Download or read book Two Essays on Climate Change and Agriculture written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2000 with total page 100 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agriculture and climate changes are closely linked. Agriculture has a significant impact on the process of climate change. There is uncertainty surrounding the implications of climate change for agricultural production. This document consists of two studies on this relationship. The first study provides an analysis of the various methodologies that have been used to measure the potential impacts of climate change on agricultural production and makes suggestions for further research. The second study is on the impact of agriculture on climate. It gives a detailed analysis of the potential for implementing the Clean Development Mechanism proposed under the Kyoto Protocol Convention on Climate Change in the agricultural sector of developing countries along with the relevant policy implications and requirements

Download or read book Two Essays on Climate Change Agriculture written by R0bert Mendelsohn and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Two Essays on Climate Change and Agriculture written by and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Essays on Climate Change Interactions with Agricultural Land and Water Use written by Oladipo Stephen Obembe and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agriculture and climate change are closely connected as climate change impacts agriculture through crop yield loss, reduction in area harvested and increase in irrigation water use. Agriculture plays both roles in the emission and sequestration of greenhouse gases. This dissertation is divided into two main parts. The first part has two essays that examine the impacts of climate change on winter wheat production and irrigation water use. The second part examines the cost-effectiveness of using lands under the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to sequester carbon through tree planting program. This dissertation contributes to the literature by showing how crop yield variability is not the same as production variability. The total impact of climate change is underestimated if climate change impact on yield alone is used. Another contribution to the literature is the modeling of crop abandonment in relation to climate change using correlated random effects fractional probit model. My work also illustrates how irrigation water use will change and how this change will impact the level of water in the aquifer by mid-century. In my first essay, I examine the impact of climate change on winter wheat production in Kansas. I decompose the total impact of weather variables on wheat production in Kansas through crop abandonment and yield. Using yield impacts alone to measure the climate change impact on production underestimates the total impact of climate change on production. I use the correlated random effects fractional probit model to estimate crop abandonment and account for unobserved heterogeneity between time-invariant variables and yield. The result projects a 16.3% decrease in winter wheat production by mid-century under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 4.5. I find that 86.72% of the projected decrease in production is due to the reduction in yield while crop abandonment is projected to decrease production by 13.17%. Yield is projected to decrease by 14.12% while crop abandonment is expected to increase by 18% by mid-century. Majority of damages from climate change are explained by an increase in temperature. In the second essay, I examine the impact of climate change on groundwater extraction for corn production in Kansas. Using a 24-year panel data of irrigation water use, weather and soil data, I estimate the impact of weather variability on irrigation water use for corn. I include the field-level fixed effects and a quadratic time trend to control for time invariant- variables and technological progress over time. I provide new evidence that shows farmers are less responsive to changing irrigation water use than an irrigation schedule would predict due to changes in weather. The result indicates 9% and 12% increase in irrigation water use by mid-century under RCP 4.5 and 8.5 respectively. The number of water rights that exceed their authorized water quantity will increase by 18.1% on average across different climate models under RCP 4.5. The effect of an increase in irrigation water use on the water level in the aquifer is spatial different. In Southwest Kansas, the historical rate of depletion is 2.05ft/year and by mid-century, the rate of depletion is projected to increase to 2.43 ft/year. In South Central Kansas, historical depletion is around 0.19 ft/year and the rate of depletion is predicted to increase to 1 ft/year by mid-century. In the third essay, I analyze the cost-effectiveness of carbon sequestration through the afforestation of the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). I use the correlated random effects probit model (CRE) to estimate the impact of an increase in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) payments on land use change. The CRE model allows me to control for unobserved heterogeneity and exploit variation in returns to land over time. Estimation without control for unobserved heterogeneity produces biased estimates with coefficients with the wrong sign. My estimates are used to simulate land use change, carbon sequestered and the marginal cost of carbon at different levels of CRP rent (i.e., the supply curve for carbon sequestration). At the average CRP rent rate of $71.21, 118,046 acres is gained by CRP and 2.1 million tons of carbon is sequestered per year at a marginal cost of $24.6. Increasing the average rent by 30% will add additional 159,736 acres and 0.24 million tons of carbon per year.

