‘The essence of transformative social change is to make what at the time seems impossible seem in hindsight inevitable.’ Photo: by La Victorie on Unsplash
Looking for hope after COP26? Tim Gee says it’s faith that’s most sustaining
‘Over twenty years or so as a climate activist, I’ve found faith a more potent source of sustenance than hope.’
Along with many others, my attentions in recent weeks have been on Glasgow, host to the twenty-sixth UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26). There, the governments of the world have been negotiating their response to the climate crisis.
Hopes have been raised, prayers have been prayed, protests have happened, and to some extent progress has been made. Ultimately, though, the closing text does not contain a plan to keep global temperatures within ‘safe’ limits. Neither does it include the commitment to financial help for the loss and damage caused by global warming that Quakers and many others have been calling for.
As with many such events of recent years, this was billed as the ‘last best hope’. This is always a dangerous thing to say, particularly when we might expect that a just result is unlikely. The past twenty-five climate conferences didn’t provide the solutions we need either. But now we are here, and the summit is over, how do we maintain hope, as the world’s interlocking crises deepen?
Over twenty years or so as a climate activist, I’ve found faith a more potent source of sustenance than hope. Hope can be packaged up and marketed to us for limited periods – the length of a UN Conference of Parties Climate Conference for example. But too often this has been false hope. Faith, in contrast, lives with and within us, long term.
When I talk about faith, I mean faith in a God who cares for the earth. I find this evidenced by the Bible’s ecological themes, spanning from Genesis to Revelation. But I also mean faith that the still small voice within will sustain and strengthen social movements for justice, and that humanity has the solutions to address our problems – even if our governments have largely ignored our proposals, for the time being.
Along the way I’ve learnt that a degree of disillusion can be helpful. These rich and powerful people have profited much from our present, harmful, systems. If we believe they will help us transition to a more just social order, that is an illusion it would be helpful to put aside. My faith in the future is encouraged much more by the people protesting outside the conference halls.
In the words and warnings of climate justice activists, I sense something of the spirit of the Old Testament prophets. People like Amos, Hosea and Habakkuk were ordinary folk who wanted to align with the divine will by protecting people, forests and animals. They warned that if the leaders of their time didn’t embark on immediate and significant change, negative consequences would inevitably follow.
Those prophets’ words, written around seven or eight hundred years before Christ, outlived ancient Israel, ancient Babylon and ancient Rome. They have continued as words of encouragement to those working for justice ever since: against Nazism in Germany, against segregation in the USA, and against apartheid in South Africa. Could they ever have imagined their faithful words could have such an effect?
Today I hold faith that the actions we take now will have effects that appear almost inconceivable in the present moment, especially when so much seems stacked against us. To a limited extent I’ve seen this happen. When in 2012 a group of Friends held Meeting for Worship outside the gate at the Balcombe fracking site, it would have been a brave person who might have predicted that – even though the vast majority of politicians supported fracking – we would be part of a movement that would halt it in Britain in the space of less than a decade. Yet, that is what happened.
Similarly, take a look at the growth of renewable energy in Britain. Renewables have risen from a tiny fraction of the energy mix twenty years ago to nearly fifty per cent today. This roughly correlates with the growth of concern about the climate over a similar time period. We know this from demonstration numbers, which have grown from a few thousand at most on marches during climate talks in the early 2000s, to upwards of 100,000 on the streets this month.
Carrying on, though, takes faith. Faith of the type modelled by people whose lives have done so much to shape ours. Consider Abraham, Moses, Jesus, James, Peter and Paul. Despite living under oppressive rule, each of them tried to build alternatives and spoke of a better world. None of them saw the full fruits of their work in their earthly lives, but they continued, powered by faith.
In our Quaker history we can also draw similar insights. Take the example of Ada Salter, who saw much of her efforts to improve environmental and social conditions in London destroyed by bombs in the second world war. But projects like hers were rolled out across the UK with the post-war welfare state, even though she didn’t live to see it.
There will be people today looking at the post-COP26 prognosis for the climate and despairing. ‘Only a miracle will save us now’, they might say, and use that as a reason to give up. In contrast the person of faith can say: ‘OK, let’s work for a miracle’. The essence of transformative social change is to make what at the time seems impossible seem in hindsight inevitable. If we do that in the faith that we are doing God’s will, then we too can be miracle workers.
For the more secular-minded this can be phrased differently: the world is inherently complex, and none of us knows the full impact of anything we do. Accordingly, a good strategy is to try to do the right thing for the right reason, because the effect of many people doing likewise will add up.
Whatever words we choose, right now there is a need to be there for the people who have been part of this mobilisation, both within and beyond our Quaker Meetings. Many climate activists will be experiencing burnout, disappointment, frustration and rage. But between us, once we’ve rested, we have to keep going, because long-term, sustained, spirited action, even when our chances of success seem remote, is our only chance of living in a better world.
Tim Gee is the incoming general secretary of Friends World Committee for Consultation. His next book Open for Liberation: An activist reads the Bible will be published next year.
