By the Rev. Lauren Grubaugh Thomas
This essay builds on a short video I recently shared on my Instagram page.
A couple nights a week, I serve as an on-call chaplain for a Denver, Colorado, hospital. I recently responded to an emergency call about a car accident. The patient was a young woman who was fortunate to make it out of her totaled car without life-threatening injuries. She had fallen asleep at the wheel, she explained, adding that the night prior was terribly hot—she had tossed and turned all night, unable to get good sleep.
She worried aloud about missing work at her minimum-wage job. Meanwhile, her father was remorseful: “You should have told me! I would have turned up the AC!”
I’ve been thinking about this encounter in terms of the climate crisis and the need for economic justice ever since.
Colorado is experiencing one of the hottest summers on record, with multiple days exceeding 100°F. This comes in the global context of 13 consecutive months of record-setting temperatures. Without serious policy change and accompanying structural transformation, we are on a crash course to reach a serious tipping point of 2°C warming within the next 10-20 years, setting off a domino effect of climate-related disasters.
With this warming comes increased risk of direct harm. Heatstroke is one such obvious example—the data already shows that heat-related deaths are rising. But it is vitally important to also be mindful of the indirect harm transpiring as a result of the climate crisis, which is having a disproportionate impact on the poor and working class. Increasing numbers of exhausted drivers veering off the road will be just one effect of more and more people unable to afford AC.
Meanwhile, members of the middle class—to which I belong—may imagine themselves exempt, believing they can buy their way out of the heat. But we preserve our individual comfort to our own detriment—as well as that of the neighbors we have been called to love.
As I write this, I can see plumes of smoke above the foothills several miles from my home. Wildfire season in Colorado has grown increasingly severe. Since a devastating fire in December of 2021 destroyed suburban neighborhoods in wealthy Boulder County, which resulted in lawsuits, our utilities company has opted to proactively turn power off during high-risk weather events, in hopes of avoiding future litigation.
The last time a planned power-outage took place, some of my neighbors rented hotel rooms with WiFi in order to stay cool and get work done during the nearly 48-hour shut-off. But many of us—not just the poor—cannot afford to rent a hotel room, certainly not on a regular basis. The cost of restocking a refrigerator of spoiled food is significant, too. And what will happen to small children, the elderly, folks with medical conditions requiring electricity-powered devices, and other vulnerable people when hotels are booked up?
Throwing money at the problem in an effort to save ourselves, while neglecting the social safety net, is a short-term nonsolution.
That’s the bad news.
But there is good news, too, and it is the inverse of individualistic self-preservation. We are all, as the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. taught, “caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.” Loving our neighbors as ourselves, there is much we can do as the church to anticipate and respond to the growing needs created by the climate crisis.
Embody a climate-conscious theology: Explicit or implied language of divine judgment (like “act of God” or “natural disaster”) imposes helplessness while deflecting responsibility. Teach parishioners that the God who made the world and called it good still loves the world—the Incarnation is proof of God’s love of life! Our baptismal covenant calls us to partner with God in seeing all people as image-bearers worthy of dignity.
Amid the stress of climate change, we need to remember that the Christian responsibility to seek and serve Christ in all persons remains unchanged. In Christ, no one is disposable. Some will see harm as inevitable. Reject the temptation to cynicism. The one who has called us goes with us through the storm as we care for one another.
Practice a ministry of harm reduction: Understand your obligation to the poor and vulnerable members of your wider community. Bear in mind that while the unhoused are a particularly vulnerable community, many folks who are (often precariously) housed cannot afford to cover the rising costs to cool their homes. You might consider:
- Contributing to mutual aid efforts: Plug into local food-sharing efforts, like community gardens and free stores. Strategically budget to have funds available to cover high utility bills during the summer months. Buy generators for families who have vulnerable members.
- Offering your church as a cooling station, like this Presbyterian church in Roanoke. (Relatedly, consider installing solar panels and a battery so that your church will have electricity without connection to the power grid.)
- Making a plan to serve as an emergency shelter in the event of fire, like these Northern California parishes.
Advocate for policies that ensure a social safety net for the most vulnerable: We have repeatedly seen how racism and economic injustice intertwine to imperil poor, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, people of color) communities during climate catastrophes, with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina being one of the most apocalyptic examples of governmental failure. On the other hand, climate and economic policies that prioritize the poor are beneficial for everyone. Take your cues from churches and organizations in the most climate-impacted and economically disenfranchised areas of your community. Faith leaders—clergy and laity—can insist at the city, county, state, and federal level on policies that take love of neighbor as their guiding ethic.
The Rev. Lauren Grubaugh Thomas nurtures soulful revolutionaries as a writer, chaplain, and church planter in the Episcopal Church in Colorado. Find her writing and podcasting at the intersection of spiritual transformation and social change at A Soulful Revolution and follow her on Instagram: @revlaurengthomas, @soulfulrevolutionaries @holycompanion