Referring to your second point: ‘Doing hard things with great hope’. Is that hope secular or spiritual? Most people are still in the place where if only we install solar panels, or drive EVs, or < fill in the blank with your favorite response here > then we can maintain our first-world lifestyles.
There are two issues to consider.
1. Climate change is not a problem, it is a predicament. Problems have solutions, and, when we apply the solution, the problem goes away. Predicaments, however, do not have a solution. All we can do in response is ‘Accept and Adapt’.
2. Climate change is not the core problem/predicament. It is a symptom of the larger topic of Overshoot, which includes peak resources, ever-decreasing Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI) and biosphere destruction.
How is the church to provide leadership in this context?
Great questions, Ian. The spiritual and secular are intertwined for me. I hope that great spiritual depth that creates the strength to love will create change in the secular and material realm. But much like the ending of "Don't Look Up," I realize that my hope for the world may not work out, but I'm going to live directed toward love and justice anyway.
As you are making clear with your questions, I don't see how we deal with the changing climate without lifestyle, attitude and relational changes with creation. Putting solar panels on the church roof is not the final answer. Much like COVID showed us the flaws in every system, climate change is doing the same thing. Economic inequality, health care accessibility, racism and immigration issues, every political issue is made worse due to climate change. As you say, that is a predicament. Thanks for the questions. I will keep pondering.
Good post ― indeed, sacrifice is called for.
Referring to your second point: ‘Doing hard things with great hope’. Is that hope secular or spiritual? Most people are still in the place where if only we install solar panels, or drive EVs, or < fill in the blank with your favorite response here > then we can maintain our first-world lifestyles.
There are two issues to consider.
1. Climate change is not a problem, it is a predicament. Problems have solutions, and, when we apply the solution, the problem goes away. Predicaments, however, do not have a solution. All we can do in response is ‘Accept and Adapt’.
2. Climate change is not the core problem/predicament. It is a symptom of the larger topic of Overshoot, which includes peak resources, ever-decreasing Energy Returned on Energy Invested (ERoEI) and biosphere destruction.
How is the church to provide leadership in this context?
Great questions, Ian. The spiritual and secular are intertwined for me. I hope that great spiritual depth that creates the strength to love will create change in the secular and material realm. But much like the ending of "Don't Look Up," I realize that my hope for the world may not work out, but I'm going to live directed toward love and justice anyway.
As you are making clear with your questions, I don't see how we deal with the changing climate without lifestyle, attitude and relational changes with creation. Putting solar panels on the church roof is not the final answer. Much like COVID showed us the flaws in every system, climate change is doing the same thing. Economic inequality, health care accessibility, racism and immigration issues, every political issue is made worse due to climate change. As you say, that is a predicament. Thanks for the questions. I will keep pondering.