The IPCC Report and World War 3

 During the past nearly six weeks we've watched the horrors of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and felt the dismay and outrage of seeing the bodies of innocent civilians on the streets of their hometowns. Many nations have rallied to support Ukraine including Canada and the United States. The European Union and NATO are alliances which have responded as well. There has been talk about World War 3 if Russia escalates the conflict and there is reason to be concerned because Vladimir Putin is a tyrant who seems willing to do just about anything to prevail in this senseless war. 

Because of the focus on Ukraine we may have missed yesterday's report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a report years in the making and involving leading climate scientists from around the planet. The headline from the Guardian puts the results succinctly IPCC report: ‘now or never’ if world is to stave off climate disaster: Greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025, say climate scientists in what is in effect their final warning.

While we have been in a decades-long state of denial the evidence is clear that we have been waging war on the Earth since the conclusion of World War 2 just over 75 years ago. Humans used technological advances from that global conflict to develop an economy based on fossil fuels and on the premise of unlimited growth. We have been told repeatedly that this is a recipe for disaster yet we won't listen. 

The result is that virtually every system which sustains life is under threat. Forests are burning and the oceans are rising. Plastics and forever chemicals are everywhere, including human bodies. Many species are endangered or have disappeared. Governments make promises about emission targets they have no intention of meeting, and Canada is one of the worst offenders among industrial nations. 

Is this not an existential threat of the highest magnitude? Is this not World War 3? 

This latest report is bleak, yet many of these scientists hold out a glimmer of hope if we are willing to act immediately and with a commitment to changes in behaviour and sacrifices which will help slow the runaway train of destruction. 

As a Christian I know I must listen and we must all incline our ears for the sake of Creation, for all living creatures and the systems which sustain them. Continued denial is not an option and hope depends on a radical ecological discipleship.