ShareLife, the archdiocese of Toronto’s charitable fund-raising arm, is collecting money to assist the 25 million people across Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan who have been made homeless by massive floods. In July the Canadian Catholic Organization for Development and Peace kicked in $100,000 to help out Catholic Relief Services’ efforts to help victims of Cyclone YemYin in Pakistan and sent a further $50,000 in early August to aid victims of the floods in Bangladesh. It has launched an emergency campaign to raise further funds to send along to partner organizations to help victims.

The funds ShareLife collects will be directed to the international Caritas network for a variety of flood relief efforts throughout Asia. The Development and Peace donation will be used to build temporary shelters and ensure hygiene in refugee areas so survivors don’t die of water- and mosquito-borne diseases.

In May the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that global warming would increase the number of extreme weather events and that these events would hit the world’s poor hardest.

The World Meteorological Organization reports that Earth’s surface temperatures were an average of 1.89 degrees above the 127-year average in January of this year. The IPCC says burning fossil fuels that release excess carbon into the atmosphere is the principal cause of global warming.

{sidebar id=2}Summer 2007 has featured record storms, heat waves and flooding in Africa, Asia, Europe and South America. So far this year floods have swamped China, South Asia, Mozambique, Sudan and Uruguay. Meanwhile in England and Wales people endured the wettest June since records began in 1766.

Other weird weather events have included snow in South Africa and the first cyclone ever recorded in the Arabian Sea.

Getting money out to victims of climate change is the bare beginnings of what Canadians owe to the world’s poor, said Dennis Patrick O’Hara, director of the Elliott Allen Institute for Ecology and Theology.

“This is a huge justice issue,” said the ecotheologian. “If you are a consumer who is contributing to climate change, then you have to think that you’re lifestyle is contributing to the death of others.”

For poor and marginal farmers, freak weather kickstarted by the oversized carbon footprints of rich Westerners is a matter of life and death. When floods, hurricanes and droughts hit, farmers in Africa, Asia and Latin America are the least able to adapt, said O’Hara.

“Because these are marginal farmers they’re not able to change equipment, change crops, weather a bad year, or whatever. That’s why climate change affects them a lot more,” said O’Hara.

It’s not just a matter of helping victims of climate change when emergencies strike.

“Absolutely, we need to donate and try to help out these people,” O’Hara said. “We also need to look at a bigger picture. Why is this happening? How can I also be part of a longer-term solution? That isn’t just giving money. It’s also, ‘How do I adapt my lifestyle?’ ”

He points out that the Vatican has adopted a policy to keep the city-state’s carbon footprint neutral. O’Hara believes Canadians are similarly willing to adjust their lifestyles.

Toronto parishes collecting money for the Asia Flood Relief are asked to send a cheque to ShareLife offices with the name of their parish and Asia Flood Relief indicated on the cheque. Those who wish to contribute can call ShareLife at 1-800-263-2595 or (416) 934-3411.

Contributions to Development and Peace can be made by telephone (1 888 234-8533), or via the Internet (www.devp.org). Designate donations to: Emergency: South-Asian Flooding 2007. Donations can also be made by cheque (marked “Emergency: South-Asian Flooding 2007”) to Development and Peace, 1425, René-Lévesque Blvd. W., 3rd floor, Montreal, Que., H3G 1T7.