Church Bells Ring to Warn of Climate Change

A growing number of churches, including some in Door County, are joining an effort to highlight the critical importance of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP 26), taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, Oct. 31-Nov. 12. 

What began as a proposal to ring church bells in the United Kingdom at 6 pm GMT Oct. 30 to spotlight the conference is now spreading across the United States and beyond. Church bells have been used as a warning for floods, fires and potential invasions in the UK, and their knells will now serve as a warning about climate change.  

The nonprofit, nonpartisan Climate Change Coalition of Door County is calling on churches throughout the county to ring bells, gather for prayer, stand vigil outside or find whatever way works best for them at 12 pm CDT Oct. 30 to call attention to the climate crisis and the urgent need for action at COP 26.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has stated unequivocally that the extreme weather events sweeping the globe with increasing ferocity – floods, wildfires, drought, heat domes, hurricanes, cyclones and heat itself – are the consequence of human-made climate change and result in weather-related disease, crop failures and other effects.

Door County has been spared the worst of extreme weather events, but people around the world are being profoundly affected, causing sharp increases in mortality and displacing millions – 30.5 million in 2020 alone. 

The nations of the Global South are already suffering the severest effects, but America’s poor are also suffering from rising food prices, heat exhaustion and the inability to obtain insurance against floods. Because care for the poor is a fundamental tenet of Christian teaching, churches are joining this effort to support effective climate action at COP 26.