Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report

Fiona Harvey (Guardian, 3 April 2022) (LINK)  writes: "Scientists fear that their last-ditch climate warnings are going unheeded amid international turmoil caused by the war in Ukraine, and soaring energy prices." The report makes it clear that time is running out. Urgent action is needed in order to prevent further climate deterioration. The previous report garnered little attention, perhaps because it came out just as the invasion of Ukraine began, and there is little hope that this report will get greater attention.

The substance of this report grows out of "thousands of scientific papers from the last seven years" and is yet one more indication that the scientific community sees a very serious crisis for the planet. Nonetheless it appears that neither policymakers nor the general public find scientific data sufficiently persuasive to take steps that would make the rich a little less comfortable, even if famine, flood, and death from heatstroke are the consequences for poor people and poor countries across the planet. 

Lent is coming to an end, but that does not mean that conservation measures that we may have pledged during Lent may be ignored after Easter. Eating less meat, doing less driving, avoiding unnecessary flights may seem like such small steps that they hardly matter, but they do matter as long as more and more of us make a personal commitment to preserve God's creation.

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