For hundreds of years, Christians have banded together to create organizations to help people on the margins of society, including people living in poverty and dealing with hardship. These causes often take Christians around the world as they look to uplift people who live in vastly different geographical settings. As people all over the globe face more and more severe weather events, Christians in Canada can’t help but look to the root cause, which is the climate crisis. Keep reading to learn about how Christians in Canada are rallying against climate change.
Why Is Climate Change a Christian Cause?
Most people wouldn’t immediately think of environmentalism as a Christian cause, so why is climate change suddenly on the radar of Christians in Canada? The simple answer is that Christian organizations are beginning to recognize that to make a real difference in the lives of the people they help, they need to address the root cause of suffering and hardship.
Giving money to charitable causes that raise funds for people experiencing record-shattering levels of drought and famine in Africa can only ease the symptoms of the issue, but it won’t alleviate the problem. When weather and climate conditions continue to grow more and more extreme year after year, people living in difficult situations will experience the consequences more acutely than those living in developed countries without agriculture and the natural world to survive. Christian organizations in Canada are starting to realize they need to work on these issues from a different angle and address climate change head-on.
What Are Canadian Christians Doing About Climate Change?
Canadian Christians are getting fired up about addressing climate change, and they are taking action to make their voices heard. Organizations such as Tearfund Canada and A Rocha Canada want to make sure that they stay relevant when it comes to making a difference. These organizations understand that young people in Canada feel strongly about climate change and that it is a significant issue for youth all over the world. Taking inspiration from youth movements, these organizations want to help raise awareness about the dangers of climate change among the Canadian public.
Making climate change a central issue within these organizations’ frameworks is a significant shift. It signals that climate change is on people’s minds and that they want to see policy change and action from their governments. The fact that Christians are looking at the underlying cause and pushing for greener policies in government is a sign that public pressure on this issue will only continue to build and build.
What Do Canadian Christians Hope Will Change in the Future?
Canadian Christians are rallying against climate change in the hopes that they can catalyze their communities and push for policy change in government. There is still a long way to go to reduce carbon emissions on a global scale, and Canadian Christians aren’t satisfied staying on the sidelines and waiting for the government to move forward at its own pace.
The issue of climate change isn’t hopeless either. If governments could agree on global standards and make a pact to reduce emissions worldwide, then it would be possible to slow down the temperature changes that are gripping the Earth. However, any changes made need to be implemented permanently, which means that governments and the public have to get on board with a new vision for how to exist safely with Mother Nature.
Canadian Christian organizations such as Tearfund Canada and A Rocha Canada understand that they can’t just throw money at poor families in Oceania and hope those families can make it through the climate crisis. Making a difference is going to take a much more focused effort, and it looks like Canadian Christians are gearing up for the task.