60 minutes for Planet Earth

This evening, after a tiring day at work, I was looking forward to a night of vegging out in front of the TV with my tea. I’d put my dinner in the oven, some washing in the washing machine and was just catching up with Waterloo Road on iPlayer, when suddenly I was plunged into darkness.

Now the electrics in my flat leave a lot to be desired, so I found my way, cautiously, to the fuse box, grappling around for the torch that’s so easy to find until it pitch black. That’s odd, everything seemed to be ok; and then I realised. It wasn’t just my flat. I looked out of the window and the only lights I could see were car lights. Raynes Park was in utter darkness.

I suddenly realised it wasn’t just dark, but quiet too. The washing machine and internet and freezer and tv had all stopped. In the blink of an eye, everything was eerily peaceful.

As I looked out of my window, I could see the flicker of candle light begin to appear as families around my neighbourhood had managed to use muscle memory to rediscover the place they’d hidden the matches. In this moment of the unusual, something serenely beautiful was happening.

Some of the team based in our office have just got back from Hope for Planet Earth, a tour that looks at climate change from a Christian perspective and asks how we should respond. As the team have unpacked the subject, they have discovered more and more that while it is our actions in the richer nations that are the biggest cause of climate change, the people it affects the most are in the poorest places on earth. Places where droughts and flash flooding are now a reality, where crops haven’t yielded a harvest for several years, where families are forced to leave their homes due to rising water levels. Jesus calls us to love our neighbours as we love ourselves (Matt 22:37-39), but how are our actions demonstrating this love?

Now I’d consider myself as someone who tries to reduce my impact on the environment. I recycle as much as I can, holiday in the UK to save plane emissions, turn the tap off when I’m brushing my teeth, I’ve even given up meat for Lent; and yet, in these minutes when my home was in blackout, I suddenly realised how reliant I was on my computer, my oven and the lights around my flat.

It’s easy to become apathetic thinking that we cannot make a difference, and yet we can. We are called to strive for justice, to help our neighbours, and this Saturday, 28 March, at 8.30pm, millions of people around the globe are uniting together and taking a stand as Earth Hour draws people together. Earth Hour is an initiative designed to show world leaders and our neighbours that we are determined to find a solution to climate change. Across the world people, are turning out their lights for one hour. This problem can be solved, we don’t need to burn fossil fuels to power our homes when we could use renewable energy, but without pressure, companies and government can choose not to act. Will you be a part of Earth Hour? Will you stand shoulder to shoulder with those most affected by climate change? Will you stand up? Will you turn off the lights?