Climate Change: “It Is a Very Small World, and Our Actions Matter”

October 7, 2015

By Renu Kurien Bostwick

The Water Planet - a view of earth (c) Nasa.gov
The Water Planet – a view of earth (c) Nasa.gov

The Seventh Unitarian Universalist Principle is “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

As I’ve been understanding more about Climate Change and its implications, that Seventh Principle often seems to hit me over the head like a 2×4.  It becomes ever clearer to me exactly how small the world is.  How we are so amazingly dependent on this planet and on each other.  How our over-consumption of fossil fuels causes droughts and floods and famine in other parts of the US and the world.  How famine and insecurity causes war, as in Syria.  How war and hardship causes migration and refugees asking for help.  How desperate families end up with babies dead on seashores. And as this desperation grows, we find those who have money and power desperately trying to hold onto what we have. This is not the kind of world I want my children and grandchildren to have to bear.

It is a very small world and our actions matter. Just as our over-consumption has a negative effect, our collective conservation and efforts to make changes now will have a positive effect. But we need to take action and we need to speak out. Our actions, small and large, ripple out from us and affect this small world. I think of how small the world is when I see my husband Dan using our push mower to mow the grass; he’s been doing so for 19 years and going strong.  I think of how small the world is when we force ourselves to walk or bike to the grocery store and when I take the extra 10 minutes to hang the laundry outside on the line.  I think of how small the world is when we say no over and over again to our kids about getting picked up or dropped off by car when it’s only a 15-minute walk or a 5-minute bike ride.  I think of how small the world is when I don’t meet a friend at Starbucks to buy drinks in disposable cups.

But each of these don’t’s or can’t’s in our life come with their own rich blessings.  I smell the grass and can talk with Dan while he is mowing our lawn.  I can hear the birds as I hang the laundry and can smell the sunshine on the clean clothes even months after they have hung outside.  I can walk with my kids and feel the breeze, the warmth, the cold, (and yes, even the rain and snow) while we have nothing to do but walk and chat.  I feel the connections with friends when I invite them over for coffee in cups that I don’t mind washing for them.

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An easy life isn’t always the most fulfilling life.  Let’s join together, let’s become more dependent on each other, let’s carpool, let’s walk with one another, let’s together do what it takes to make this short life better lived and this small world more just.

Editor’s Note: Work that promotes climate justice is bubbling up all over Bedford, and particularly in our faith communities. St. Paul’s Episcopal Church recently hosted an interfaith gathering to discuss Laudato Si, Pope John’s encyclical on climate change, and tonight’s Wonderful Wednesday discussion (7 pm at First Church of Christ, Congregational) will welcome Renu Bostwick and other members of First Parish Unitarian Universalist’s Climate Justice Group.

 

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