Protest4 Newsletter Out

"Protest4 an end to human trafficking is a response to the issue of sex-trafficking and modern-day slavery. We aim to unite individuals and groups in the fight against slavery in the 21st century"
This is a campaign that is only just getting off the ground, their latest newsletter is posted. No RSS feed yet but I suspect that it will come.

We tend to think that the slave trade is a thing of the past; unhappily not ...
"There are more slaves now than in the entire history of the transatlantic slave trade. There were at least 11 million Africans sold into slavery and exported to the Americas. Today, 200 years later, there are more than 20 million slaves across the world."
This is a campaign I encourage you to shadow and even join in.

Dambed if you do, and if you don't

There aren't enough details really for it to help us to know whether it applies to [which] individual cases or not. But here am I gently losing weight because of a genetic predisposition to high cholesterol and now wondering whether I should be.

"It seems as if the long-term effect of the weight loss is a general weakening of the body that leads to an increased risk of dying from several different causes," said Dr Sorensen. "The adverse effects of losing lean body mass may overrule the beneficial effects of losing fat mass when dieting,"

So now they have to work out if the hypothesis about why "Healthy overweight or obese subjects who try to lose weight and succeed in doing so over a six-year period suffer from almost double the risk of dying during the next 18" is correct, and then work out from that whether there are ways to lose weight that don't incur that risk.



In the meantime the best that can be offered appears to be "If people are overweight, their main priority should be to stop gaining weight and then work on losing some rather than chasing a low body mass index," said Tom Sanders, professor of nutrition and dietetics at King's College London. "If you can stop people gaining weight in their 20s and 30s, it seems to have the best outcome in the long term."

The former, somewhat comfortingly, seems to be my situation. The latter is what I'm trying to convey to my kids.

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Overweight who diet risk dying earlier, says study

[Footprint] Let's Get ROCs

Renewable Obligation Certificates (ROCs) are earnt by green/renewable energy suppliers for the energy they create from hydro, wind, tidal energy sources.

Every energy supplier has to source some of it's generation (about 5%, but climbing yearly) from renewable sources - in other words every supplier has to get hold of some ROCS to meet their legal obligation. This is because earning a ROC shows that you have generated a corresponding amount of energy from renewable sources. Alternatively purchasing a ROC shows that someone else has generated the corresponding amount of energy from renewable sources for you (whether you personally use the energy or not).

So, simply put, if you buy one ROC (and do not sell it on) then you are forcing the energy market to produce a certain amount of energy from renewable sources. In fact one ROC is given for every megawatthour (mWh - 1,000kWh) of electricity generated from renewable sources. It is perhaps typical for a family home to use around 5mWh of electricity per year.

To force electricity suppliers to generate an additional amount of energy from renewable sources, equal to your consumption, would mean buying 5 ROCs at a cost, on the open market, of around £50 each - total £250. This is a rational alternative to producing your own renewable energy using, perhaps, a wind turbine (or five) on your roof.

However, the story isn't over yet! We all consume a LOT more energy than just the electricity we are supplied with. We also consume gas, petrol (or diesel) and basically anything we buy has been manufactured and transported using fossil fuels. Also the services we receive are supplied with the use of fossil fuels.

Now, if each of the suppliers, in the supply chain of the goods and services we buy, were using renewable energy then we wouldn't have an issue - the prices of those goods and services would be higher as they would incorporate the costs of renewable energy. However, on the whole they are not. So what can we do? Again, we really need to offset our indirect energy consumption (the energy others are using for us, to supply the products and services to us) and force an equivalent amount of renewable energy to be generated.

So how do you figure out how much energy was used? Well, unfortunately it appears that most of the cost of goods and services is ultimately energy cost:

• Raw materials - mining costs are largely energy.
• Transport of raw materials, processed components and finished goods - energy.
• Processing of raw materials and assembly of components - energy.
• Human labour - well, their lives run on energy too, so most of their wage is spent on energy and as human labour and people's lives are part of the supply chain they must be included.

So let's pick a figure out of the air - 90% of the money we spend is ultimately to pay for fossil fuel energy. So, if we have an average per capita income of £8,000 per year (which is close to average - remember that this is averaged across all people including children, not just the average income per worker) and that income is paying for energy then we are consuming about 114mWh. To pay for that we need to buy 114 ROCs at a total cost of £5,700 (per person).

