after the earthquake the fire, after the fire the still small voice .........

The picture, like every picture, tells a story.

A fifteen year old girl sitting alone outside the Swedish Parliament Building with a placard saying 'school strike for climate change'

Greta Thunberg has not only unleashed a powerful desire for action amongst young people across the world in order to address the existential crisis of climate change which the world faces but she has risen to challenge world leaders to address the crisis facing us as human activity continues to degrade the planet we depend on for life.

On Friday the 20th September I attended a meeting in Hexham on the subject of climate change organised by the Hexham Council of Churches. A Christian response to climate change aimed at responding with faith, hope and action.

Friday was also the day when the world or indeed a large part of the world including here in the  North East went on strike to protest the need for more action on the impact of human activity on the climate and a sustainable future for humankind.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu has described it, climate change will bring about, 'a catastrophe that will exacerbate human suffering to a magnitude that perhaps the world has not seen yet.

Climate change is on the worlds pulse and is on many individual and public agendas. The Corbridge Deanery Synod will be exploring christian responses to climate change at its meeting  in November.

Christian Aid has identified a number motivations for churches being concerned about, and acting in response to climate change.

 We believe that God is a Creator, a Saviour and a Sustainer. Three persons one God. Our responsibility for the environment arises out of our believing this to be true.

 God's concerns as we read in scripture are for the whole created order not just for human beings but for all those with whom we share the planet as well as for the planet itself.

 God is  not just concerned with us in the rich western world and our decisions must be taken in solidarity with other regions.

 Our own high quality of life with its prosperity and waste of resources needs urgently to be reviewed.

 The Jesus with who we enter into communion with each week promises us life in all its fullness but that does not mean material excess.

 In this parish we recycle using the recycling scheme operated by the County Council, the Parish Hall hosts a Bottle Bank, in order that glass can be recycled.

 Much as we might like to we can protest but not necessarily change the way that Global Capital operates indiscriminately, often outwith the law, in order to pursue profit above social justice but we do have the ways and means to take some practical steps to lessen our own impact on climate change and its effects, by for e.g.:

 Reducing: e.g. Energy consumption, the recommendation is 5% a year.
Refusing: e.g. Refusing where possible to use single use plastics or paper products made from virgin paper.
Reusing: e.g. Where possible not using disposable plates and cups.
Recycling: e.g. Whatever is possible, from clothes via charity shops, to printer cartridges or other goods

As the Christian Aid Report says:
The promise of the gospel is of hope and healing. And the ministry of Jesus shows us that this is not some kind of pious hope, but a very real offer of change for the better. Nor is it a promise for the distant future, for the afterlife: as the healing miracles demonstrate, it is a promise for the here and now.So it is important that we understand the vision of ‘a new heaven and a new earth’ in Revelation 21 as a promise for our time and for future generations. Just as the resurrection body of Jesus bore the marks of suffering, so our new earth will be scarred by irreversible damage: dried-up rivers, new expanses of desert, areas rendered uninhabitable by extreme heat.Yet we have the potential for healing. We can mend our relationship with the natural world by drastically reducing our emissions of carbon dioxide. We have it in our power to say ‘this far and no further’. The challenge is to find the will to respond, as our theology shows us we must.

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