We were sitting at the family dinner table. I had been the pastor for the wedding of the young couple present. I hadn’t seen them for more than a year as they lived in another part of the country. Now they had two young children, put to bed for the night in a nearby room. The conversation drifted from one subject to another. There was a description of the recent storm that had resulted in a tornado touchdown and what it had looked like driving north on the interstate. We heard about the flooded fields and road closures.

Eventually, since the young couple lived far away from midwestern weather miseries, I asked them what they were feeling about climate change. There was a moment of silence before she said, “I wish we had never had children!” 

It wasn’t a hand-wringing response. There wasn’t anything “whiney” about it. It was simply a stark, knowledgable, intelligent, recognition of the kind of world their children would confront. It was the response of a loving mother who wanted the world for her children.

Nor was it a statement of despair. She went on to speak about the things she could and did do as an individual to slow the onset of catastrophic climate change. Her husband added his hope for technological innovation that could capture carbon. But both of them were well aware that the small things one person does were not enough. They understood the principalities and powers of the age needed to be dethroned, if their children were to have a sustainable and livable future.

I mentioned how the greatest “technological” marvel for capturing carbon was already invented. It was trees. I had recently seen an article about the Salgados in Brazil. He took over his family’s cattle ranch in a region once covered by lush rainforest. Now it was a barren acreage with few trees and no wildlife. Together, he and his wife decided to rebuild the forest. In 20 years, with the help of an environmental organization they formed, they turned a wasteland into a tropical paradise with a 1,754-acre forest and hundreds of species of flora and fauna. There are now 293 species of trees, 172 species of birds, 33 species of mammals and 15 species of amphibians and reptiles. Dried up springs have been rejuvenated and temperatures have moderated.

I also recognized, at the same time they were initiating this sustainable development, Brazil was installing a new president who ignores indigenous people and their rainforest home and has begun moving swiftly towards its exploitation. One of the first things he did upon his election was move toward removing scientists from governmental environment agencies and replacing them with corporate and personal political appointees. It sounds all too familiar, as the U.S. Department of Agriculture decides to move 550 science based employees half way across the country to a “new” office, in the hope of significant attrition; as the head of the EPA is run by a former lobbyist for the coal industry; as “climate change” has become a dirty phrase and removed from U.S. government web sites.

Once again, what the federal government does is one thing. What we as individuals do can be another. A friend and neighbor has decided to plant most of their yard in vegetables and nut trees. There are raised beds and ground level plantings. More and more young and old are putting their hands in the soil, relearning agricultural knowledge of their forebears, growing food for their families and neighbors and farmers markets. Who knows when flooded fields, drought and heat waves, will make corporate agribusiness difficult, if not impossible? 

There is little doubt we are on the precipice of climate catastrophe. One day’s worth of news is all we need to feel depressed. (1) The Greenland ice sheet is melting, earlier and more dramatically, as temperatures there are 20y degrees above normal. It’s the size of the state of Alaska and could raise ocean levels by 20 feet. (2) Chennai, India’s sixth biggest city is almost out of water. Monsoons are failing and heat waves are increasing. (3) Along the Gulf Coast, since this past February, 261 bottlenose dolphins have washed up dead.

Depression is a common response for those who recognize what’s happening to this magnificent world around us. Others simply persist in ignorance (ignoring reality) and living in denial. What we need to cultivate instead is the dedication of the Salgados and the presence of divinity.

In our church, we say the Lord’s prayer a little different. We start with “Creator God.” We recognize God has many names, not just father, and God is beyond gender and a particular parental role. Literalists might not like it but actually, in our church, you can say father if you want to and noone will give it a second thought. The point is, we won’t prevent climate catastrophe without moving from depression and denial to dedicated, divinely rooted action; action rooted in the wisdom and integrity of the creation God has given us. For every tree the principalities and powers cut down, we should plant a forest.