Harborough Churches Together column: The climate crisis

‘The driest July in 190 years’. We have had the second hottest July on record, leading to drought and sadly for many of our farmers, much lower crop yields. With so much heat, solar power has been boosted, with record electricity generation. But this heat is causing terrible fires, in Spain and France and now in Greece. Even in our own country, our firefighters have been battling wildfires in South Wales. And still there is no sign that the rain is coming. England had just 10 per cent of its average July rainfall, while Wales has had just nine per cent of the average.

The real question is ‘What has caused this drought?’ Is it just the normal effect on the climate? Will it eventually go back to normal? The vast majority of scientists were telling us years ago that we human beings were causing the climate crisis by burning fossil fuels. This means like burning coal, oil, petrol and diesel. And they warned us that the climate crisis means that we would get extremes of weather. It is what we have at the moment – extremes of heat, burning up the grass everywhere. Later it could become incessant rain. So why don’t we simply stop burning fossil fuels? The problem is that there are vested interests, like Saudi Arabia, individuals or groups that have strong reasons to protect their money and power, and of course their oil.

‘State of the Climate’ report says, ‘We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster’. I am a Christian. But I do not believe that if we pray hard enough, then we can just sit back, and God will save us all! But I do believe that God gives us inner strength to work for what is right and good and true in our troubled world.

O God of boundless hope we need your Spirit’s power;

creation’s crisis deepens with each passing hour.

So make us strong, to speak your word

and make it heard and right what’s wrong.

I pray that there will be more and more people, especially people with power, who can save our planet. I pray that more and more of us will wake up to what is happening to our world. I believe that life will be very challenging in the years to come. It will mean living more sustainably, supporting and helping each other. We will need our faith in God! It will mean living more simply, that others may simply live.

The world is changing fast and warming year by year;

A tipping point is close, the time to act is near.

We’ll work and pray, as nature bleeds

we’ll sow the seeds of hope today.

(Taken from a Hymn written by Brian Davis A HYMN OF HOPE)