Suffering Earth

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smoke rising from burned hills

Suffering Earth

Scenes of drought, flood, fire, and famine dominate the news, as statistics predict and confirm a rapidly changing climate. How are we to respond to the suffering this is causing? Here, from recent issues of Plough and from the archive, are a variety of perspectives on responding to natural and manmade disaster with our hearts and hands.

aerial view of windmills in farmland

Climate Science Evangelism

Katharine Hayhoe and John Murdock

A climate scientist asks us to start with things people can agree on, not piling on more facts, which has already failed to budge the skeptics.

young man protesting for Extinction Rebellion being carried by London police officers in bright yellow jackets

How to Be a Climate-Change Activist without Becoming an Alarmist

Alastair McIntosh

Drama and immediacy galvanize attention, but apocalyptic claims make many people feel there’s no hope.

illustration of orange and yellow cracked earth with blue mountains in the distance

The Hard Work of Conversion

Bill McKibben

Can the lessons learned in this pandemic help us tackle climate change?

factory smokestacks with grey smog

The Spiritual Roots of Climate Crisis

Peter Turkson

The answer to ecological challenges is not more technocracy, but conversion.

corn cobs drying on a rack

Sacred Seeds

Mary Eubanks

How ancient genes can help end hunger, save the soil, and equip small farmers to face climate change.

leaves bathed in sunlight

Jesus Is Coming – Plant a Tree!

N. T. Wright

In the new creation, the ancient human mandate to look after the garden is dramatically reaffirmed.

Katharine Hayhoe, climate scientist.

A Climate for Change: An Interview with Katharine Hayhoe

Katharine Hayhoe

A 2015 interview with Katharine Hayhoe, the climate scientist who has met with President Obama to discuss climate change. How does Hayhoe, a Texas...

sand washing down a beach

The End of the World as We Know It

Ragan Sutterfield

We can do good by changing our relationship to the earth from extraction and toward cultivation.

members of Danthonia Bruderhof planting olive trees

Beating the Big Dry

Johannes Meier

An Australian cattle farm fights drought by reviving ancient landscapes.

illustration of sun and rays over a dark city

The Edge of Catastrophe

Eberhard Arnold

No one can deny that the revolutionary movements have aroused the human conscience, thus violently shaking humanity's soul. The conscience cannot...

full train of people reading newspapers

When Following the News Becomes Too Distressing

Cynthia R. Wallace

How do we reclaim hope when experiencing moral distress?

the Individual and World Need

The Individual and World Need

Eberhard Arnold

Arnold's essential diagnosis of what is wrong in the world – fragmentation, alienation, lust for power and wealth – is as precise today as when he...