O’Connel is the Head of the Western Cape Department of Education and he was one of the keynote speakers at this year’s Winter School in Stellenbosch.
O’Conner started off with painting a picture of the future of the earth and it shocked the audience. He explained why climate changes are creating a major crisis and challenge for us. By 2025 there will be serious energy, water, food shortages, especially in South Africa.
His point was that this generation’s leaders are challenged to solve this problem. We need to influence the future. But in order to do this we must be talking about the right (important) things and we must be willing to change our way of thinking. We need to try make sense of the statistics and respond to it timeously. We need to start by changing the culture and the conversation. The church can play an important role in this.
The question that this talk left me with, was why am I not really thinking about climate change and the future? And why is this topic so seldom discussed in the church?
