climate change Archives - Page 10 of 13

Great generation: St Mary’s school at the Speak Up climate lobby

June 25, 2015

Students from St Mary’s School, Newcastle, travelled to London on the day of the Speak Up For The Love Of climate lobby to meet their MPs and voice their concerns about climate change. In this blog they reflect on the day.

Climate change is a huge issue which has been dramatically affecting our world that we live in, by destroying the beauty of nature, diminishing wild life and even making the poor suffer more.

These are just the first consequences of this problem, as climate change is an issue that can affect us all directly and also our future generations. It is a problem that will completely wipe out all life, in years to come.

This is why CAFOD is taking action. On the 17 of June, CAFOD invited students from various parts of the UK to represent their area and voice their views on climate change to their MPs. We were among the many hundreds and thousands of young people who were keen and enthusiastic to express our opinions and views to our MPs about climate change. We travelled to London to participate in this significant campaign.

Watch the film of the lobby

After our arrival, we were kindly welcomed to the CAFOD community in London, where we were able to understand more about CAFOD and its work. Additionally, CAFOD organised many activities, where we were all able to talk to other young people from different parts of the UK to know more about their views on this matter.

Continue reading “Great generation: St Mary’s school at the Speak Up climate lobby”

Climate campaign: Get Close-up on Climate

June 24, 2015

Victoria Ahmed works in CAFOD’s Education team. In this blog she reflects on the opportunities this month for young people to have their voices heard on climate issues through the Close-up on Climate film project.

CAFOD young supporters at the Speak Up For The Love Of climate lobby

‘Young people demand change. They wonder how anyone can claim to be building a better future without thinking of the environmental crisis and the sufferings of the excluded.’ Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (13)

What a powerful quote. When I came across it this week I couldn’t help but think about the many young people who attended the Speak Up For The Love Of climate lobby last week, spilling out of trains and buses in London from all corners of England and Wales to speak to their MPs about why climate change is impacting the world’s poorest people.

Were you at the lobby? Watch our film of the day

My memories of the lobby are a whirlwind of bunting and queuing, face paints and wall paints. In what was the biggest ever climate lobby of Parliament, almost half of all MPs were asked to tackle climate change, and I had my mobile phone in my hand the entire time. Whether it was to capture images of the colourful bunting with messages flapping in the wind on Lambeth bridge, tweeting news of the day, or recording short clips of young people preparing their questions, I have a phone full of reasons why young people care about climate change, of young people demanding change, as Pope Francis puts it.

Continue reading “Climate campaign: Get Close-up on Climate”

My experience speaking up

June 23, 2015

Sarah Croft is CAFOD’s campaigns officer. This is her reflection on the Speak Up climate lobby last week. Find out how you can take action on climate change with CAFOD.

Speak Up lobby 17 June — Sarah with CAFOD supporters at Speak Up

When I first moved to London, I had high ambitions. I wasn’t going to become that stereotype of a Londoner, I was going to say a cheerful morning to people on my way to the office, I was going to break the ultimate rule and make eye contact with people on the tube.

Fast forward three years, and a couple of awkward conversations about my staring, I am sorry to say it did not last. My conversations quickly became limited to sighing about delayed trains or the weather.

It was so refreshing to go along to the Speak Up lobby outside parliament last week and to see people engaged in conversation with each other. I found myself exchanging a smile with a surfer trying to get his board through parliament security, with an 84 year old nun who was enjoying the beautiful sunshine after having had tea with her MP and students from a college just round the corner where I live. Continue reading “My experience speaking up”

‘Our common home’: a challenge and an opportunity

June 19, 2015

This blog is written by Linda Jones, Head of the CAFOD Theology Programme. Linda shares her initial response to the Pope Francis’ encyclical, Laudato Si’.

I have to admit that sometimes reading Church documents can feel more of a duty than a joy. But reading the new encyclical, Laudato Si’: on the care of our common home is a completely different experience.

I feel full of joy and excitement. I can sense possibilities, hope and new opportunities. Pope Francis draws a stark and troubling picture of reality, but also reminds us that change is possible and that we can work together to care for creation.

The choice to care for creation, rather than exploiting the earth for our own short-term gain, will demand that humanity itself must change. We can no longer live as if our actions have no consequences, nor can we continue to put economic growth and consumption above all else. We have not taken into account the costs to ourselves as humans of prioritising economic growth over human flourishing, nor have we sufficiently considered the cost to our environment.

“The climate is a common good,” Pope Francis writes, “belonging to all and meant for all.” And yet the earth, our sister, “cries out to us because of the harm we have inflicted on her by our irresponsible use and abuse of the goods with which God has endowed her.”

Sign our petition on climate change

Continue reading “‘Our common home’: a challenge and an opportunity”

Speak up about climate change for the sake of those you love

June 12, 2015

Sophie Dodgeon if CAFOD’s Head of Campaigns. Here she tells us why she will be attending Speak Up for the Love Of lobby on 17 June. This blog first appeared on Huffington Post.

Sophie Dodgeon, Head of Campaigns at CAFOD.

When it comes to climate change, the talk is often about the impact on future generations. The implication is that consequences are still some way off in the future and, despite the scary headlines, we don’t need to worry too much about them now. But for those of us who are deeply concerned about the effect carbon emissions are having on people and planet, this isn’t helpful.

