Dr C James Hospedales

Cli­mate change is in­creas­ing­ly at the fore­front of na­tion­al, re­gion­al, and glob­al dis­cus­sion. As the world grows hot­ter and ex­treme weath­er and sea lev­el rise be­come com­mon­er, many are look­ing for guid­ance on how to ad­dress this grow­ing cri­sis.

In most re­li­gions, the con­cept of stew­ard­ship is cen­tral to how be­liev­ers are called to care for the Earth. Stew­ard­ship is the idea that we have a re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to pro­tect and care for the nat­ur­al world en­trust­ed to us. The con­cept is found in the Bible, the Qur’an, and the teach­ings of Bud­dha. Not car­ing for the nat­ur­al world has con­se­quences (kar­ma), a fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ple of Hin­duism and Bud­dhism.

As a physi­cian and a Chris­t­ian, I ask the ques­tion, “What would Je­sus say about cli­mate change?” Fu­ture ar­ti­cles in this col­umn will ex­plore cli­mate change and oth­er re­li­gions and what peo­ple of faith can do as al­lies in ad­dress­ing the cli­mate and health cri­sis.

In Gen­e­sis, the open­ing book of the Bible, God said “it was good” five times as the Earth, seas, plants, an­i­mals, and hu­mans were cre­at­ed. Yet, we are not be­ing good stew­ards over what we have been giv­en charge of (Gen 1:28, Gen 2:15). Glob­al pop­u­la­tions of mam­mals, birds, fish, rep­tiles, and am­phib­ians have dropped by two-thirds be­tween 1970 and 2016.

Much of this is dri­ven by hu­man over­con­sump­tion, pop­u­la­tion growth and in­ten­sive agri­cul­ture, ac­cord­ing to ma­jor as­sess­ments of the abun­dance of life on Earth. This sit­u­a­tion has stim­u­lat­ed much the­o­log­i­cal re­flec­tion world­wide, in­clud­ing Pope Fran­cis’ en­cycli­cal of 2015, Lauda­to Si’, “On care for our com­mon home.” And his apos­tolic ex­hor­ta­tion, “Lauda­to Deum” of 2023, call­ing for speed­i­er ac­tion against the cli­mate cri­sis and con­demn­ing cli­mate change de­nial.

While we can­not know for cer­tain what Je­sus would say about cli­mate change to­day, we can re­spon­si­bly in­fer His like­ly re­sponse based on His teach­ings, char­ac­ter, and mis­sion.

Love your neigh­bour as your­self

(Mark 12:31)

Cli­mate change is dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly harm­ing the poor, the sick, old­er adults, and com­mu­ni­ties in low­er-in­come coun­tries. These are pre­cise­ly the peo­ple Je­sus con­sis­tent­ly de­fend­ed. He would like­ly af­firm that in­dif­fer­ence to the suf­fer­ing caused by cli­mate in­jus­tice is a fail­ure of love—and that gen­uine love com­pels ac­tion.

What­ev­er you did for one of the least of these ... you did for me (Matthew 25:40)

Je­sus iden­ti­fies with the vul­ner­a­ble. When sea lev­el rise dis­places fam­i­lies, when droughts lead to hunger, wa­ter short­ages and con­flict, or when pol­lu­tion poi­sons chil­dren—these are not just so­cial or po­lit­i­cal is­sues. They are spir­i­tu­al is­sues. Ig­nor­ing them would be, in Je­sus’ eyes, akin to ne­glect­ing Him.

Woe to you ... for you tithe ... but ne­glect jus­tice and the love of God (Luke 11:42)

Je­sus con­demned re­li­gious hypocrisy: out­ward dis­plays of piety with­out in­ward trans­for­ma­tion or re­al jus­tice. He would like­ly call out the com­pla­cen­cy or com­plic­i­ty of church­es and be­liev­ers who fail to con­front the moral di­men­sions of en­vi­ron­men­tal degra­da­tion, es­pe­cial­ly when it ob­structs the church’s mis­sion of evan­ge­lism, wor­ship, dis­ci­ple­ship, jus­tice and mer­cy.

The Earth is the Lord’s, and every­thing in it (Psalm 24:1; echoed in Je­sus’ teach­ings)

As the Son who shares in the Fa­ther’s cre­ative and sus­tain­ing work (John 1:3), Je­sus would not see the Earth as dis­pos­able. He would af­firm that cre­ation is a gift to be stew­ard­ed, not ex­ploit­ed. The eco­log­i­cal cri­sis is not just about emis­sions—it’s about bro­ken stew­ard­ship, greed, and self­ish­ness, things Je­sus con­stant­ly chal­lenged.

Re­pent, for the king­dom of heav­en has come near (Matthew 4:17)

Je­sus’ first pub­lic mes­sage was a call to re­pen­tance and trans­for­ma­tion. Cli­mate change in­vites us to do the same: to turn from lifestyles, sys­tems, and economies of nev­er-end­ing con­sump­tion and de­struc­tion of na­ture and re­turn to rhythms of life that ho­n­our God, cre­ation, and our neigh­bours.

Blessed are the peace­mak­ers (Matthew 5:9)

Cli­mate change is fu­elling con­flict over land, wa­ter, and food. Je­sus would call His fol­low­ers to be agents of peace, not by­standers—work­ing to pre­vent suf­fer­ing, es­pe­cial­ly of the most vul­ner­a­ble, pro­mote sus­tain­abil­i­ty, and mod­el a bet­ter way of liv­ing.

In short, Je­sus would like­ly speak prophet­i­cal­ly and com­pas­sion­ate­ly about cli­mate change. He would:

• De­fend the vul­ner­a­ble.

• ↓Call for cli­mate jus­tice and re­pen­tance.

• ↓Con­demn the wan­ton ex­ploita­tion of cre­ation.

• Call His fol­low­ers to ac­tion.

• ↓Em­pha­sise that care for cre­ation is tied to the Gospel mis­sion.

He would not see cli­mate ac­tion as a dis­trac­tion from the Gospel, but as a vi­tal ex­pres­sion of it. If a core mes­sage of the Gospel is lov­ing and car­ing for your neigh­bour, then we must care for the Earth that sup­ports all our lives and liveli­hoods.

So while we can­not be cer­tain about what Je­sus would say about cli­mate change, he might say, what Je­sus might say about cli­mate change.

Dr C James Hospedales is the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor and founder of Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse Foun­da­tion for Plan­e­tary Health. jameshospedales@earth­medic.org

The fore­go­ing was a week­ly col­umn by Earth­Medic and Earth­Nurse NGO to help equip read­ers to face the cli­mate and health cri­sis, and the first in a se­ries on cli­mate change and faith.