Another way of analysing this is to find the per capita energy consumption figures (which I previously quoted here) which is at a rate of about 5kW which, multiplied by the hours in a year gives you 43mWh per year. However, this doesn't take into account the energy consumed for us in imported goods but does take into account the energy consumed by exported goods (which we aren't responsible for as we are not the end consumer). Because the UK imports more than it exports we need to increase our figure for energy consumption, perhaps by a further 20% to 52mWh, which is 52 ROCs at a cost of £2,600 per person.

Let's average the figures we get in the two analyses (£5,700 and £2,600) - £4,150.

So the final result is that a family of four needs to buy ROCs to a value of around
(£4,150 x 4) + £250 = £16,850.

But let's finish with some good news:

1. Seeing as you are now rather poorer you won't actually be consuming as much energy (including buying as many goods and services) as calculated, because you can't afford to! So let's cut the per family figure to £8,000.
2. You get a rebate for the ROCs that you own, at the end of the year: Any energy suppliers who don't meet their legal requirement of renewable production are fined and the fines are redistributed to holders of ROCS. Typically you should expect to get around 30-40% of the cost of your ROCs back - taking your £8,000 spend back down to perhaps £5,200.

So there you have it - renewable energy for a whole family for a mere £5,200 per year (but note high earners are also, typically, high energy users so may have to pay a whole lot more).

Shipman: "excellent doctor" -the mystery of iniquity

We like our mass murderers to be obviously and wholly evil. The truth we find hard to bear is that there still remains a deal of original goodness. "Shipman was a popular doctor among patients because he gave them 'a more personal approach'. Dr Dirckze said: 'He came across as very caring and would go beyond the call of most GPs' duty. 'Very often we heard stories of what he was doing that the rest of us wouldn't dream of doing. 'He used to call in on an elderly disabled patient on his way home after work and would wheel him round the block in his wheelchair.'"
I suspect he did this because whatever had led him into medicine in the first place was still to a degree woven into his identity. We keep forgetting that evil is not ultimate: it is derivative; parasitic on good, which reflects the ultimacy of God who declares creation 'good'. The fact that we are somehow surprised that a mass murderer can also be 'good' in some respects perhaps shows us to be in thrall to a popular dualism, forgetting that evil cannot exist without good; it is far from likely that the reverse is true.
A bit of an irony for theodicy, really.
SocietyGuardian.co.uk | Society | Shipman was excellent doctor, say colleagues:

Mood LED Lighting for worship?

I'm a bit of a sucker for these kinds of things; I like to find uses for them in worship settings. "LED technology with the beauty and simplicity of candlelight."
For me the real issue is whether it would be usable ceremonially. Can I use it as part of the opening of a service? If it's not a living flame, does it lose its emotional and sign value?
Then you have to put it all back together with articles like this one talking about veladoras [prayer candles]. I suspect that there is something 'primal' about the real flame thing that doesn't transfer to a cool LED substitute, even if a part of me wishes it did.
Still, for outdoor use it has a lot going for it.
Philips Lighting - Lighting for the Home:

Hydrogen Wars: Episode II

I didn't realise that oil production required hydrogen and that to exploit the harder-to-extract wells would need even more. So this may be worth considering: "Apply the basic Law of Supply and Demand, add a dash of conspiratorial thinking, and the popular imagination can easily conclude that rapidly expanding the pure hydrogen-fueled proportion of the domestic car fleet would drive up the price of hydrogen. That would mean hydrogen making equipment and feedstock getting diverted to a non-refining market, reducing the variable margin projections for refiners who are planning expansions. Hence, the imagined need to downplay the hydrogen economy talk 'before it gets out of hand'. "

So, is it really true that hydrogen isn't viable?

Why use it to produce oil, why not use it directly?

Check out the article.

Treehugger: Hydrogen Wars: Episode II:

OPEC Oil Producer Switches to Wind Power to Increase Exports

Clearly the price of crude oil has reached a point when it makes sense for oil companies to avoid using it as a power source for their own ops. And the question asked by the report is important:"When major OPEC member countries which get their oil at a fraction of the cost of the rest of the world start switching to alternative energy, isn't it about time for those countries dependent on oil to do more?"



