There is something unusual about the Coronavirus crisis.
Globally governments seem to be putting the safety of people above the needs of the economy. Previously unimaginable system shifts are being swiftly implemented and practical ideas are being chosen over ideology. We are deliberately putting ourselves into economic recession to save lives.
I used to love flying, being able to travel and see different parts of the world, to explore, relax, and visit people (and sometimes I had to work too). I had a childish pleasure from accelerating and taking off. As a child I liked making Airfix model planes, and I can still remember feeling awed watching Concorde.
It has been a busy week for the Renew our World team at COP25. We have met many people over the past few days and have been networking with other organizations and authorities. These are valuable meetings to tell people about the Renew Our World campaign.
The Amazon fires drew attention from political leaders and church organizationsTo you, O Lord, I call. For fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness, and flame has burned all the trees of the field. – Joel 1:19
The last couple of days have been so interesting and exciting. This is my first time at COP and so far it's been a great experience.
One of the questions I had when we knew that COP was being moved to Madrid but the presidency was still from Chile, was how will this work?
Prior to March of this year my understanding of the both the wide and intense impact of climate change was elementary at best. Oh, I knew that climate change is eventually detrimental to the planet… what an understatement! I knew people die from heat waves, glaciers melt, oceans rise, and droughts occur, but that was about it. All that, of course is bad enough, but I finally learned that the impacts are even greater than this when I finally decided to dig deeper through a reading of David Wells-Wallace’s The Uninhabitable Earth. Life After Warming. That launched a whole new perspective and a lot more reading to attempt to “catch up.”
25 years. 25 years of talks. What action have we seen? Emissions are still rising, sharply in some cases. The action that countries have agreed to take (at some point in the abstract future) falls drastically short of what is urgently required. This year’s COP is aptly named: ‘Time for Action’. About time.
The climate crisis continues to cause devastating impacts in many places around the world. This is especially affecting the poorest and most vulnerable communities.
Climate change has become one of the greatest challenges for those of us who dream and fight for a society in which we can live a fulfilled life, free from pollution, violence and human rights abuse.
Coca Cola is the world's top plastic polluter, according to a new report from the global Break Free From Plastic coalition.
Coca-Cola’s own data shows that they produce 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging a year - the equivalent of 108 billion single-use bottles. That’s 200,000 bottles a minute.
You might have heard the old joke, ‘what goes up and up but never comes down?’
Well until recently it looked like the answer might be the amount of plastic that big companies push into poor communities. For many of those Renew Our World works with, this causes serious problems. If you have no regular bin collections, then you have little choice but to burn or dump the plastic, causing toxic fumes, carbon emissions, flooding and disease. We see the consequences every day.
The UN climate summit was a proper big diplomatic event, a long list of presidents and prime ministers along with the likes of Bill Gates, chief execs of various multinationals, and a message from the Pope. But it’s Greta Thunberg’s furious challenge to the leaders, and to all adults really, that I’ll remember longest. I love it when God uses the weak to shame the strong, and this 16 year old girl certainly did that.
