity of global land surface area by 23% and roughly $577 billion worth of crops are at risk of floods and hurricanes because of the loss of coastal habitats.
We already know that the rising sea levels and desertification in the past decades are escalating the effects we have of warming.
Forecasters warn that, unless we meet as leaders of societies all walks of life, the consequences will be severe and complex.
Economies will collapse, crops will fail, animals and plants will go extinct, there will be additional health risks, and there will be extreme weather in the form of floods and droughts.
As we are seeing in Australia and the Amazon jungle, there will be more frequent wildfires, which in addition to putting people in danger and killing wildlife, add more pollution to the air.
Closer to home, as we drive along valleys and mountains, we can see the devastation caused by sheer human carelessness of veld fires, the devastation from erosion, and the impact of drought.
We do need to be scientists to see this destruction of our ecosystem.
We are already experiencing unprecedented starvation, hunger and diseases of immeasurable magnitude due to climate change – and conditions are set to get worse, not better.
Then it will not help to demonstrate and to toyi-toyi and burn tyres. The government will not have the resources to provide food and water for all.
The hour and time to act by all of us is now. Political leaders can only do so much.
The extent of this catastrophe of climate change demands all people, in churches, societies, organisations, and public forums to fully engage with ways of preserving our resources.
For example, it is not just about obeying municipal authorities to conserve water, and to look after our natural vegetation etc. but it is about awareness that what we have as God-given resources which, if not preserved, will not be there tomorrow for us and for generations to come.
Sound reasoning must dictate that conservation of our natural resources and ecosystem is for our common heritage and our response to depleting thereof requires our urgent response for God’s sake and ours.
Rev Dr Jacob Freemantle
Bishop of Grahamstown Synod in The Methodist Church of Southern Africa.
Hydrometeorological catastrophes such as hurricanes, tornadoes and floods caused by climate change have already started to show in weather patterns. We are experiencing extreme heat, extra violent thunder storms, and drought.
There are direct effects of this extreme weather on agricultural and manufacturing production.
These catastrophes disproportionally affect the poor and vulnerable.
Unless all of us – church leaders, scientists, engineers, politicians and business professionals work together to craft solutions, we will die.
When the dams are running dry, it is not a political issue, but an invitation similar to that once made by Prophet Isaiah, “Come now, and let us reason together….though your sins be as scarlet…”
We must come together, not to point fingers or to indulge in monotonous blaming rhetoric, but with a humility of seeking to contribute for the sake of saving all we can, albeit from our small corner of the world.
As John Glenn, perfectly puts it, “To sit back and let fate play its hand out and never influence it is not the way human being was meant to operate.”
Similarly, Barack Obama in a recent speech calling for urgent response on climate change, said, “for all the challenges we face, this is the one that will define the contours of this century more dramatically perhaps than others. No nation, whether it’s large or small will be immune from the impacts of climate change.”
We must therefore have the prayerful dialogue, so as to unleash the collective power of effective reasoning – or experience the disastrous impacts of climate change in action.
Let’s show that we care for the creation, not only as an instruction from God, but just for the sake of our lives and preservation of what we have so that generations after us will find something to thank us for.
Though contemporary times have taken us into an irreversible technological space, we can play our stewardship role in the restoration of the soul of this depleted environment.
We can discuss and implement ways of combating hunger through the introduction of healthy and nutritious drought-resistant crops, and utilising our small gardens for vegetables rather than depending on imported food produce.
We can do this as a revolution that will serve to curb the natural holocaust threatening humanity.
Sir Robert Watson, the chair of a massive multinational research effort to survey the impact of human development on national world, once said that we human beings are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods for security, health and quality of life worldwide.
Also, comprehensive analysis by scientists assessing the changes in global biodiversity have found that: there are currently a million species that are threatened with extinction; more than one third of world’s land surface and 75% of all fresh water resources are devoted to crop or livestock production; that 60 billion tons of renewable and non-renewable resources are extracted globally every year; that land degradation has reduced the productivity of global land surface area by 23% and roughly $577 billion worth of crops are at risk of floods and hurricanes because of the loss of coastal habitats.
We already know that the rising sea levels and desertification in the past decades are escalating the effects we have of warming.
Forecasters warn that, unless we meet as leaders of societies all walks of life, the consequences will be severe and complex.
Economies will collapse, crops will fail, animals and plants will go extinct, there will be additional health risks, and there will be extreme weather in the form of floods and droughts.
As we are seeing in Australia and the Amazon jungle, there will be more frequent wildfires, which in addition to putting people in danger and killing wildlife, add more pollution to the air.
Closer to home, as we drive along valleys and mountains, we can see the devastation caused by sheer human carelessness of veld fires, the devastation from erosion, and the impact of drought.
We do need to be scientists to see this destruction of our ecosystem.
We are already experiencing unprecedented starvation, hunger and diseases of immeasurable magnitude due to climate change – and conditions are set to get worse, not better.
Then it will not help to demonstrate and to toyi-toyi and burn tyres. The government will not have the resources to provide food and water for all.
The hour and time to act by all of us is now. Political leaders can only do so much.
The extent of this catastrophe of climate change demands all people, in churches, societies, organisations, and public forums to fully engage with ways of preserving our resources.
For example, it is not just about obeying municipal authorities to conserve water, and to look after our natural vegetation etc. but it is about awareness that what we have as God-given resources which, if not preserved, will not be there tomorrow for us and for generations to come.
Sound reasoning must dictate that conservation of our natural resources and ecosystem is for our common heritage and our response to depleting thereof requires our urgent response for God’s sake and ours.
Rev Dr Jacob Freemantle
Bishop of Grahamstown Synod in The Methodist Church of Southern Africa.
Source: TCN / Rev Dr Jacob Freemantle
Date Added: 2020-02-10
Category: General News, Issues - General, Issues - Environment,
Back to News IndexDate Added: 2020-02-10
Category: General News, Issues - General, Issues - Environment,
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