Conservation and Faith

     Throughout the week, there were a variety of conferences that evolved around the topics of hope for international conservation through (FBOs) Faith Based Organizations. A Rocha, a Christian nature  conservation organization ones one of the main FBOs that presented on their progress over the last decade or so. Organizations such as this strive to pursue scientific knowledge with the wisdom we obtain through faith, which I very much connect with.
     Katherine Hayhoe, a distinguished scientist from Texas, gave a lecture on why facts aren't enough, when talking to skeptics about climate change. Our arguments for protecting the earth should be based on moral and religious values, not just the cold hard facts. Her message is very well portrayed in recent documentary titled Years of Living Dangerously. "Climate change exasperates many risks and there are many connections between poverty and climate change. Through it all, God gives us the responsibility to act."
                                 2 Timothy 1:7 - How we should respond
"Only when our clever brain and our human heart work together can we achieve our full potential."
     -Jane Goodall
     A Bishop from Manila, the secretary general of the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), talked about how the vast majority of climate activism musty come from religious communities, since it is the cornerstone values of such organizations that call for immediate action. He calls for a climate justice, a moral dimension of climate change that goes beyond just prayer. "If we destroy creation, it will destroy us" (Pope Fancis). Because "churches are the harvester of hope," the Bishop from Manila calls for a "common command voice of the religions to solve this global issue." There is a need for more government, NGO, and FBO involvement to provide relief assistance to the poorest of the planet, especially in the face of climate change.
                              Colossians 1:16
     Caroline Pomeroy, the director for Climate Stewards for Tomorrow Today, has always had a passion to help Christians get individually involved with caring for creation. The question is often asked, does carbon offsets=modern papal indulgences? With Caroline's company, she does all she can to fight this stigma. Their vision is to "Reduce what you can, and offset the rest." One of their many programs is planting trees in Ghana as a educational tool for young kids in school and to help give local farmers more income. Through all their programs, they teach local indigenous people how to work with outside FBOs and NGOs to increase their resilience to the future impacts of climate change.
      One of the Co-directors from A Rocha, a priest form the UK, also spoke on impacting papers that covered the above mentioned topics, such as the Death of Environmentalism. This paper focuses on the idea that religion is still relevant in the context of climate change and has a vast amount of material and human resources to solve the issue. This along with others, like the 1986 Assisi Declarations call for faith groups getting active to combat climate change. This is largely because churches own huge areas of land that are considered ecological refuges because they are sacred hot spots and the churches around the world also are major investor when it comes to climate change. There is also a call for re-aligned vocation of many churches from both Ego/Eco-centric to something more in the middle. We need a "new theocentric view, one of knowing our place in caring and preserving. in this way, humans are the ultimate keystone species. Wholism (oikos) must be adopted, we must know that we are part of a biggetr picture and find rootedness in our own places."
Perdeep Singh Rai- "Any tree without roots will cause damage, it is the same for a child."
                            Psalm 104:10-31 the biodiversity Psalm/the interdependent Psalm
                            Psalm 24:1 creation care




MY NOTES
    

Look at climate stewards online and climate caretakers online / citizen’s climate lobby  Get church leaders to think about the issue more to get their church’s involved. In their carbon offsetting-they have met accreditation standard to make the effort worth while. Built in insurance buffers as well to ensure a confidence of integrity. Start with the values and then tie in the science later to convince others about climate change. Reason why we all care comes from the same place, and we can approach the problem from very unique backgrounds. All about sacrifice for what we love, and showing it publically to inspire hope. Need to convey very personal stories/prophetic action-what made them do that.Do the action and share the stories to foster courage for change