April 2022: Earth Day and Renewing Creation
April is a month where we mark two important days to celebrate and appreciate God’s creation - Earth Day (April 22) and Good Seed Sunday (fourth Sunday of April). Both days are opportunities for us as Jesus followers to remember God’s love for creation and our connection to creation. These two days also follow our celebration of Easter.
When Jesus entered Jerusalem, people welcomed him warmly with shouts of joy and spreading palm leaves before him. The Pharisees criticized Jesus and his followers for noise disturbance, and Jesus answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.” (Luke 19:37-40, NRSV).
The Gospel is good news to all of creation, because all creation is valued and rejoices in their Creator God.
Sadly, human beings are actively destroying forests for monoculture farming, destroying fertile farmlands to build cities or in warfare, and polluting the atmosphere and the oceans due to our highly consumptive lifestyles. This causes creation to groan, its praise of God muffled by these destructive activities.
How can followers of Jesus respond?
We can be peacemakers by changing our economic structure and working for an accelerated transition away from oil and gas and other fossil fuels so that we could say yes to an economic structure that is more life-giving for all of creation. We can start with the many ready-made climate solutions.
In our cities, we can electrify the transportation system, retrofit buildings and set energy-efficient building codes, and change city planning approaches to maximize rail, low-carbon-fuel buses, bicycle lanes and make city centers more walkable. In Canada and the United States, greenhouse gas pollution from transportation comprise up to [x%] of the total greenhouse gas emissions by the same. That is an obvious place to start reducing oil and gas dependency. The price of renewable energy, combined with improved battery storage and technology makes electric vehicles a possible and realistic option, especially when we combine it with regulations that phase out the sale of internal combustion vehicles.
Changing our transportation system has many additional benefits, including improving air quality, and improving the health of children, the elderly, people with asthma and other respiratory conditions. In Canada, air pollution from internal combustion vehicles and burning other fossil fuels causes 15 000 premature deaths.
We can also restore nature by replanting forests with trees and plants that are native to those ecosystems, which improves their resilience. We can protect remaining old-growth forests from further logging because old-growth forests contain rich biodiversity and they capture carbon pollution more efficiently than unproven technologies.
We can protect our oceans by establishing marine protected areas and developing management plans that balance human use and access for fisheries and scientific exploration while prohibiting exploitation.
God’s creation already has in-built systems that sustain human life and flourishing, and we can be good stewards of God’s creation by protecting them. What we need is a renewed love for God’s creation, a renewed vision where we see ourselves living in community with God’s creation rather than separate from it, and the courage for bold climate action.
There are things we can all do to protect creation and support flourishing. You can read my previous articles for recommendations to live a more earth-friendly lifestyle. You can pray for the courage for bold climate action from our church, business, and government leaders. You can learn about local creation care issues and write or call your elected representatives to urge for stronger legislation to address climate pollution.
We do this as ambassadors of a different Kingdom - a Kingdom that sees creation as a gift that is to be nurtured and sustained, not one that sees the world as resources in a warehouse just for our use. When we do so, we join with creation in praising our risen and resurrected King, Jesus Christ.
LEARN:
1.Read “Saving Us” by Katherine Hayhoe and talk about climate change with your friends, family, colleagues, fellow students, and your life group. Dr. Hayhoe is a Christian and a climate scientist, and her book shows how everyone can get involved in climate action.
PRAY:
2. Visit Climate Intercessors’ website for prayer guides on how to pray about climate care and climate action: https://www.climateintercessors.org/
ACT:
Choose one of the Earth Day tips and commit to doing that action, by building a habit over 6 weeks. Pick a tip you can start with, and then pick another tip to carry out next! https://www.earthday.org/earth-day-tips/