As if the COVID-19 pandemic—with all its sickness, death, lockdowns, financial wreckage, mandates—hasn’t been bad enough, the past few years have been doozies weatherwise. Fires, floods, droughts, heatwaves, extreme precipitation, melting glaciers, rising sea levels, hurricane, tornadoes—some with record-breaking ferocity too—have plagued the planet and the people living on it.

On July 9, 2021, for example, the temperature reached an astonishing 130 degrees Fahrenheit in Death Valley, California, breaking the hottest recorded day ever, which was set there, in Death Valley, last year. Of course, it’s not named “Death Valley” for no good reason; it is known to be hot. But the heat of last July 9 has, though some dispute it, broken all records—and many have interpreted this meat-sizzling temperature as another example of what climate change is doing to the planet. [1]

Warned TIME magazine earlier this year: “Our world is getting hotter, an irreversible development now utterly beyond our control. We have already passed tipping points, like The Great Melting of the Arctic Sea ice, which used to reflect the sun’s heat. Oceans, forests, plants, trees, and soil had for many years absorbed half the carbon dioxide we spewed out. Now there are few forests left, most of them either logged or consumed by wildfire, and the permafrost is belching greenhouse gases into an already overburdened atmosphere.” [2]

The results, we have been forewarned, could be catastrophic.

Why COP26?

Whether these things are as dire as many claim (some say that the climate issue is overblown, others that it is worse than we imagine), one thing is certain: The world leaders converging in Glasgow are doing so out of the fear that, unless drastic actions are taken, the world faces an environmental disaster of apocalyptic proportions.

According to some estimates, humanity can expect rising sea levels that will flood coastlines, droughts that will lead to political violence and more immigration problems, crop failures, massive flooding, melting glaciers, and other catastrophes. “Millions of people worldwide will be suffering from starvation, disease, and extreme heat by 2050, according to a shocking new report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that has been obtained early by Agence France-Presse (AFP).” [3]

The challenges, especially with so much of the world still heavily dependent on fossil fuels, remain daunting.

Faith and Science: An Appeal to COP26

Before the meeting of mostly political leaders in Glasgow, religious leaders from many faiths—Islam, Judaism, Confucianism, Hinduism, Taoism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Jainism, along with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, and Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew—met at the Vatican in early October.

Religious leaders from almost every faith … all at the Vatican?

And what did these spiritual leaders, who represent most of the planet’s religious people, discuss but the great crisis that they believe threatens human existence?

This rare assembly was called “Faith and Science: An Appeal for COP26.” The “science” part is important because once it is claimed that science supports an idea, any dissension from that idea is claimed to be nothing more than ignorance and rebellion, with those questioning it derided as “science deniers”—even though, historically, many widely held beliefs “supported by mainstream science” have been shown to be wrong repeatedly with further scientific investigation.

The religious leaders issued a joint statement that reads, in part: “Future generations will never forgive us if we squander this precious opportunity. We have inherited a garden: we must not leave a desert to our children. Scientists have warned us that there might be only one decade left to restore the planet. We plead with the international community, gathered at COP26, to take speedy, responsible and shared action to safeguard, restore and heal our wounded humanity and the home entrusted to our stewardship.” [4]

Climate Sunday

Though it’s going to take a long time to wean humanity off fossil fuels, if even possible, some religious people have been advocating for something that, in a sense, is very biblical: taking one day a week and resting from work, and thus helping the planet heal through a lack of human activity.

An initiative, for example, called the “Green Sabbath Project” has a stated mission “to spark a mass movement of observance of a weekly day of rest—shabbat, sabbath, a green sabbath or a weekly earth day -- on which impact on the environment is minimized as much as possible. We envision individuals and groups choosing whichever day is most meaningful to them. While inspired by ancient religious sources, the green sabbath is a self-consciously refashioned ritual practice aimed at addressing current realities. As taken up by individuals and communities, it may or may not be connected to organized religion or God.” [5]

Notice, the initiative left it up to “individuals and groups” to decide which day would be the day to minimize the environmental damage “as much as possible,” and because most of the Christian world keeps Sunday, that would be, for them, this day of rest. In fact, perhaps a precursor to what’s coming, one group in England and Ireland pushed for a “Climate Sunday,” in which a Sunday church service would be dedicated to making people aware of the existential threat that climate change presents. [6]

It’s too early to tell whether some proposed universal day of rest—all in order to help slow down the damage being caused to the environment—will come out COP26.

It’s not too early, however, to see how the climate crisis could easily play a part in the last days. Bible prophecy warns of an impending conflict between the traditions of men in contrast to the Word of God, and in which obedience to God’s commandments, which includes the fourth, the Sabbath, will be of paramount concern. (See Revelation chapters 13 & 14.) Whatever role climate may or may not have in last-day events, it’s also not too early to learn what Scripture teaches about these events.

[1] https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2021/07/death-valley-california-breaks-the-all-time-world-heat-record-for-the-second-year-in-a-row/

[2] https://time.com/5824295/climate-change-future-possibilities/

[3] https://www.earth.com/news/shocking-un-report-the-worst-of-climate-change-is-yet-to-come/

[4] https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2021/10/04/211004a.html

[5] https://www.greensabbathproject.net/our-vision-and-mission

[6] https://www.climatesunday.org