Download or read book The Uncertain Promise of Agriculture Two Essays on Climate Change Agriculture and Nutrition in the Andean Highlands of Peru written by Mary Katherine Wheeler and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agriculture is regarded as a key driver of economic and nutritional outcomes for poor households in developing countries. Yet climate change threatens to undermine the assurance that advances in agriculture can improve the welfare of millions living in poverty. This thesis explores the uncertain promise of agriculture for farmers in the Andean highlands of Peru. It presents two papers that analyze household survey data from agricultural communities near the city of Hunacayo, within the Shullcas River Watershed, to elucidate relationships between climate change, agriculture and nutrition. The first paper evaluates factors expected to influence climate perceptions and adaptive behavior. It finds that farmers universally perceive long-term changes in climate, and overwhelmingly report negative impacts on crop production, yet the rate of explicit agricultural adaptation in response to these observations is low (15%). However, most households do report using one or more production practices that are considered by researchers to be climate adaptive. Multivariate regression results indicate that education and agricultural information provide an essential foundation for farmer adaptation, but limited access to productive resources constrains adaptive capacity. The second paper identifies a positive relationship between farm size and household dietary diversity, and it assesses two potential pathways linking agriculture and nutrition. The analysis offers strong evidence of a direct production-consumption pathway for subsistence and commercial farming households, in addition to weak evidence of an agricultural income pathway only for households with commercial crop sales. Results further suggest that off-farm income is a critical driver of food security and dietary quality in the study area. Overall, both papers support the notion that investments in agriculture may not be sufficient to reduce the welfare gap for households facing hard constraints to climate adaptation or farm profitability. Development organizations and policymakers should expect tradeoffs between efficiency and equity in the targeting of climate adaptation and nutrition-sensitive agricultural policies and programs. ...