As a parent, I have breakfast and play Lego with the ‘next generation’ every day. The ‘next generation’ shares my house, he likes his rice pops, he’s an ace on his scooter and he has just learnt to write his name. And being both a climate campaigner and a parent, I pause whenever I hear the ambition of the climate movement for 100 per cent clean energy by 2050. I pause because in 2050 my four-year-old son will be exactly my age now; he will be 39-years-old and perhaps sharing breakfast with his own son or daughter.

What sort of world will he be living in, I wonder? A safer world with cleaner air and zero carbon emissions? A world that has successfully made the transition to clean energy for everyone everywhere? Or will he eat his breakfast with the news in the background bringing headlines from an increasingly unstable world? A place where more and more people live in desperate poverty and where wars and conflicts abound because resources are scarce? Continue reading “Speak up about climate change for the sake of those you love”

CAFOD staff’s tips for how to lobby your MP

June 8, 2015

Ffion Dean is the CAFOD Web Editor. Speak Up for the Love Of will be her first lobby and the first time she’s met her local MP.

Ffion with bunting — Ffion getting ready for the lobby with her bunting.

Climate change is an issue which really concerns me. It’s going to cause problems for lots of things I care about from spring flowers to people overseas living in harsh climates. I signed up to meet my MP at the climate change event on 17 June as soon as I heard about it. Using the form on the CAFOD website I also emailed my MP to make sure he would be there.

Last week he emailed back to say he’d be available to meet me. And then I got scared.

I’ve never met him before and I don’t know what his views are on climate change. What if he’s a climate change denier and we argue all afternoon? What if he asks me difficult questions? What if he’s not very nice to me?

Badger my MP — Susy is going to keep contacting her MP until she gets a response

Fortunately I received the Climate Coalition briefing guide today with tips on what to say to my MP and I also work in a building with lots of experienced campaigners. Here is some of their advice.

Try and get your MP to come

Use the form on the CAFOD website to tell your MP you’d like to meet them at Speak Up for the Love Of. If you don’t hear back try another way of getting in touch – phone their office or tweet them. Continue reading “CAFOD staff’s tips for how to lobby your MP”

Who is your climate hero?

June 8, 2015

Some of our young climate bloggers from St Roberts in Newminster have been thinking about people who inspire them, and ask us, ‘Who is your climate hero?’, having read about Martin, Veronica and William in the One Climate One World action guide. This is what they have to say.

“Of the three of these amazing young people, I think that William from Nicaragua should be seen as a climate hero! He is only 14, yet he is the leader of his environmental group at school and helps to plant trees in the streets and along rivers, and to teach other people in his community to do the same.

“I am the leader of an environment committee at school. We try to get the message out to people to look after the environment because we can’t live or do anything without it, so we have to look after it.” – William

Continue reading “Who is your climate hero?”

Oscar Romero: An inspiration who spoke out for the poor

May 28, 2015

Tony Sheen, Regional Manager for CAFOD, visited El Salvador on a Romero Trust Pilgrimage. Here he shares why Archbishop Oscar Romero inspires him every day.

I am delighted that the Church has beatified Oscar Romero. He is an inspirational Christian Martyr of my life time and an authentic voice of our Church having a real concern for the poor.

He was a true witness to Jesus’s teaching for us to speak out for justice in the beatitudes, when he said in Matthew 5:6. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness…and when people speak all types of criticisms of you on my account”

Download prayers to celebrate the beatification of Blessed Oscar Romero

Romero spoke out about the injustices and killings in El Salvador during his time as Archbishop from 1977 to 1980. In doing so, Romero systematic undermined the rich and powerful and faced death threats to stop him speaking out.

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Climate campaign: Your guide to making bunting

May 26, 2015

Sarah works in CAFOD’s campaigns team.

As mum to two small girls, I’m used to spending my time cutting and sticking. But it’s not so often that this is part of my day job at CAFOD.

Yet, after a day spent reflecting on care for creation with two communities of Sisters and other campaigners, I was surrounded by glue and coloured paper, making bunting.

On Wednesday 17 June, I’ll be joining thousands of people at Parliament to call on our MPs for action on climate change, for the love of creation and for our neighbours.

Join us. Sign up for Speak Up For The Love Of on 17 June now

It’s not doom and gloom, but a day to celebrate our beautiful world and our desire to protect it. Which is where the bunting comes in.

Groups will bring home-made bunting to the event to show their MPs the reasons we care about climate change. Continue reading “Climate campaign: Your guide to making bunting”

Oscar Romero: “Aspire not to have more but to be more”

May 25, 2015

Matthew Sanderson works for CAFOD and is the Executive Assistant to the Director. In 2013 he visited Romero’s tomb in El Salvador. He will commence teacher training (history for secondary school children) in the autumn.

Matthew Sanderson on a recent trip visiting CAFOD projects in El Salvador — Matthew on a recent visit to El Salvador

I love history. Learning about people and events in the past fascinates me – What happened? Why does it happen? What can I learn from the past for my own life?

It doesn’t matter if the moment happened years or centuries ago. It’s fascinating how key figures from the past lived in cultures and experienced life in settings that I could not imagine; and yet they resonate so much with me.

This was definitely the case when I first learnt about Oscar Romero as a teenager. He may have died a decade before I was born in a country thousands of miles way but his story challenges me then and today.

Find prayers to celebrate the beatification of Blessed Oscar Romero

Romero’s Daily Reminder to Me

When I visited El Salvador in November 2013 I paid my respects at Romero’s tomb. Here I remembered the quote that I pass every day at the entrance to CAFOD: “Aspire not to have more but to be more”.

Continue reading “Oscar Romero: “Aspire not to have more but to be more””