Recently I watched Al Gore’s film – “An Inconvenient Truth” and I thought it was fantastic. I certainly think that the world would be a very different place if he had been the president. But that is another story.
The film deals with the issue of climate change and how we are affecting our planet – God’s planet, actually – by the way we are living.
Last week, however, I watched some of a channel 4 documentary – “The Great Climate Change Swindle”. Now, that raised some questions! Basically the thesis is that we are not affecting climate change but that the – indisputable changing that are taking place are due to the sun and have happened before and will happen again and that it is all part of a cycle. I would normally ignore documentaries such as this because they often seem to be sponsored by ESSO or the equivalent. However, the scientists involved in the program had a great deal of credibility – not least the one who was one of the top bods at Friends of the Earth!
But, here is the thing. How do we respond as followers of Jesus?
According to the theory of climate change affected by human activity, those who will suffer will be the poorest people across the world. According to those who argue that climate change is caused by the sun, we have to stop using up the world’s resources because those who suffer are the poorest people across the world.
So, what would Jesus do?
Option 1 – (Climate change option) Should I stop wasting resources and living a lifestyle that will condemn the poorest people to even more poverty and eventually destroy the planet?
or
Option 2 – (Not climate change option) Should I stop wasting resources and living a llifestyle that will condemn the poorest people to poverty but will not eventually destroy the planet?
or
Option 3 –Should I carry on wasting the world’s resources and living a lifestyle that will condemn the poorest people to even more poverty because I really like being comfortable and having everything that I want when I want it and I am fundamentally selfish?
Tough choice.
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