Last week, in anticipation of COP 30, my wife and I were invited to talk about climate change at our house church.

This has been a topic close to my heart for many years now, but I had never talked publicly about it before. So, I was excited to share.

I also wanted to share some of those same thoughts here. I hope you find it impactful.

If you don’t accept climate change, this post doesn’t seek to convince you otherwise, nor to start an argument about it. It just seeks to share my journey, my experience, and some convictions about it.

If you want to chat about it afterwards, feel free to Reply By Email.

I look forward to any conversations it starts!

I grew up in a culture that didn’t believe in climate change.

In fact, it actively denied it.


I remember the first time I heard the phrase “Global Warming”. It was in a DVD from the church we were attending when I was 10 years old.


The DVD was a recording of a seminar taught by an American man.

In the seminar, he had several sessions where he taught flat-out that global warming was a lie.

He gave a number of statements to support that claim, ranging from saying that scientists are lying and fabricating all their data, to claiming that global warming couldn’t be true because other scientists in the past claimed the world was actually cooling, to claiming that scientists were actually trying to convince people of a narrative to make people more reliant on the government.

That was the first time (and for many years, the only time) I heard anything about global warming.


Since it was apparently something that was a “lie” that only some people in other parts of the world believed, and since no one that I knew believed it, it didn’t seem like it affected my life in any significant way as a Canadian boy from small-town Saskatchewan


So, I took the mental note that “global warming/climate change aren’t real”, and I moved on with my life.


However, about 10 years later (roughly 10 years ago), I found myself questioning that conclusion.


I started reading the work of real scientists who were publishing work about climate change.

I started meeting some of these people who actually believed that the average temperature of the planet was rising, and that that was having very tangible, significant impacts on real people around the world…

And I started seeing more and more evidence of it for myself.


So, I decided I needed to dig deep into the science. I decided to confront all the evidence on both sides, and conclude for myself whether what I grew up being taught was right or wrong.



And… long story short, I came to realize that I had been taught VERY wrong.


Earth’s climate IS changing.

It is definitively caused by the collective actions of humanity since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.


(Specifically, it has been caused by our emitting of roughly 1,800,000,000,000 TONNES of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere during that time by the burning fossil fuels, resulting in nearly doubling what was otherwise the natural amounts of CO₂ in the atmosphere*, causing the atmosphere to retain much more heat than it did before the Industrial Revolution ago.)

* from a range of 180-280 ppm (Parts Per Million) throughout all the rest of human history (280 ppm at the start of the industrial revolution), to over 425 ppm today, increasing every year.


Climate Change is not only extremely well-established science, with tens of thousands of pieces of evidence from dozens of scientific fields…


It is also something that is already powerfully affecting millions of lives around the world, today.


It seems like every other week some all-time weather / climate record gets broken. From Canada, with an unprecedented heatwave that killed hundreds of people, or unprecedented wildfires beating the record for the amount of forest area burned by more than double… to Pakistan with unprecedented flooding displacing literally millions of people, to islands in the Pacific Ocean that have been inhabited for many generations being swallowed up by the rising oceans…


Climate change is destroying and upending lives of people all over the world, TODAY…

And will continue to do so for the rest of our lives.

And our children’s lives…
And their children’s…



The decisions that we make today, and the decisions being made in international leadership conferences like COP30, will help shape what the coming decades and centuries look like for humanity, and for every living thing on earth.


I’ve also been a passionate follower of Jesus for all my life, and so it’s important for me to align my life with His heart and His will.



And one thing is very clear: Jesus’ heart is for the hurting, the marginalized, and the broken.

All through the gospels, we see Him loving and restoring those that society (and religion) had rejected. The beggar, the uneducated, the impoverished, the hungry, the homeless…

He loved and brought restoration to each of them.



And these groups of people are the very groups that are most at risk because of the effects of climate change, both today and for the decades and centuries to come.

Those without resources are most at risk from the destabilization that comes with a more chaotic and extreme climate.


And Jesus cares about them! He cares what happens to them!


For the last 200 years, humanity has collectively been making choices that will result in a more chaotic and extreme global climate. This will have the definitive result of making it harder for the planet’s poorest and least-resourced people to survive and thrive…


And we continue to make those choices every day.


In the Bible, societal injustices that caused suffering among the “lowliest” were taken very seriously, because God loves those that our societies have rejected and ignored.