Download or read book Three Essays on the Impact of Climate Change and Weather Extremes on the United States Agriculture written by Phu Viet Le and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation incorporates three independent essays on the impact of climate change on the United States' agriculture, with each explores a different facet of climate change. There have been heated debates about the potential impact of climate change on the United States' agriculture. Several influential studies such as Schlenker, Hanemann, and Fisher (2005, 2006), Schlenker and Roberts (2006) suggest a potentially large negative impact of climate change on farmland values and crop yields, while others including Mendelsohn, Nordhaus, and Shaw (1994), and Deschenes and Greenstone (2007) believe that there is little impact or the US agriculture could be a major beneficiary of global warming. These opposing results inspired my work to examine another aspect of climate change that has not been carefully addressed in the current literature: the impact of climate and weather extremes. While any individual extreme event cannot be causally linked to climate change, there could be a higher probability of more severe extreme events in the future. There are several potential scenarios in which we may expect more heating, less cooling, and less fluctuations between the extremes with different forms of distributional shifts in climatic conditions, all having the same change in the mean temperature. For example, climate change may result in increased precipitations in Northern America in the form of more droughts and more flooding events. These differential changes in the distribution of climatic conditions may have a subtle impact on agriculture, which could not be identified by studying moment variables such as the mean and the variance of temperatures or precipitations. The three essays inherited two major empirical methods widely used in estimating the impact of climate change: hedonic regression and panel data. Hedonic regressions (also called the Ricardian approach) utilize cross-sectional variations to identify how climatic conditions such as the average temperature or precipitation capitalize in farmland values, and panel estimations that employ within variations to link weathers with annual crop yields or farm profits. However, there is a situation in which both techniques are insufficient. If economic agents have forward-looking behaviors, and under uncertainties, the decision making process will involve a dynamic optimization problem whose a reduced-form approach as derived from either cross-sectional or panel data technique may not truly identify the actual behaviors. I devised an innovative dynamic programming approach built up on the Ricardian method to estimate the impact of natural disasters such as extreme drought events on cropland conversions. In the first essay, using historical crop yield reports paired with high-resolution climate data, I discovered a small and positive effect of a decreasing diurnal temperature range on yields of five major crops including corns, wheat, cotton, soybeans, and sorghum. The asymmetric increases in observed maximum and minimum temperature have resulted in a falling diurnal temperature range across the United States. This effect could help mitigate some potential harmful impacts of climate change in the future, averaging up to a two percent yield offset for summer crops. Meanwhile, little impact on winter crops is expected. Moreover, the overall impact of climate change from a rising mean temperature and less fluctuations is dominantly harmful for most crops. The second essay presents a structural model of cropland conversions with an application to the impact of extreme droughts. Droughts are perhaps the most destructive events to the US agriculture. Extended periods of severe droughts in the late 20th century caused widespread economic damages comparable to that of the Dust Bowl in 1930s. I showed that those events contributed to converting lands from agricultural production to urban uses by damaging soil productivity and lowering farming profits. I concluded the Ricardian approach to estimating climate change impacts is insufficient. Specifically, the Ricardian method works well for equilibrium adjustments by assuming that farm owners are able to make complete adaptations to a changing environment. However, the Ricardian approach fails to take into account the presence of climate extremes whose adaptations are neither possible nor costless. As a consequence, this method may underestimate the true cost of transient events related to climate change such as extreme droughts. This finding carries a significant implication for the future of the US' private croplands. As the US is predicted to experience more precipitations in the future with climate change, it seems that there would be a beneficial impact of more water for crops. It may not necessarily be the case, however. Even with increased precipitations, drought conditions may occur more frequently and intensively. Damages from potentially extreme drought events were not considered in the Ricardian estimates. In the third essay, I examined the impact of extreme heating conditions on prime farmland conversions in California using the hedonic regression technique with a spatial dataset. I focused on the number of extreme heating days, defined as day with the recorded maximum temperature rises above 90 degree Fahrenheit. I found a small but significant nonlinear impact of extreme heating days on farmland conversions. A mild increase in the number of extreme heating days may be good for crops, thus helps keep farmlands in agricultural production. However, too excessive heating is harmful and accelerates conversions out of farming.

Download or read book Three Essays on Climate Change Impacts Adaptation and Mitigation in Agriculture written by Wei Wei Wang and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation investigates three economic aspects of the climate change issue: optimal allocation of investment between adaptation and mitigation, impacts on a ground water dependent regional agricultural economy and effects on global food insecurity. This is done in three essays by applying mathematical programming. In the first essay, a modeling study is done on optimal temporal investment between climate change adaptation and mitigation considering their relative contributions to damage reduction and diversion of funds from consumption and other investments. To conduct this research, we extend the widely used Integrated Assessment Model?DICE (Dynamic Integrated Climate Economy) adding improved adaptation modeling. The model results suggest that the joint implementation of adaptation and mitigation is welfare improving with a greater immediate role for adaptation. In the second essay, the research focuses on the ground water dependent agricultural economy in the Texas High Plains Region. A regionally detailed dynamic land allocation model is developed and applied for studying interrelationships between limited natural resources (e.g. land and groundwater), climate change, bioenergy demands and agricultural production. We find out that the effect varies regionally across hydrologically heterogeneous regions. Also, water availability has a substantial impact on feedstock mix. In terms of biofuel feedstock production, the model results show that limited water resource cannot sustain expanded corn-based ethanol production in the future. In the third essay, a Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) model is applied in an attempt to study potential impacts of climate change on global food insecurity. Our results show that climate change alters the number of food insecure people in a regionally different fashion over time. In general, the largest increase of additional food insecure population relative to the reference case (no climate change) is found in Africa and South Asia, while most of developed countries will benefit from climate change with a reduced proportion of food insecure population. In general, climate change affects world agricultural production and food security. Integrated adaptation and mitigation strategy is more effective in reducing climate change damages. However, there are synergies/trade-offs between these two options, particularly in regions with limited natural resources.

