Young Adults Organizing to Take Climate Action
Submitted by Marguerite Thompson
(Excerpt from Catholic Climate Covenant’s October Newsletter)
Meet Mandy Judah, a Common Home Corps leader in Phoenix, who shares a reflection on the call to care for creation:
God has entrusted his creation to our care, and we are not taking care of it as we should. It’s no secret that Phoenix’s already hot summers are becoming more and more scorching. Us desert dwellers are especially vulnerable to climate change, and future generations will feel its effects even more acutely.
These topics have been on my mind as I embark on a journey as a member of the Common Home Corps, a group within Catholic Climate Covenant. With other young adults across the country, we are working to encourage our local Catholic diocese to adopt environmentally friendly practices, including relying on renewable energy. As painful as it is to come to terms with the reality, climate change allows us to realize how we belong to each other, and our fate is bound with one another. In order to make a difference in the health of our natural world, and for our own species, we all need to work together to mitigate the harm we’ve caused.
With the connection between spirituality and care for creation, there are many ways we can take action to live out our faith. Individually, we can make choices for ourselves to use our limited resources wisely, and avoid practices of overconsumption. Collectively, I encourage us all to reflect on what preserving creation means to us. What inspires us to preserve the beauty we currently enjoy, as well as protect the wellbeing of the plants, animals, and people we love? Please keep an eye out for ways to share what creation care means to you.