Mary Mother of the Church

Catholic Parish Ivanhoe

 

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Parish Climate Action Group

Professor Tim Flannery was Australian of the Year in 2007.  He is one of Australia’s foremost experts on climate and environmental issues.  I saw him on a recent online session and he was asked ‘what do you think is the best action for a householder to take that will get us to zero  (carbon) emissions as soon as possible’.

He said the best thing we can do is to  get involved politically.  He said we can do things in our households to reduce carbon emissions, eg, convert from gas to clean electricity, install solar panels, etc, but we need to speak up as well. We can only reduce carbon in the atmosphere enough by making regulatory changes at a governmental level. To prevent environmental catastrophe and an uninhabitable planet, we need to be getting large volumes of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere now (he calls this drawdown), but  emissions are actually increasing. Australia is still even developing new coal and gas projects which will massively increase emissions. Flannery said if a person wants to understand the ecological crisis better they should watch David Attenborough’s “A Life on Our Planet” – available on Netflix.

Pope Francis launched Laudato Si in 2015 and finished off his powerful speech saying:

“People and their movements are called to cry out, to mobilize and to demand - peacefully but firmly - that appropriate and urgently needed actions be taken. I ask you, in the name of God, to defend Mother Earth”. 

Two tips for this week.  Can you watch “A Life on our Planet”, maybe again, and  can you become more confident about speaking up, crying out -  to defend Mother Earth?