Climate Change: Debated Here, Devastating Elsewhere
Originally posted at the Washington Post’s On Faith page, re-posted here as a part of Blog Action Day.
Climate change affects us all, but its impact varies vastly from place to place. In response to ominous reports of global warming, many of us make lifestyle adjustments: we commute via mass transportation, buy local food, conserve energy, help to “green” our congregations, and just generally monitor our carbon footprints. My adaptations are voluntary and low-impact. Climate change pricks my conscience and spurs me to action, but it also leaves my community and my livelihood intact.
The contrast between my experience and that of millions of people around the world could hardly be more stark. Droughts are killing crops and causing famine in East Africa, intensifying storms and floods are damaging and destroying communities worldwide, and tropical diseases are on the rise in places where they’d been in decline for years. These disasters are attributable to human-induced global warming, and they’re happening right now to families who contribute far less than I do to climate change.
It’s tragic and unjust that people least responsible for climate change are most affected by it, but the situation is far from hopeless. Drought-resistant crops, irrigation projects, infrastructure investments and mosquito nets are saving lives and enabling communities to adapt to the severity of their changing environment. Interfaith, Jewish, Catholic, and Evangelical groups have been working on such programs for years, advocating for government and NGO investment in adaptation, and working on the ground to help poor communities innovate. And a March 2009 poll sponsored by Faith in Public Life and Oxfam America, conducted by Public Religion Research, showed that approximately three-quarters of the general public and similar numbers of Catholics and Evangelicals favor helping the world’s poorest people adapt to food and water shortages caused by rising global temperatures.
Now, the Day Six campaign is using social media to further the cause. It’s an innovative online effort that uses a 60-second YouTube video, a Senate petition, and tools to share them via Facebook, Twitter and blogs to activate support for robust adaptation funding in the Senate climate bill introduced last week. With new media opening new avenues of advocacy, people of faith will make their voices heard about climate change and adaptation as never before, spreading the word to friends, family, congregations, networks and Senators.
Adaptation projects are effective, but they cost money that poor communities often lack. It’s no exaggeration to say that adaptation funding will save or cost lives and determine the survival of entire communities. This is a justice issue and a compassion issue, and the faith groups supporting Day Six are using cutting-edge tools to make sure it doesn’t fly under the Senate’s radar.
Rev. Jennifer Butler is executive director of Faith in Public Life in Washington.