The InterChurch Bioethics Council(ICBC) has celebrated its first 21 years of service to Aotearoa’s churches with a public lecture on the climate crisis delivered by Prof Jonathan Boston, Emeritus Professor of Public Policy at Victoria University.

Professor Boston presented the ICBC lecture on ‘Confronting the Climate Crisis: Keeping Hope Alive in Challenging Times’ to a fifty-strong audience at Wellington Cathedral of St Paul on 6 October, outlining the practical impacts of climate change in Aotearoa New Zealand and beyond, alongside his hopes for human adaptation and resilience. 

Professor Boston spoke on the global situation of climate damage as well as touching on the climate mitigation and adaption projects has contributed to, including his recent work for the Environmental Defence Society on strategies for housing retreat from the seashore in Aotearoa New Zealand, ‘Funding Managed Retreat: Designing a Public Compensation Scheme for Private Property Losses.’

Sharing his global perspective with ICBC members and supporters, Prof Boston gave details of humanity’s current emissions and pollution failures, the planetary boundaries already breached, and the very real chance that human activity will continue to drive the planet to life-threatening tipping points for climate in the very near future.

ICBC member Dr Nicola Hoggard-Creegan, who is Director of New Zealand Christians in Science (NZCIS) appreciated Professor Boston’s call for “realistic faith and a prudent and practical realism.” 

“We were given a lightening tour of the devastation of fire, floods, heat, and acidification of seas, throughout the world, and the very real prospect that much of the low-lying land, including the Wellington foreshore and the high population dense Mekong Delta would be inundated very quickly.” she said.

“He warned that the way of life for future generations would be unrecognizable, with mass climate migration and political instability as the planet heats.” 

But despite the scary truths graphed out in Prof Boston’s talk, Dr Hoggard-Creegan said that Prof Boston also left ICBC members with a sense of hope, and a call for the churches to not give up hope, but recognize that every effort to take action counts.

“He quoted Christa Tippett saying, ‘hope is a muscle, a practice, a choice that actually propels new realities into being. And it’s a muscle we can strengthen. It is not the same as idealism or optimism. This kind of hope has nothing to do with wishful thinking.’’  

The InterChurch Bioethics Council is an ecumenical cross-cultural body representing the Anglican, Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of Aotearoa New Zealand. Its mission is to increase churches’ and communities’ knowledge and understanding of the spiritual, ethical, cultural, technological and evidential components at play in contemporary medical, scientific and technological practice that impact on Creation and particularly human lives.

For more information on the InterChurch Bioethics Council and Professor Jonathan Boston’s Powerpoint on responding to climate crisis go to the: InterChurch Bioethics Council

To take action on climate change through your church and community go to:

A Rocha and the Eco Church Network
Anglican Communion Environmental Network
Ecumenical Season of Creation