Climate crisis faith in the environment

Conference review

Climate awareness should become an everyday habit, part of our personal belief system, so that we automatically do what is right for the environment without even having to think about it. That was the answer our international Zoom webinar gave to the question posed by a young climate activist: ‘Why are you burning our future?’

The conference reviewed an unexplored area - nature and the environment from the perspectives of different religious faiths and non-religious belief systems. The participants were from the United Kingdom, the United States, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Helen Nellis, HM Lord Lieutenant of Bedfordshire and Rachel Hopkins, MP for Luton South, were unable to attend personally but their messages of support were read out.

The discussion was opened by Abu Shama, with a mystical interpretation of the evolution of our planet and the impact of the climate crisis from his book, The blue moon: why is the moon so blue?, accompanied by some spectacular images from it. Many participants commented that his book should be available in schools.

The speakers approached the subject from the perspective of their particular faiths. Sister Marie Hayes was unable to attend but submitted a reflection on Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’, on the care of our common home. 

 It was striking that all faith and belief systems shared a spiritual vision of humanity’s relationship with the environment and put particular emphasis on the importance of individual action. We have been given custodianship of the planet. We are responsible for ourselves and the world around us. This can give us strength when we feel overwhelmed by the scale of the climate crisis and the lack of political will to resolve it. Whatever happens at the COP26 Conference in Glasgow at the end of this month, we can have faith that our personal decisions at a local level do make a difference – decisions about our heating, our lighting, our shopping, our diet, our cars, our plants and trees,  and everything else.  

Actions taken by individuals add up. A mass movement for change is composed of innumerable individual actions and the human spirit has the power to put matters right when mistakes have been made. We have had a massive negative impact on the environment. We can and will turn that into a massive positive impact.