“Screams and hubbubs! The children were excited and happy to leave the huts and go play outside. The air was thick and full of dust and flakes falling from the sky. They thought it was snowing, something which never happened on their tropical island. They were surprised and curious. They run after the flakes, catching them with their hands, rubbing them in their hair and on their bodies,” an eyewitness recalled.
Anthony was dealt a bad hand in life. Looking intently into the eyes of the Rev. Charles Harrison, pastor of Barnes United Methodist Church in Indianapolis and president of the board of the Indy TenPoint Coalition, the young man visiting from Chicago made his tearful confession.
No one spread a mat for Selai.
Born and raised in Vunidogoloa [voo-nē-dō-gō-lōah], the first Fijian community that was forced to relocate due to the impact of climate change, Selai [Suh-lī] felt unwelcome in her new home.
Activists from two different parts of the world — Fiji and Ukraine — described some of the ways that environmental concerns, including fossil fuel consumption, are interwoven with war and displacement during the latest in the “Connecting the Dots” webinar series.
Why should people of faith get involved in climate justice?
“A lot of approaches to climate change have been secular, and they have failed in the Pacific,” said the Rev. James Bhagwan, General Secretary of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), a group of more than 40 churches and Christian faith organizations across the Pacific Ocean. “And the question has always been asked why the climate projects there that are secular do not have the impact that people expect to have on paper?”
At its heart, the Reweaving the Ecological Mat initiative, now coordinated by the Pacific Conference of Churches, is about reclaiming the Pacific identity, an identity intimately interwoven with the land, seas and skies, but stolen by a racist gospel.
The Rev. Dr. Tevita Havea, moderator of the Pacific Conference of Churches (PCC), a PC(USA) global partner, says 2020 will mark a turning point for the Pacific Islands in how it understands everything from ecumenism, ecology and politics to development.
When discussing the issue of forced migration, we see images in the U.S. of violence and economic inequality in Central America, South America and parts of the Middle East.
When discussing the issue of forced migration, we see images in the U.S. of violence and economic inequality in Central America, South America and parts of the Middle East.
