As fires burned across NSW and Queensland, people from diverse faith traditions considered their role in the climate crisis at the inaugural national conference of the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change (ARRCC). Held on November 8-10 in Canberra, the conference theme was “Faith in Action: a religious response to the climate emergency”.
Professor Lesley Hughes of the Climate Council presented the science behind describing the current situation as an “emergency”. She also highlighted the fact that Australian emissions have been rising since the carbon pricing legislation was scrapped by the Abbott government. The current Coalition government is dismissive of the findings of the IPCC 1.5 Degree report, paving the way for new coal and gas mining regardless of IPCC warnings that this is incompatible with a safe climate.
ARRCC President, Thea Ormerod, said: “Political leaders who say that concerned citizens are ‘lunatic city-based greenies’ fail to acknowledge the worrying, basic facts that global average temperatures are rising and seas are acidifying.
“People in the bush are also being robbed of a viable future by government support for coal and gas exports and unsustainable models of agriculture.”
During the conference, Muslims, Christians of various denominations, Buddhists, ordained and lay participants were inspired by Aboriginal Australians such as Bruce Shillingsworth and Murrawah Johnson speaking about their passion for protecting country.
They identified making climate-conserving lifestyle changes, supporting the School Climate Strikers, putting more signs out the front of places of worship, divestment from fossil fuels and even nonviolent civil resistance as some ways forward.
School Climate Striker and ACT Young Environmentalist of the Year 2019, Aoibhinn Crimmins, said acting on the climate crisis was urgent: “We must jump on that opportunity like our lives depend on it because they truly do and use it as a chance to start from scratch and create a world that we want to live in, together.”
_______________
