In Depth:  Paul Kunert

earth watch

Paul Kunert

As I write, England has recently sweltered under a record-smashing May heatwave, the culmination of a drier-than-usual spring.

Heather Oldfield, South Lincolnshire National Farmers Union County Chairman, showed Radio 4’s Farming Today her “stressed” winter wheat, and her “patchy” spring barley, and wonders whether she’ll even be planting a spring crop next year. Meanwhile, at Low Sizergh farm in Cumbria, panting cattle and sheep sought respite in the shade.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

“Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, why are you weeping? For whom are you looking?’ Supposing him to be the gardener…” (John 20v15). Many of us in the last few weeks will have heard or read these words. But how many will have paused to ponder this significance of Mary’s supposition?

What is it about Jesus’ resurrection body that the first witness takes Him for “the gardener”? Why not the caretaker or security guard or a passerby? One might speculate. Perhaps Jesus had been tending a budding vine. Or, His hands in the soil, a sprouting mustard seed. Or, among the trees, a fruiting orange. Perhaps, perhaps not.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

There’s really no good way to say this, but, the thing is: we’re losing Nemo.

Some of you – many, probably – will know Pixar/Disney’s (mostly) wonderful animated films. Bringing up our kids in the noughties, 2003’s Finding Nemo was one of our favourites. With 40 million copies sold, it’s the most popular DVD of all time, so we obviously weren’t alone! The adventures of Nemo the reef-dwelling clownfish, it’s a heartwarming tale of family, friendship and letting go that brings vividly to life the underwater world of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

We will have been thinking about the coming of the true King. Through the Advent season, we’re sure to have looked back with joy to the announcement of His birth. We’ve likely looked, also, to the future with longing for the day of the return of the King, when all things will be put right. And perhaps we’ve had the space, held between joy and longing, to lament the darkness.

Advent and Christmas are annual reminders that we are uniquely placed as Christians to see both the beauty of creation and its brokenness. Celebrating the One who came to redeem and who will come again to restore all creation, we share both the Creator’s joy and His lament, in the sure expectation of a world-made-right.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

It’s COP season again. COP30 – or to give it its full title, the 30th Conference of the Parties under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change – gets underway imminently.

Dimly we might recall COP26 hitting headlines in the UK four years ago when Glasgow hosted it. Boris Johnson’s one minute to midnight speech, perhaps? Maybe “keeping 1.5 alive”? Or Alok Sharma’s tears when India pulled the rug on his deal to phase out coal?

earth watch

Paul Kunert

The lights flicker briefly. Then complete darkness. A few seconds later, the drone of back-up generators all across the neighbourhood, the part-muffled roar of our own, and with bleeping electronics, everything’s back on.

Living in Dar es Salaam 20 years ago, we soon got used to the blackouts. It happened so often, it barely made the news. Here in the UK though, even a short interruption is big news and a few days, especially in winter, a state of emergency. That’s perhaps as it should be.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

Is real change possible? That, for those who watch closely our heating world, is the crucial question. If we’re to avoid the worst effects of climate breakdown, we need actual real change.

Or to bring it into the Biblical narrative, if we’re to fulfil our first calling to rule and care for all creation as God’s agents, we’ll need actual real change. It sounds obvious but it’s not always easy to see.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

Ocean. David Attenborough’s latest made-for-the-big-screen documentary. Perhaps you’ve seen it. If not, please do – I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Barrow-rolling seal, sun-dappled kelp forest, coral garden reef, phytoplankton and whale, the astonishing beauty of it all. You’ll experience joy, wonder, horror, anger, hope and much else besides, all in the space of 90 minutes. It’s impossible not to be stirred, maybe shaken. Available in cinemas and, by the time you’re reading this, on Disney+.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

Energy, and how we produce it, is the key to a stable climate. Three quarters of emissions come from energy production. Get energy right, and we’ve broken the back of it. So, the latest Global Energy Review report from the highly regarded International Energy Agency is a vital health check. What’s happening to energy demand? How are we producing it? Does the arc of emissions bend toward zero?

According to the report, the answers to those questions are: one, it’s going up; two, increasingly from renewables; and three, either no or only slowly. Now, I know it’s hard to engage with numbers and percentages. So, here are just two headlines. In 2024, global energy demand rose by 2.2%. And carbon emissions rose by 0.8%. Behind those headlines is a mixed story. On the plus side, most of the growth came from wind and solar energy. In fact, 40% of all energy now comes from low carbon renewables and nuclear. But on the minus side, use of gas, oil and coal also rose, and carbon emissions are still going up, when we need them to be going down (fast).

earth watch

Paul Kunert

This week sees yet another instalment in the UK water company saga. In 2023, untreated sewage was discharged for 3.6 million hours into our lakes, rivers and seas.

Only 15% of English rivers are in good ecological health. Who’s going to pay to have them run clear? To teem again with living creatures? Thames, Anglian, United, etc.? Their customers? Their shareholders? (Spoiler alert: As a veteran of a regulated industry, I’m sorry to say, it’s us, the bill-paying customers. Profiteers took advantage of a cheap sale and hands-off regulation to make super-returns. But they’re long gone, together with the cash. Poor policy and regulation time and again leaves customers to pick up the pieces.) And, moreover, what does the gospel of Jesus Christ have to say?

earth watch

Paul Kunert

Well, there you have it! The numbers are in! The award for the hottest year on record goes to… 2024! Beating previous award-winning 2023, it racked up an impressive 1.6 degrees hotter than the pre-industrial average. In fact, the world’s been on a record-breaking streak for some time now: the top ten hottest years occurred in, well, the last ten years.

But we won’t just look back on 2024 as yet another record-breaking year in a long run of unwelcome records. We’ll look back on it as the first year our world breached 1.5 degrees, the so-called ‘safe limit’ of heating.

earth watch

Paul Kunert

Donald Trump is now President of the most economically powerful nation on the planet and – the President-elect is self-avowedly no friend of God’s creation.

He has signed an order to withdraw from the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change and has pledged to roll back Biden’s clean energy law, the Inflation Reduction Act. And he’s doubling down on oil and gas: ‘Drill, baby, drill’.