ALTERNATIVE ENERGY BLOG - Solar-Energy-Wind-Power.com: Alternative Energy Venezuela: OPEC Oil Producer Switches to Wind Power to Increase Exports:

On Earth as in Heaven

Once these are sale-able, they look as if they might be worth a look by those of us interested in stuff that connects with spiritual seekers without being too evo.
On Earth as in Heaven

Artificial Cricket Hairs as Microphones

Hmmm. What an interesting thought."picture a wind-farm that is not made of a few dozen rotating propeller-blades, but made of a few million bending grass-blades."

I really enjoy the 'lateralness' of it. Could ic work? That's where an engineer would come in handy...

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Artificial Cricket Hairs as Microphones:

Biodiesel, a Bad idea

As one of the comments says:

"There may be a niche for biodiesel, using by-products that we'd throw away anyway (like old vegetable oil) but it would never make sense to grow plants for this purpose -- it would be too expensive."

Article plus comments makes a good case briefly for not seeing the stuff as a long-term solution.

Bad idea | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine

Jesus - youth 'superhero'

A recent survey of British children gave me a pleasant surprise. "They also identify Jesus as the figure who most represents what it means to be a 'superhero', followed closely by Florence Nightingale and David Beckham. Asked what makes a superhero, 92 per cent say he or she would 'stop bad things happening', 91 per cent say a superhero 'is generally a good guy', and 90 per cent say they would 'tell the truth'.

Probably a testament to having religion on the national curriculum, it reminded me of a report I thought I recalled a while back of something similar where Jesus didn't figure. The Torygraph article has little real detail and no reference such as would direct the curious to the survey, so it is hard to know enough to comment more. I'd like to know things llike the questions, the sample, the actual stats ...

Telegraph | News | Jesus joins Beckham as youth 'superhero':"

Carbon confusion | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine

"Say Company X manufactures a material; one day, it figures out how to manufacture the material more efficiently, or make it lighter, or some such. The material is used by Company Y to make a product. With X's more-efficient, lighter material, Y is able to make its product lighter and more efficient, and thus reduce the product's CO2 emissions. Who gets credit for the carbon reduction? "

Have I missed something in this example? Surely it's the second company? Theirs are the carbon emissions that go down.

The referred article goes all complex on the matter but the basic thing is whose emissions have gone down?

Carbon confusion | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine:

China reversing Desertification

Another encouraging story showing that environmental good can be achieved when there is a serious and funded will. "through a series of policy measures China has been implementing over the past few years, positive results are finally being seen. Since 1999, the area of desertification has been cut by 37,924 square kilometres, and is being reduced at an annual rate of 7,585 square kilometres."

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: China and Desertification:

Are we worried yet?

My main question is how long before we start hearing justifications for military action in Iran?
"My guess is that it makes it easier for the [Bush administration] to argue that Iran is hardline"
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | We won't give up nuclear effort, says Iranian leader:

pester power and debts

My kids are past the age when we would normally expect to see these channels, but I'm shocked and disturbed to learn that loan companies are apparently trying to enlist pester power ... "To test out the impact of the ads, over 1,000 users of this site were polled. The results showed a shockingly high number of parents are being badgered by their children to take out loans with companies such as Ocean Finance and Norton Finance. These companies provide secured loans, which are the very worst form of debt as the lender can forcibly sell the borrower’s house if they are unable to repay monies owed"

Go and read some of this; the way that the kids become mouthpieces of the advertisers and the way it 'normalises' debt in their minds.
UK's only money saving expert:



These companies provide secured loans, which are the very worst form of debt as the lender can forcibly sell the borrower’s house if they are unable to repay monies owed.

"

Zero Waste, Perpetual Food

It's beginning to seem like breweries are making the running in waste reduction: "In Namibia, the the process is used for a brewery. The spent grain from the brewing process (once fed to cattle, which can't properly digest it) is used to fertilize mushroom growth and to cultivate earthworms, which are in turn used as chicken feed. The waste water, once heavily chemically treated to make it pH neutral, is instead used to grow Spirulina algae; the remainder is channeled to a fish farm. The waste from the mushrooms, earthworms and chickens provide food for the fish. The chicken manure is also put through a digester to produce methane as fuel, reducing demand for wood."

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Zero Waste, Perpetual Food:

Turning Wastewater to Cash

Biomimetic systems can aid business: "waste is something that your business produces but that you can't sell. Reducing waste makes as much economic sense as it does from an ecological point of view, and if we are to have a truly sustainable society, we will need to eliminate waste almost entirely like in natural cycles."

