Lent is a time of reflection and sacrifice. Jesus taught us to “Love our neighbor”. While we may not all agree on the causes or severity, climate change is real and disproportionately affects the highly vulnerable. Rising sea levels, more frequent severe weather events, droughts, forest fires and other devastating events correlate with increasing levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. These events affect all of us, but especially the global poor.
In 2011 Mark Hoffman began doing Low Carb(on) Lent as a fund raiser for Eden Renewal and later wrote a personal blog post describing Low Carbon Lent in 2018. Now we want to grow this movement.
Doing a “Low Carbon Lent” is making a commitment during Lent to reduce your personal carbon footprint, reflect on environmental stewardship and participating in daily prayer and reflection. There is no right or wrong way to do a Low Carbon Lent, but we recommend a combination of the following:
- Daily changes in habit(s) during Lent with the intent of reducing your carbon impact
- Activities or projects at least once during Lent
- Experience nature
- Read one book
- Daily prayer
This site will provide suggestions that will help you get started but we encourage you to be creative. Please let us know if you plan to do a Low Carbon Lent this year by clicking below!