ArticleBlog | Climate chaos, plastic waste, and a small solution in Bangladesh
Climate chaos, plastic waste, and a small solution in Bangladesh
Author: Andy PeckPost Date: 20.03.22
On a personal and local level there are, of course, many things we all find challenging. Perhaps without realising or meaning to, we hurt people, mess up situations, ignore unjust structures, and assert power over others. But when these very human behaviours get scaled up on the global stage, communities, cities, and whole nations suffer, struggle, hate and fight.
This brokenness also damages the planet because we find ourselves being careless with the precious earth and greedy for all it gives. Sea level rises, drought, wildfires, and other extreme weather events have brought us face to face with the stark reality of our self-inflicted global climate crisis. Christian international development agency, Tearfund, believes this broken relationship with the wider creation – God, ourselves, others and the environment – is a cause of poverty.
But Tearfund also believes poverty is not God’s plan. Through Jesus Christ, God is at work to restore our personal relationship with him, with ourselves, each other and our natural environment.
Fifty-year-old Juliet lives in the low lying, cyclone-prone coastal area of Bangladesh, where the impact of the climate crisis risks pushing communities further into poverty, as their homes are destroyed and their crops are ruined. Juliet has become known as a ‘friend of the community’ because she has taken training through her church offered by Tearfund’s local partner, World Concern Bangladesh, to help her neighbours prepare for extreme climate events. The training is part of Tearfund’s wider work, in fifty of the world’s poorest countries.
