Can the Book of Ezekiel Inspire New Leadership to Address Climate Migration?
U.S. Secretary of State, John Kerry warned that climate migration is already underway, rendering immediate climate action imperative. As migration takes center stage in the news, it further demonstrates why faith leaders are charged to speak on the issue of climate change. Moreover, how it will impact the 'least of these' in our 'common home.'
Climate Progress reports that 5.7% of the global land mass has shifted toward warmer and drier climate, an impediment to farming in the poorest regions. And still, there is hope! In the book of Ezekiel we are reminded that distressed lands are not lost, rather, they maintain restorative qualities, but they need our help!
Ezekiel 36:34-35
The desolate land will be cultivated instead of lying desolate in the sight of all who pass through it. They will say, “This land that was laid waste has become like the garden of Eden; the cities that were lying in ruins, desolate and destroyed, are now fortified and inhabited.”
People of faith are not only required to preserve God's creation but directed to restore it. Together we may return God's gift to its original glory, for all whom inhabit it.
Visit Blessed Tomorrow for ways your congregation may contribute to ending climate migration.
New Study Shows How Climate Change Is Already Reshaping The Earth
By Joe Romm | Climate Progress
A landmark study in the journal Nature documents an expansion of the world’s dry and semi-arid climate regions since 1950 — and attributes it to human-caused global warming.
This expansion of the world’s dry zones is a basic prediction of climate science. The fact it is so broadly observable now means we must take seriously the current projections of widespread global Dust-Bowlification in the coming decades on our current CO2 emissions pathway — including the U.S.’s own breadbasket.
The new study, “Significant anthropogenic-induced changes of climate classes since 1950,” looks at multiple datasets of monthly temperature and precipitation over time. The main finding:
About 5.7% of the global total land area has shifted toward warmer and drier climate types from 1950–2010, and significant changes include expansion of arid and high-latitude continental climate zones, shrinkage in polar and midlatitude continental climates….
As for the cause, “we find that these changes of climate types since 1950 cannot be explained as natural variations but are driven by anthropogenic factors.”