climate

Mitchell Atencio 7-28-2023

An LED lightbulb on a pink background. Michał Turkiewicz via Unsplash. 

Around 2017, Hamline Church United Methodist, in St. Paul, Minn. contracted an energy audit for its nearly 100-year-old building in the hopes of learning how their building might save energy and reduce emissions. Diane Krueger, a lay leader of the church’s “EarthKeepers” team, said contractors recommended the church insulate their heating pipes and change many of their lightbulbs to LEDs.

In the last century, Southern California has warmed by three degrees. The region is increasingly vulnerable to water scarcity, wildfires and coastal erosion. Small changes like those on St. Mary’s campus are an integral part of the wider Episcopal Church’s response to climate change. Photo: Courtesy of St. Mary’s

Over the past two years, St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, which sits on a hill four blocks away from the Pacific Ocean in Laguna Beach, Calif., has overhauled its property, adding drought-resistant native plants to its gardens and installing a drip irrigation system to avoid water runoff.

An aerial view of Ascension of Our Lord Orthodox Church in Karluk, Alaska, on Kodiak Island. (Courtesy photo)

In the United States, many church congregations face tough decisions about their future—and, to an extent, the future of the planet. Demographic changes over decades have led to many congregations becoming older and smaller than they once were. In many cases, that can leave a handful of people taking care of a large, older building in need of often expensive upkeep and repairs.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby attends the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland Jan. 22, 2016. REUTERS/Ruben Sprich

The Church of England Pensions Board said it had decided to divest its holding in Shell over what it said were insufficient plans to align its strategy to the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

Rebecca Randall 6-16-2023

Former Pittsburgh Bishop Dorsey W.M. McConnell and Rev. Noah H. Evans bless the solar panels installed at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Mt. Lebanon, Pa. Courtesy St. Paul’s Episcopal.

In 2014, Shepherdstown Presbyterian Church in West Virginia installed an array of 60 solar panels with a scrappy financial model, hoping to lead by example and inspire other communities in Appalachia to transition to solar energy as well.

Rebecca Randall 6-08-2023
People kneel in a dry field in prayer. A religious statute is in the background.

Members of the Aymara community of Ichu pray and take the Virgin of the Clouds on a pilgrimage to ask for rain in the area due to the drought they are facing in Puno, southern Peru, on November 28, 2022. JUAN CARLOS CISNEROS / AFP via Getty Images via Grist

Rabbi Dean Shapiro recalls considering the future as he looked down at a baby’s head while giving her a Hebrew name and welcoming her into the covenant of Israel. She was born into a megadrought in Arizona that is only getting worse. As one infant after another is welcomed into his congregation, he finds himself reflecting on their future well-being amid a growing climate emergency. If this child spends her entire life in Phoenix, she could experience 146 days each year with a heat index topping 100 degrees by the time she reaches 30.

Gerald Smith, principal at St. Thomas More Academy in Washington, D.C., poses with one of the 88 trees planted at the Catholic school in May 2021 through the Laudato Trees program. (Courtesy of St. Thomas More Academy)

As the school year sets at St. Thomas More Academy in southeastern Washington, D.C., students spring into action for a day of tree-tending. Eighth graders at the Catholic elementary school swap books and computers for shovels, rakes, and hoses and head outside to tend to the more than six dozen growing trees around their campus. They remove old mulch, add some new, and water each of the trees.

Rebecca Randall 8-08-2022

Photo Illustration by Mitchell Atencio/Sojourners. Original images by Michael Maasen and Aaron Burden via Unsplash.

The June release of a Climate Vigil The Porter’s Gate Worship Project aims to nudge Christians toward climate action, but it isn’t alone among contenders to inspire the climate movement. For over 20 years, Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, a Presbyterian minister from New York, has written hymns for the times, including one for the 2021 UN climate talks held in Scotland and several to recognize increasing natural disasters such as wildfires, hurricanes, and floods. Fossil Free PCUSA, a campaign within the Presbyterian Church (USA) has used hymns in protests, including songs by Christian artist Matthew Black.

