Home › December 2024 › On Christianity and Climate Change In the dwindling days of October, my dorm room was almost 80 degrees. Around that time of year, I am usually itching to give up on fall, turn on my six-hour long Christmas playlist and light a balsam-scented candle. However, I couldn’t find it in me this time around. Nobody on campus seemed very concerned about the weather or the fact that it was over 20 degrees above average for late October. I heard a lot of “Wow, it’s so unseasonably warm!” and “I’m really enjoying the nice weather!” But people didn’t seem to want to talk about why this was going on. Undoubtedly, this was part of a larger pattern. I’ve found that climate change tends to be a touchy subject for a lot of people. To an extent, I understand — it never feels good to think about what the planet will look and feel like 10, 20 or 50 years down the line, especially when we can barely find the time to make our PATH plans for next semester. Some people outright deny that anything is changing at all, but others may just want to put it out of their minds. I get that it isn’t a top priority for everyone. However, I would argue that, as Christians, we owe God’s creation a lot more than what we pay it currently. Any basic theology class typically begins with Genesis 1 and 2, the Bible’s famous accounts of how God meticulously created the world and human beings over the course of six days. Notre Dame’s theology curriculum is no exception. In my Foundations of Theology course this fall, we read how God spoke the land, sea, sky, vegetation, animals and humans into existence. Why, then, are we […]