Jesus loves those who will be affected the most powerfully by climate change.


And so, He cares deeply about how we as humanity steward this moment.


Jesus cares deeply about climate change.

And we should too!

When thinking about climate change, Jesus’ heart, and our response, there is one scripture passage, and two quotes that come to mind that I wanted to share as a part of this conversation.

The first is one of my favorite passages, from Isaiah 32. I feel it demonstrates at least part of God’s heart for this situation well:

Isaiah 32:14
The fortress will be abandoned,
   the noisy city deserted;
citadel and watchtower will become a wasteland forever,
   the delight of donkeys, a pasture for flocks,

These verses, at least in part, remind me of the destruction we’re seeing, and that is coming, from climate change.

It’s very real. Cities will be destroyed and abandoned. Places that used to be lively and filled with life will be left empty and uninhabitable.

BUT… that passage continues! That destruction is a reality:

Isaiah 32:15-20
UNTIL the Spirit is poured on us from on high,
then the desert becomes a fertile field,
and the fertile field seems like a forest.

The Lord’s justice will dwell in the desert,
his righteousness live in the fertile field.

The fruit of that righteousness will be peace;
its effect will be quietness and confidence forever.

My people will live in peaceful dwelling places,
in secure homes,
in undisturbed places of rest.

Though hail flattens the forest
and the city is leveled completely,
how blessed you will be,
sowing your seed by every stream,
and letting your cattle and donkeys range free.



God is a God of restoration.

And He wants to partner with us to restore what humanity’s poor stewardship of Creation has destroyed.


The destruction is real, but His restoration is greater.

And His desire to partner with us to restore is greater.


Time and time again, God shows He wants to accomplish His work by partnering with people.

And, so we need to show up, obey, and put in the work to see that happen.


Which leads us to the quotes.


In my journey away from being a climate change sceptic, I have read a LOT of books on the matter.

By far, the most beautiful, powerful, and hope-giving and was The Future We Choose by Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac.


There are two quotes I wanted to share from this book. First:

“Anger that sinks into despair is powerless to make a change.
Anger that evolves into conviction is unstoppable.”

The more I learn about climate change, and about the decisions that we as humanity have made over the decades to ignore the science and the warnings, and to choose profit over people, the more sad and angry I get.


But, anger on its own is useless.

It needs to turn into conviction, and that conviction can be a powerful fuel for change.


The second quote:

“For change to become transformational, our change in mindset must manifest in our actions.”


Action.


It’s really easy for me to get depressed and pessimistic over this topic. It seems like for those who understand what’s at stake, that tendency towards pessimism seems to be a regular theme.


But wallowing in sadness isn’t the solution.

Putting in the work to the solve problem and partner with God’s heart for restoration, even when it sometimes seems impossible is the solution.


I’ll end with this:

We live in a season of apocalyptic vibes.

So many things make it feel like the end of the world (as we know it) is just around the corner… real and legitimate threats of superintelligent AI, nuclear war, deteriorating democracies, pandemics, et al.


It can be hard to think more than a few years ahead, let alone about what the lives of our great-great-great grandchildren might be like.

But I submit to you that it’s highly likely that many of you will have great-great-great grandchildren, and that it’s worth thinking about the future we create for them.


Remember that you are someone’s great-great-great-grandchild, and there were pretty apocalyptic vibes 100+ years ago as well. (Remember, there were even more wars and pandemics then when compared to now…)


When pondering that (recurring) feeling of impending apocalypse, I’m often reminded of the Brazil Nut Tree.


Brazil Nut Trees feel like they take forever to come to fruition — they take a lot of work, over many, many years to mature and start bearing fruit..

However, once they are mature, a single Brazil Nut Tree can produce enough food every year that 3 people could live off nothing but one tree’s fruit.


The craziest thing?

A Brazil Nut Tree can live up to 1,000 years.

That’s over 30 generations of people fed off of the fruit of a tree that you or I could plant today.


What you and I do today can matter for the future, a lot.


We can either make choices that will help people for decades and centuries to come, or we can make choices that will make life for them harder and harder.


Jesus’ heart is for the well-being of those suffering from climate chaos today, and for those who will be dealing with its effects centuries from now.

I want my heart to be aligned with His.

How about you?