COP29 - 13 November 2024
God the Creator - biodiversity spoiled

reflection 

Yesterday, as we considered the miracle of God's biodiverse creation, we focused on the intricacies of its interconnected working and the way it flourishes and sustains. But Psalm 148 has more to say about creation: the psalmist calls all creation to praise God! God’s creation isn't just a marvel that sustains life. Neither is its sole praise purpose to turn our minds and hearts to its creator. A significant purpose of creation is to praise God in its own right.

In Psalm 148 the psalmist doesn't just call on creatures to praise God, he calls forth praise from weather phenomena, geographical features and vegetation, and it's only towards the end of the psalm that people are called to the praise party. Reading this Psalm we're prompted to ask three questions:

1. How does creation praise God?

2. How does the spoiling of creation by humanity (biodiversity loss) impact its ability to praise God?

3. What does God feel about all of this?

We'll return to these questions later, but for the moment let's consider what we know about biodiversity loss. Simply put, human activities have degraded land, destroyed forests, polluted rivers, lakes and seas and are causing global temperatures to rise. In many places we have changed the living conditions for native species (insects, plants, animals, fungi…) so that they can no longer thrive and sometimes cannot survive. Biodiversity loss in an area may mean that the number of species decrease, or it may mean total species loss from the area. At its extreme it means that some plants, animals and organisms no longer exist - anywhere. Our actions have destroyed them.

The World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2024 tells us that since 1970 global wildlife populations have plummeted by 73% on average; that one million plants and animals are threatened with extinction; population abundances and genetic diversity have decreased; and that species are losing their climatically determined habitats. And our own wellbeing is not beyond impact. Our health depends on a healthy planet so as the planet's biodiversity decreases, so does our wellbeing, and unsurprisingly the impacts are disproportionately felt by the  poorest and most marginalised. 

The reality is stark, but hope is not absent, and one cause for hope is creation itself. Once we understand the intricacies of design that connect us with the ecosystem, we can change our behaviour, and this same ecosystem is able to start supporting itself and us again. Watch the video in the resources section for a taste of how this can be achieved.

So back to the three questions Psalm 148 prompted us to ask. Our answers, which we hasten to note have no deep theological basis, are: we think creation praises God by being and doing what he created it to be, and so when we interfere with the way it was meant to be, we affect its ability to praise God. And what does God feel about this? We suspect his heart weeps.

prayer

Creator God, we thank you for the beauty, majesty and intricate details of your amazing creation. We acknowledge the complexities of ecosystems and the interdependencies of the biodiversity that we recklessly destroy.

Forgive us.

We pray for integrated responses across nations, so that biodiversity is protected. And we pray for nature based solutions that mitigate the climate and biodiversity crisis.

Amen.

at cop29

Biodiversity is one of the COP29 themes on Thursday 21 November 2024. Unfortunately, specific details on the biodiversity focus are not prominent, although the conference will likely address the interconnections between climate change, biodiversity, and water.

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🗓️ Today at COP29: The World Leaders Climate Action Summit continues.