It was
heartening to see the large number of responses to the letter, “ClimateAlarmism" in Insights.
Several of the respondents
included references for people wanting to investigate further. Another great one is the sceptical science
site, started by John Cook (a Christian), which has
amongst other things an excellent list of climate myths and responses, at
basic, intermediate and advanced levels.
Bob Ross is
right in that the church has put a lot of resources into responding to the consequences
of Climate Change on humans, but this hasn’t been the church’s sole focus. We recently surveyed the Uniting Church’s engagement
in ecological issues across the country from 2000-2014.
For more than
a decade, the Uniting Church has stood in solidarity with churches in the
Pacific and other international partner churches, who have asked us to support
their call for a stronger global response to climate change. We have
repeatedly advocated to our government to set greenhouse gas reduction targets
of the order needed avoid catastrophic climate change, to put in place policies
that shift us away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy, and to
support the people on the frontlines of climate change. It is true that
the church has been better at advocating for government action than it has been
at implementing its own policies.
UnitingWorld
has been calling the church to stand in solidarity with Pacific Islanders
calling for urgent climate action. UnitingEarth was involved in the much
increased church engagement in the recent People’s Climate March.
Uniting Church members were involved in the
recent Newcastle #BreakFree2016 actions.
The NSW/ACT
Synod was one of the first organisations to divest from the fossil fuelindustry, followed by other
Synods and Assembly. Admittedly, the
response is patchy. For example, Synod has
never adequately actioned our own resolutions on carbon emission reduction from
2008. We plan to revisit and update these with
Uniting Resources in 2017.
There is
still much to do. Although nearly half of UCA congregations indicated
that they had engaged in environmentally-themed worship in the last NCLS, and
this is double the proportion of non-UCA congregations, only 25% had taken
steps to reduce their energy consumption, and 15% had participated in other
activities.
Despite these
low percentages, Uniting Church congregations are significantly more engaged
than other denominations, and we remain optimistic that our engagement is
accelerating, so that we are on track to become the faith community to which
people who are passionate or anxious about our ecological future can turn as
they explore the spiritual and faith dimensions of their relationship with the
rest of creation.
Everyone
reading this can us travel further down the track, by following up our Synod’s
divestment campaign with specific congregational and personal action. We are asking people to switch to those power
providers who did not seek to undermine Australia’s renewable energy targets,
and to make a noise whilst doing so. As
part of this year’s Season of Creation , please join us in
action to support renewable energy.
Jason John and
Miriam Pepper, Uniting Earth NSW/ACT