Treehugger: New Belgium Brewing Turning Wastewater to Cash:

Prayer for a world in precarity

If this doesn't drive you to prayer ...
"Over the last two years, oil markets have moved into uncharted territory. The world experienced one of the steepest increases in oil prices in more than a generation between the spring of 2003 and the fall of 2005, when prices doubled from $25/barrel to more than $50/barrel. Despite much higher prices, growth in world oil demand in 2004 was the highest seen since the 1970s. At the same time, OPEC production capacity has fallen in Iraq, Indonesia and Venezuela. The result today is a global shortage of spare production capacity, which in turn has led to a large risk premium in oil prices. Recent trends suggest that today's high oil prices will continue until the world's spare production capacity is seen to be increasing."
The soft landing | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine

Union blow to ID card scheme

I'm hoping that this is the beginning of the end for ID cards, perhaps the whole thing is starting to unravel...Guardian Unlimited Politics | Special Reports | Union blow to ID card scheme

The environmental case against agro-subsidies

Essentially the nub of the argument is this: "Where there are subsidies, you find people essentially manufacturing environments in which to grow food, because they're getting paid $2 for every grain of rice they produce (or whatnot). The huge profit margins make it economical to import water from far, far away, or build elaborate systems to 'trick' crops into growing, and so on."
The (environmental) case against agro-subsidies | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine:

Further to an earlier post on ground-based heat pumps, here's an example of how it worked in one house in north America.

The sham of "Free Market"

Just as it is becoming apparent that US and EU promotion of markets in developing nations is hypocritical [a case of 'do what I say, not what I do'], it is becoming clearer just how widespread avoidance of the market really is: "Oil executives, Dick Cheney among them, love to rail nowadays against government regulation and/or funding for alternative energy sources, arguing that if an industry can't earn its way in the marketplace, it doesn't deserve to live. Sadly, that was never true for the oil industry: government, not markets, created oil's success."
I saf this not because I'm a free-marketeer but because I am very dischuffed with the sauce-for-the-goose-not-for-the-gander tactics of the right; the pretence about how good markets are while all the time trying to avoid their 'discipline'.
MoJo Blog: The Corruptible "Free Market":

MIT Weblog Survey

Good-doing in a fallen world

With Live8 coming up, this is a must-read article showing how, in a world of fallen Powers, doing the right thing collectively is likely to involve trade-offs. "...what neither the relief world, nor the UN, nor Geldof have ever come to terms with is that the Mengistu regime - ousted in 1991 - also committed mass murder in the resettlement programme in which Live Aid monies were used and in which NGOs using Live Aid funds were active. The Dergue was in control, and it did with the UN and the NGOs what the Nazis did with the ICRC: it made them unwilling collaborators."
In a fallen world where malicious or misguided people react to events, the doing of one good may have some unintended bad consequences. The interesting thing to me is that we arguably see this even around Jesus's ministry. Jesus's presence and what he comes to stand for provoke responses that may not otherwise have come to pass: Judas's betrayal; Peter's denial; deceit by various people; homicidal intents and actions by others. As Christ said; he came to bring a sword. I don't think we are intended to think that betrayal and violence were his aim, rather he simply recognises that they are likely.

In a cause-&-effect cosmos, actions have reactions. If it is a universe that is most fundamentally good, then that cause-effect nexus is basically good. That is to say that just because there is the possibility of ill-doing subverting some of the consequences of a good, is not a necessary cause to do nothing. All good things are subvertable by ill, vigilence and continual readiness to act and to intervene for good are necessary. The only point of rest is in Christ alone.

Ecosystem Valuation

This looks like a useful guide to ... well read for yourself ...



Ecosystem Valuation

Vindication from Tom Wright!