A Nigerian fisherman in the Lagos town of Makoko, an informal settlement on low-lying ground that is particularly vulnerable to climate change-linked sea-level rises and weather extremes, according to the latest report from the United Nations climate science panel. REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja

The latest IPCC report states that 3.3 to 3.6 billion people (nearly half of the world’s population) are “highly vulnerable” to climate risks like wildfires, heat waves, and rising sea levels. The report aims to prepare us for what’s likely and to give leaders a clear-eyed sense of urgency to implement solutions. But some may glance past its findings due to more immediate concerns. Others may be tempted to take a lifeboat mentality.

Madison Muller 10-29-2021

Pope Francis meets U.S. President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden at the Vatican, October 29, 2021. Vatican Media/­via REUTERS

The two world leaders met behind closed doors to discuss “working together on efforts grounded in human dignity,” with Biden praising the pope’s advocacy in fighting climate change ahead of next week’s United Nations conference on climate change (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, according to a White House news release. During their meeting, Biden called the pope “the most significant warrior of peace I’ve ever met,” and gave the pope a “challenge coin” with the U.S. seal on the front. The president also made several jokes, about the two men’s ages, his own sobriety, and said it was “good to be back,” as he was greeted at the Vatican.

Katy Johnson 10-08-2021
Innocent, a farmer and father of 9 battling the impact of climate change in Zambia.

It’s not enough to carry bags of flour to those experiencing the impact of our actions. Our grief must play a part in generating climate-adaptive solutions for the most vulnerable now.

Gina Ciliberto 8-12-2021

The blessed goats. Photo courtesy Chad Adamik

When wildfires raged across Nevada in July, Chad Adamik knew he needed goats.

Gina Ciliberto 4-20-2021

Katharine Hayhoe poses for a portrait. Courtesy photo. (Ashley Rodgers/Texas Tech University)

Hayhoe’s passion for climate science is based in her Christian faith. Hayhoe is an evangelical, which she defines as “someone who takes the Bible seriously.” For her, faith and science go hand in hand: The more that she learns about science, the more her “awe” and faith in God increases.

Lexi McMenamin 10-22-2020

Activists and students holding signs march on the streets of downtown Toronto during a climate change rally on Black Friday,  Nov. 29, 2019. Photo Ramona Diaconescu / Shutterstock.com

Addressing climate change is a faith-based obligation to “protect God’s creation,” say 81 percent of American religious voters surveyed in a poll released this morning from Climate Nexus and Yale and George Mason’s respective programs on climate change communications.

Andrew J. Wight 7-28-2020

Members of the Pastoral Land Commission (Comissão Pastoral da Terra, CPT), a Catholic land rights organization linked to the National Conference of Bishops of Brazil. Photo courtesy of  Comissão Pastoral da Terra, CPT.

More than 200 land and environmental defenders were killed in 2019 according to the report released by Global Witness this week. Colombia topped the country rankings with 64 deaths, while Latin America continued its 8-year run as the worst-hit region, accounting for two-thirds of global deaths.

Jason L. Miller 5-20-2020

Pope Francis leads a private Mass in a side chapel of St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican. May 18, 2020. Vatican Media/­Handout via REUTERS 

Catholicism, COVID-19, and caring for our common home. 

Pope Francis greets members of the media after leading a Mass and the Regina Coeli prayer in Rome's Santo Spirito in Sassia church, in Rome, April 19, 2020. REUTERS/Remo Casilli

Pope Francis made an impassioned plea for protection of the environment on Wednesday's 50th anniversary of the first Earth Day, saying the coronavirus pandemic had shown that some challenges had to be met with a global response.

Liz Lwanga 11-06-2019

Honoring the labor, expertise, and material resources used to make clothes is an essential way to honor God.

Russell Jeung 10-09-2019

The Bay Area will be without electricity for at least a day and a half in order to prevent power lines from sparking wildfires. 

 Feb. 15, 2019: Protestors with banners at a Youth strike for climate march in central London. Credit: Shutterstock. 

On Friday, Sept. 20, driven by our faith and by our profound concern about climate change, we will be joining young people from around the world in a climate strike. We will join with youth who, frightened by the impact that a hotter planet will have on their lives and angry that adults have done so little in response, are demanding that world leaders take transformative action to address the emergency that we face. Millions of us will take to the streets to demand a right to a future for generations to come.