Download or read book Two Essays on Climate Change in Developing Countries written by Celine Boulenger and published by . This book was released on 2017 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Developing countries are expected to be the most vulnerable to future climate change due to their reliance on agriculture, their geographic location as well as their lack of resources for mitigation and adaptation. It is crucial to (1) measure the economic impacts of climate change on the developing world, (2) understand which regions will be affected the most to be able to efficiently allocate the scarce resources available for adaptation (3) study which measures towards mitigation and adaptation improve development in these regions. In these two essays, I address these issues using (1) macroeconomic data and a cointegration model to quantify the effects of renewable energy on GDP in 15 developing countries and (2) microeconomic data and a fixed-effects panel model to measure the impacts of climate change on agriculture in Chile. In the first essay, I find that switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy has a positive effect on GDP in developing countries both in the long and the short-run. These results show that using renewable energy will not only help mitigate the effects of climate change by reducing the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, but also allow them to get out of poverty. In the second essay, I find that high temperatures are extremely harmful for corn and potato production in Chile. I find that one more day of temperatures above the upper threshold of 29C reduces corn and potato yields by almost 20% and that these reductions in yields are strongest for the poorest regions of the country. These results give evidence that future climate change will have significant negative impacts on agriculture in Chile and could also increase inequality and poverty.

Download or read book Essays on Climate Change Agriculture and Production Efficiency written by Saúl Basurto-Hernández and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Climate change would likely pose significant challenges to agriculture. Previous assessments of the effect of climate change on agriculture show that developing countries are more vulnerable than developed countries. In this thesis, we contribute to the existing debate on the economic effects of climate change on land rents and production decisions. In the first chapter, we assess the capitalisation of climate change on land rental prices and net revenues of Mexican farms. Using cross-section data on the same farmsteads, we discover that using net revenues or land rental prices as measures of land rents in the Ricardian Hedonic model leads to different predictions. In the second chapter, we investigate how changes in climate would likely modify current crop and livestock choices in Mexico. Taking advantage of a plot-level dataset, we examine substitution patterns among arable and non-arable activities and find that accounting for such patterns in the discrete choice models leads to radically different projections. Taking climate change as an opportunity to produce food more efficiently, we use the Stochastic Frontier approach to assess the performance of Mexican farms in the third chapter. We find that farmers can produce more using the same amount of inputs, which can partially reduce or fully offset harmful effects of climate change.

Download or read book Essays on the Nexus of Climate Change Agricultural Productivity and the Environment written by Olabisi Aderonke Ekong and published by . This book was released on 2021 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Agriculture is highly dependent on and sensitive to weather. Warming effects result from greenhouse gas emissions and aerosols from a small number of countries but its impact will be felt on a global scale. So far, agricultural productivity growth has sustained the continuous global supply of food but will this continue into the foreseeable future with the incidence of climate change? The effects of climate change on crop yields have been the focus of several studies. However, the sensitivity of agricultural productivity (measured as Total Factor Productivity-TFP) to climate change is not well understood. The first essay examines how historical changes in temperature and precipitation have affected the evolution of agricultural total factor productivity (TFP) while accounting for the short and long term impact. A fixed effect regression model for 128 countries for a period of 1961 to 2014 was employed to exploit yearly changes in temperature and precipitation as the identification strategy. Results show that precipitation has a significant effect on TFP growth in Sub-Saharan Africa, tropical and low income countries. Global short term temperature effect is offset in the long run showing that farmers adapt to reduce the effects of temperature in their behavioral decisions. Irrespective of the impact of climate change, there have been calls for an increase in agricultural productivity due to uncertainty and a global decline in Research and Development (R&D) expenditures. Previous literature accounts for the effect of global TFP growth on global food security and the environment. My second essay estimates the impact of TFP growth in different regions on global food security and the environment using a partial equilibrium model. To construct comparable TFP shocks across regions, I consider three TFP shock scenarios: (i) a uniform 100 percent increase in TFP growth in each region, (ii) TFP growth in each region that gives the same decrease in global commodity price, and (iii) TFP growth in each region resulting from the same increase in R&D expenditure. Results show that a 100% increase in TFP in the US & Canada increases agricultural carbon emission within the US & Canada by 16.9% but with a net global decrease in agricultural carbon emissions by 4.27%. In addition, a 100% increase in TFP in the US & Canada decreases global food security (malnutrition) by 13.09%. These results provide justification to support increasing R&D expenditures in developed regions. Overall, TFP growth is most effective in Sub-Saharan Africa as it gives the largest reductions in malnutrition and carbon emissions.

