Oceans have been more extensively covered in this
report than it previous reports. It
warns that rising seas will displace hundreds of millions of people living in
coastal areas around the world by 2100 AD unless steps are taken to prevent it. Many infants now alive will hopefully still
be alive by 2100 AD. So we can see how
urgently the IPCC sees the problem. If
temperatures continue to rise and glaciers continue to shrink the consequences
will be horrific. Drought and famine
would be triggered in some areas and flooding in others. There would be mass extinction of land and
sea species as the seas warm and turn more acidic.
We are being warned that time is running out and
proportionate action must be taken. The
IPCC sees is as ‘our obligation and our duty to inform the world of the prospects
and risks that lie ahead.’ It tells us
that warming of the climate system is ‘unequivocal’ and climate changes are
‘unprecedented.’ ‘The atmosphere and
ocean have warmed, the amounts of snow and ice have diminished, sea level has
risen and the concentrations of greenhouse gases have increased’ the Report
says. ‘Over the last two decades the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have
been losing mass, glaciers have continued to shrink almost world-wide and
Arctic sea ice and Northern Hemisphere spring snow cover have continued to
decrease in extent. The rate of sea level rise since the mid-19th
century has been larger than the mean rate during the previous two
millennia.’ It says that ‘atmospheric
concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide have increased to
levels unprecedented in at least 800,000 years.’
When the Church celebrated the inauguration of Pope
Francis on the Feast of St Joseph, March 19th last year, a few days
after his election the Pope stressed in his homily that each of us is called to
be a protector, just as St Joseph was called to be a protector: ‘Joseph is a
protector because he is able to hear God’s voice and be guided by his
will. For this reason he is all the more
sensitive to the persons entrusted to his safekeeping. He can look at things realistically, he is in
touch with his surroundings, he can make truly wise decisions. In him, dear friends, we learn how to respond
to God’s call, readily and willingly,....Let us protect
Christ in our lives, so that we can protect others, so that we can protect
creation! The vocation of being a
“protector”, however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it
also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means
protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of
Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting
each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. It
means protecting people, showing loving concern for each and every person,
especially children, the elderly, those in need, who are often the last we
think about. It means caring for one another in our families: husbands and
wives first protect one another, and then, as parents, they care for their
children, and children themselves, in time, protect their parents. It means
building sincere friendships in which we protect one another in trust, respect,
and goodness. In the end, everything has been entrusted to our protection, and
all of us are responsible for it. Be protectors of God’s gifts! Whenever human
beings fail to live up to this responsibility, whenever we fail to care for
creation and for our brothers and sisters, the way is opened to destruction and
hearts are hardened.’
Please, I would like to ask all those who
have positions of responsibility in economic, political and social life and all
men and women of goodwill let us be ‘protectors of creation, protectors of
God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the
environment.’ One of the reasons why we
have not rushed into a decision on a new heating system for the church and the
Barn is the realisation that indeed we are called to be protectors of the
environment. We have to explore the feasibility
of using forms of energy that respect the environment and the prospects of
those who are coming after us on this earth
