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The G20 begins meeting today in Australia. Many people have been encouraged this week by an historic emissions deal agreed between America and China. But despite this, and a recent UN report calling urgently for action on climate change, the host nation has insisted that this will not be on the agenda. The Australian Prime Minister wants the G20 instead to focus on economic growth, and climate change will likely not even be discussed. We have the information. The majority of experts agree the facts are compelling. This deal shows we also have the ability - and yet time and again we avoid taking action. That's not just because some people remain unconvinced about the science. It might also be down to human nature. There's a line in Romans where you can hear Paul's frustration at this condition: "I don't understand myself. I want to do what's right but I don't do it". Like him, we don't do what we know we need to do. We've all experienced the gravitational pull of our own immediate comfort over what is just and good, whether it's our failure to quit smoking or that perennially deferred intention to volunteer. However, in the Ancient world in which Paul wrote, this tendency would have been difficult to explain. Greek moral psychology conceived of Reason as our fundamental motivator in seeking what's good. If your reason was working properly, and if you had the ability, you would live well. The idea that you might know what was good, and have the ability to carry it out, but simply not want to was unthinkable. If this was an accurate understanding of human nature, the deluge of information about the environment, coupled with the powerful choice making capacity of the West would have slowed climate change long ago. But it hasn't. Because it's not captured our hearts. Saint Augustine put his finger on it. Where the Greeks thought information and rationality would lead inevitably towards the good, Christians believe that if we don't love, we won't act rightly. Incidentally, though they might use different language, behavioural psychologists agree. Reason can motivate us short term in simple things, but we are not primarily reasoning beings, but desiring beings, driven by passion, by love. Many pregnant women report gaining the extra oomph to quit smoking- because they have a new love. When someone close to us is under threat, involvement in relevant charities comes naturally. Christianity, despite the caricature, emphasises that we act rightly not out of a rational desire to avoid hell, but out of love. This, sadly, doesn't give us easy answers. But perhaps it's a start to give up believing, like the Greeks, that if we only had enough reason and information we'd do the right thing. Perhaps we need to start asking what it would look like to overcome apathy and passivity with love. Love for this fragile earth, for our neighbours near and far, and those neighbours who are not yet born.