Action Card - May 2020
The Pandemic prompts Care for Creation
Ellen Teague
The new quietness of the pandemic has revealed that the birds sing beautifully, the resurgent spring blossoms lift the human spirit,
and that Earth can heal.
The 2020 coronavirus crisis prompts greater appreciation of God’s creation and also a deeper understanding of global links that
should help us address the on-going public health threats of climate crisis and biodiversity loss. We understand better how any
emergency hits the most vulnerable and poorest the hardest.
Nature is sending us a message with the pandemic and the ongoing climate crisis, according to the UN’s environment chief, Inger
Andersen. Destructive practices - such as logging, mining, industrial farming - which drive wildlife into contact with people must be
reviewed. Live animal markets - an ideal mixing bowl for disease - must end. She highlighted other environmental impacts in 2020,
such as the huge Australian bushfires and the worst ever locust invasion in West Africa. Andersen states,“The financial and social
support packages to maintain and eventually resuscitate the global economy post-pandemic should therefore promote health, equity,
and environmental protection”.
High biodiversity reduces the risk of animal-vectored diseases in human populations, yet three-quarters of the earth’s land surface and
66% of the marine is significantly altered by human activity.Habitats are destroyed and degraded, and one million species are at risk
of extinction, including vital pollinators such as bees. We need to see strangleholds of debt and poverty being lifted, and the planet
being delivered from human-induced environmental disasters. Spending priorities and modes of thinking about security have so far
been defined in military terms, and in early April, many Churches endorsed the United Nations’ call for a global ceasefire.
We have stopped for a virus, and we’ve learnt lessons about cooperating with each other, about listening to experts, and
about the role that governments can play when they put their minds to it.
ACTION
Season of Creation
Autumn’s Season of Creation 1 September - 4 October is an opportunity to care for creation. We are encouraged to pray and engage
in community events in order to deepen our relationship with our God, our neighbour and the Earth we share.
See: https://seasonofcreation.org/
Global Divestment from Fossil Fuels
Religious groups are a key part of the divestment movement, representing 29% of institutions making divestment commitments. 2020
must become the peak year for control of global greenhouse gas emissions, with a rapid decline through to 2030, if we are to limit
global temperature rise to 1.5°C.
See: https://brightnow.org.uk/
GREEN CHRISTIAN MONTHLY PRAYER GUIDE
Subscribe: https://greenchristian.org.uk/resources/prayer-guide/
Email Monthly - Have an email sent to you announcing when the monthly guide is online or
Email Daily - Arrange to have emails sent for daily prayers/meditations