Download or read book Essays in Economics of Climate Change Land Use and Public Health written by Yoon Choi and published by . This book was released on 2019 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation consists of three essays regarding two different topics in agricultural economics. In the first two studies, a two-part exercise on adapting land-use decisions to climate change conditions is conducted using economic models. In the last study, the impacts of a federal assistance program on the food industry are examined using a quasi-experimental design. In Chapter 1, we project and discuss land conversion to agricultural and non-agricultural uses in the state of California, which faces significant challenges associated with climate change and availability of water resources. To carry out our analysis, we adapt and estimate a supply and demand model, accounting for climate, water use, and urbanization pressures. Using climate projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), we simulate expected changes in land allocation under alternative climate conditions. The change in total farmland under future climate conditions varies between -14% and 14%, depending on the IPCC model and emission scenario used, though the overall average is a decline of 5% by 2099. Chapter 2 narrows our research focus to agricultural product allocation within land devoted to agriculture. A system of land demand equations is estimated to examine a given farmer's decision to allocate land to major agricultural products in California, limiting attention to the top three cash making operations, namely pasture (dairy products, cattle and calves), grapes, and almonds. Next, simulations meant to predict the effect of climate change on farmland allocation among products are conducted. For each climate scenario, the corresponding predicted results for total agricultural land use from Chapter 1 are employed. On the whole, we find that pasture land share decreases substantially, almond land share declines by a much smaller margin, and there is no uniform trend for grapes. However, the magnitude of potential adaptation is dependent on the climate model and emission scenario under consideration. In Chapter 3, we investigate the US Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC)'s spillover effect. WIC provides infant formula to participating low-income families with children under 12 months of age. Using difference-in-differences (DID) models, this study examines how changing a state's WIC infant formula contract manufacturer affected the volume sales of the new and former contract brands, including spillover effects on sales of infant formula not eligible for WIC and toddler milks. We find that one year following a contract change, the average volume sales of WIC-eligible infant formula for the new contract brand dramatically increased, while sales decreased for the former brand. The average sales of non-WIC-eligible infant formula and toddler milk products for the new WIC brand also increased after the change.

Download or read book Essays on the Economic Impacts of Climate Change on Agriculture and Adaptation written by Kaixing Huang and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Climate Change and Agriculture Worldwide written by Emmanuel Torquebiau and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-10-26 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years, especially with the approach of the 21st Session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in Paris in late 2015, the number of publications, conferences and meetings on climate change has been growing exponentially. Yet uncertainties remain concerning rural tropical areas where models are forecasting the onset of multiple disorders and trends are unclear. Meanwhile, the impact of climate change on the poorest communities is regularly documented, often prompting alarmist reactions. How can food security be achieved while adapting to and mitigating climate change? What are the main threats to agriculture in developing countries? How do farmers in these countries cope with the threats? What does agricultural research propose? What options have yet to be investigated? A broad scope of scientific research is underway to address these challenges. Diverse solutions are available, including new agricultural practices, water management, agricultural waste recycling, diagnosis of emerging diseases, payment for ecosystem services, etc. Gaining insight into the financial and political mechanisms that underlie international climate negotiations is also essential to design practical ways to deal with climate issues and meet sustainable development requirements in collaboration with farmers. This book pools the wealth of experience of dozens of researchers and development officers from a range of disciplines. We have focused on making it detailed, accurate and hopefully easy to read for researchers, students and all other informed readers.

