Overcrowding is becoming a serious problem in Kiribati and Solomon Islands and rising sea levels are also expected to lead to further climate change refugees. Australia and New Zealand have been told to expect more migration from their Pacific neighbours. Speaking to Cook Islands, Fiji, Filipino, Hong Kong, Indian, Kiribati, New Zealand, Niuean, Samoan and Read more
The Hungry Tide, a documentary showing at the Sydney Film Festival last week, focuses on those islanders suffering on the front line of climate change. The Film maker Tom Zubrycki’s protagonist is Maria Tiimon, a shy, middle-aged Kiribati woman who now lives in Sydney. As the Pacific outreach officer for a Catholic advocacy group the Edmund Rice Centre, Read more
The Archbishop of Sydney, Cardinal George Pell, is not convinced by a Vatican-appointed committee of climate experts who are warning about the need to mitigate man-made global warming. Pell maintains the causes of climate change were ”unclear”. The report released this month by the Pontifical Academy of Sciences called on ”all people and nations to Read more
When the Vatican released a report last week calling man-made climate change “serious and potentially irreversible” and advocating aggressive action to curb emissions, it stirred up old divisions within the U.S. faith community over whether human activity can affect creation and what should be done about it. It is a question that divides people of Read more
Thousands of people have to flee their homes in the Pacific every year due to natural disasters. It is important to have comprehensive policies and legislation in place that ensures the rights of internally displaced persons are respected at all times, stated the organisers of a conference and workshop on human rights and disaster-induced displacement. Read more
Effectively addressing climate change is a moral imperative according to the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy of Sciences. The Vatican body has listed numerous examples of glacial decline around the world and the evidence linking that decline to human-caused changes in climate and air pollution. “The widespread loss of ice and snow in the world’s mountain glaciers Read more
The Pacific Conference of Churches sees it as its “prophetic responsibility to comprehensively address issues confronting the realities of resettlement as a consequence of climate change”. Reaffirming the Pacific church leaders’ Moana Declaration in 2009, they called upon church communities in the Pacific: To be proactive in regards to the seriousness of climate change by seeking to Read more
Our new understanding of the universe requires a new moral climate. The ancient Hebrews thought the earth was like a saucer floating on the “deep” with an inverted bowl over it, the firmament, that separated the “water above from the waters below.” There are those who say the Bible is literally true so they must Read more
Nuie recently hosted the the biggest climate change conference in the Pacific. Over 100 people representing 17 countries attended the Pacific Climate Change Roundtable meeting in Nuie which concluded on 18 March. Reverend Tafue Lusama, General Secretary of Te Ekalesia Kelisiano Tuvalu (the Christian Church of Tuvalu) gave the keynote presentation on behalf of the non-government organisations Reverend Read more