The major polluters of Planet Earth have done their level best to ensure that pollution continues and their greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated for - at least - decades to come. This band of United Polluting Nations, comprising the US, Australia, India, China and South Korea have entered into a pact, Asia-Pacific Partnership for Clean Development and Climate. The pact is noteworthy for two reasons. It includes two nations who, by themselves, account for one third of humanity. It has no enforceable targets. Australia and China are the world's largest coal exporters, while the United States is also a top exporter. Australia has been accused of being in the pockets of its major mining companies. The United Nations Environment Programme has welcomed the new Asia-Pacific partnership to develop new technologies aimed at reducing greenhouse gases, but stressed that it was not a substitute for the Kyoto Protocol.
Christians need to lift their game in regard to the environment. From my place on the mountain top, I cannot see any significant Christian voice raised in protection of the planet and the proclamation of the sacred work of creation. Some, like Christians in Science, are trying though. BTW, read their lucid letter to Tony Blair on creation science and note the distinguished signatories.
Christians need to remember that our God gave us a trinity of responsibilities: to worship and have a right relationship with God; to love and respect one another as we, ourselves, wish to be loved and respected; and to tend God's creation and live in His image of creativity and productivity. Our lives have to be led within these parameters. To live outside these parameters is to bring about the opposites of these things. Failure to live in these parameters ensures that the essence of our humanity can be directed destructively.
Put simply, if we do not act to enhance creation and protect it, then we embark on its destruction and our own and we move out of a right relationship with God and humanity. The opposite of creativity is destruction. When we choose God or Money, we choose creativity or destruction.
