Prophets of Climate Change

Baimuru in the mud. 

The prophets of the Old Testament and the preachers of climate change have a lot in common.

The Hebrew prophets would declare to anyone who would listen, often via dramatic means, that people needed to repent and be saved. Repent means to acknowledge wrong and commit to a changed path. The salvation was a combination of the changed path and the work of God in no longer condemning.

Baimuru in the dry. That’s the same path as the other picture.

Modern prophets also use dramatic actions to tell us to repent and be saved, they just don’t use those terms. What they do tell us is that unless we recognise the effects of our actions and dramatically change how we live, we will suffer. If we do dramatically change, then we may avoid disaster. In other words, repent and be saved.

Last year when we visited Gulf Province there had been major rain in the Highlands causing major flooding in the Delta area. This combined with king tides to inundate gardens, kill crops and leave people hungry. At the same time this year, there is a drought in PNG, caused by El Nino. When El Nino last struck PNG with drought in 1997, many people died, and they are predicting that this cycle will be worse than then. The Highlands are crying out for rain and the Delta area is experiencing a rather dry wet season. Once again, people are going hungry. The same time of the year, two very different seasons, but the same result.

King tide at Kapuna hospital. I can’t usually

bring the boat to the front window and

unload directly inside!

I was recently reading that respected scientists think that a 1m rise in sea level is now unavoidable. During king tides, water already floods many villages in the Delta area. At regular high tides, the water level is less than 50cm from flooding the village. An increase of 1m will cause regular flooding, permanent destruction of gardens and probably result in people having to leave their traditional lands and seek refuge elsewhere.

Something else the Hebrew prophets were big on was care for the widow, the orphan and the stranger. Climate change looks like creating a whole lot more of these categories. Will we listen to the modern prophets as they tell us to repent and be saved? Will we listen to the prophet who told us to love our neighbour as ourselves? This will mean sacrificing some of the comfortable ways we like to do things so that others may continue to live at all. Will we listen to the ancient prophets when they remind us to love the vulnerable and the outcast?