Download or read book Agriculture and climate change written by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and published by Food & Agriculture Org.. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 56 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This publication presents the achievements of the International Alliance on Climate-Smart Agriculture project, which include capacity development, training, information-sharing and several country studies. The project notably contributed to feasibility studies in Botswana, Ecuador and Ethiopia, as well as a case study on Italy that showcased conservation agriculture as a successful approach to overcoming soil fertility loss and erosion in 15 regions. The publication demonstrates how the project has laid the foundations for a strong knowledge community to support climate-smart agriculture (CSA) implementation across countries and regions, thereby contributing to international climate commitments and sustainable development in the field of agriculture and food security. The International Alliance on Climate-Smart Agriculture project was funded by the Ministry of Environment, Land and Sea of Italy (IMELS) and implemented by FAO, in order to advance knowledge-sharing, learning and partnership-building around the CSA approach and to create a Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture (GACSA).

Download or read book Global Warming and Agriculture written by William R Cline and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-30 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How will global warming affect developing countries, which rely heavily on agriculture as a source of economic growth? William Cline asserts that developing countries have more at risk, such as their production capacity, than industrial countries as global warming worsens. Using general circulation models, Cline boldly examines 2071–99 to forecast the effects of global warming and its economic impact into the next decade. This detailed study outlines existing studies on climate change; Cline finds the Stern Report for the UK government's estimates most reliable; estimates projected changes in temperature, precipitation, and agricultural capacity; and concludes with policy recommendations. Cline finds that agricultural production in developing countries may fall an average of 16 percent, and if global warming progresses at its current rate, India's agricultural capacity could fall as much as 40 percent. Thus, policymakers should address this phenomenon now before the world's developing countries are adversely and irreversibly affected.

Download or read book A Better Planet written by Daniel C. Esty and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-22 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A practical, bipartisan call to action from the world’s leading thinkers on the environment and sustainability Sustainability has emerged as a global priority over the past several years. The 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change and the adoption of the seventeen Sustainable Development Goals through the United Nations have highlighted the need to address critical challenges such as the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, water shortages, and air pollution. But in the United States, partisan divides, regional disputes, and deep disagreements over core principles have made it nearly impossible to chart a course toward a sustainable future. This timely new book, edited by celebrated scholar Daniel C. Esty, offers fresh thinking and forward-looking solutions from environmental thought leaders across the political spectrum. The book’s forty essays cover such subjects as ecology, environmental justice, Big Data, public health, and climate change, all with an emphasis on sustainability. The book focuses on moving toward sustainability through actionable, bipartisan approaches based on rigorous analytical research.

Download or read book Coming Back to Earth written by Jonathan Cornford and published by . This book was released on 2016-01-31 with total page 104 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Humanity at the beginning of the third millennium is faced with unprecedented challenges "" climate change, species extinction, resource decline, economic instability and widening inequality to name but a few. Although Christians say that they believe that they have good news for world, there is little recognition that Christianity has anything distinctive or important to say about these global challenges. This crisis of relevance is reflected in widespread disaffection with the Christian church, both without and within. Coming Back to Earth is a collection of essays that examines some of the foundational challenges that must be confronted this century "" climate change, urban life, agriculture and food "" with the conviction that the great biblical narrative has something essential to say about each of them: essential in that we need to hear it; and essential in that it penetrates to the very essence of the problem and its solution. It argues that we can find in the Bible both prescient explanations for our current predicament and pertinent wisdom that offers hopeful guidance. Through all of this we are invited to re-think our understanding of the church and its purpose in a hurting and broken world, the reasons for the Christianity's seeming irrelevance today, and what might be required to renew the church as a dynamic, engaged and hopeful witness to the good news of the kingdom of God.