I'm still on this kick of checking out potential internet links to go on the wiki for my book. In the course of my investigations I found something by my somewhat famous diocesan Bishop, Tom Wright. Reading it with a degree of trepidation [would this eminent NT scholar write something that would 'ruin' an argument of mine, for example?], I was delighted to find him making arguments very similar to mine, viz. "... allow the shape as well as the content of the Lord’s Prayer to inform ... liturgy more strongly, not just in that part of the worship service labeled “prayer” but also in the structure of the whole. Invocation of God as Father, worship and prayer that sanctifies God’s name, prayer for Jesus’ kingdom work to find its complete fulfillment on earth as in heaven — all of these might come first. Intercession for particular blessings, of which bread is among the most basic and hence symbolic of the rest, would occur within this larger context.
Furthermore, we should note that, against the grain of some post-Augustinian liturgies, the church is not instructed by its Lord to approach its Father with “Sorry” as its first word. Even the Prodigal Son began his speech with “Father.” There is, to be sure, an appropriate place for penitence, both for communities and individuals. But the normal Christian approach to the Creator God is the unfettered and delighted “Father.” There is a time for penitence, but its location within the Lord’s Prayer suggests that it should not take pride of place in regular liturgical worship."
Even better, a bit further down, he goes on to say, "The Christian is also called to make the Lord’s Prayer paradigmatic in his or her own personal life" a theme to which I give a whole chapter.
So that's a relief then! And I'm delighted.
The Lord’s Prayer as a Paradigm of Christian Prayer by N.T. Wright:

Make your own forecasts of future energy, carbon emissions, and climate

There's nothing like being able to play around with something for helping us to get to know it. So here's our chance to get better acquainted with climate change.

It will still show though, "The bottom line is that the change in the world's energy infrastructure that would be required, to limit the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, is not small. A few Toyota Priuses are not going to do it, nor is the Kyoto Protocol by itself even close to solving the problem. Conservation helps, but the historical rate of improvement in energy efficiency is already built into the forecast. There is some scope for trade-offs over time, cuts in emissions now versus cuts later. Ultimately, however, tens of terawatts is a lot of carbon-free energy."
RealClimate � Make your own forecasts of future energy, carbon emissions, and climate

When you Pray (Beyond the Prayer of Jabez)

I've been researching links for the wiki of my soon-to-be-published book on praying the Lord's prayer. This was one of the better ones. It seems to me to be a good, no-nonsense approach based on a reflection on Matthew 6.5-12.

When you Pray (Beyond the Prayer of Jabez): "When you Pray (Beyond the Prayer of Jabez)"

See also http://abbeynous.schtuff.com/

The Onion 2056

You've got to see this peak into the future! I don't normally read The Onion but this got me chuckling.
The Onion 2056

Solar Brooklyn Train Station

"The newly reconstructed Stillwell Avenue subway station in Brooklyn has become the city's first solar-powered train terminal, and one of the most environmentally friendly mass transportation sites ever built in the United States. It's also among the more prominent displays of how solar photovoltaic (PV) power can be architecturally integrated into a large structure."

RenewableEnergyAccess.com | Solar BIPV pulls into Brooklyn Train Station:

[Footprint] Hot Water and Showering

We've recently had a new shower fitted that has a thermostatic mixer tap so that hot water from our combi boiler (that only heats the water that is needed when you turn a hot tap on) mixes with cold water supply to give you water at the temperature that you want. The great thing about it is that you can turn it on and off, easily, without suffering any cold or overly hot water when you turn it back on. This means that when putting shampoo in your hair or using soap on your body you can turn of the water and save water and save energy not heating that water.

Another consideration that has come to my attention about showering is whether you should heat up your shower room (or bathroom) before your shower as this may mean that you don't need to use so much water at such a high temperature - saving energy. So is it worth heating up the air and saving on water heating?

Let's think of this in terms of energy used:
A typical bathroom might be 2.5m x 2m with a height of 2.4m - a volume of 12m3 (12 cubic metres).
To heat the air in this bathroom from 14C to 27C (a comfortable bathroom temperature) takes 191kJ (kilojoules) (excluding inefficiencies).
The other option is to run the shower at around 45C for the whole showering time instead of around 38C and just running the water when you need to rinse. Assuming that the water starts at about 8C when it enters your home these are rises of 37C and 30C respectively.
Total shower time is approximately 8 minutes and the water flow rate is about 4 litres per minute. Therefore the 45C method using water for the whole 8 minutes uses 5,000kJ of energy (excluding inefficiencies).
If you turn the water on and off you probably use about a third of the water (2 mins 40 seconds) and at 38C your energy use is 1,340kJ.

The conclusion therefore is that if you heat your shower room fully and turn off the shower when you are not rinsing yourself then your total energy use is 1,531kJ, but if you don't have a fully warm shower room and instead just keep running the shower the whole time you use around 5,000kJ of energy. So you can reduce your energy use by 70% while you shower! Naturally this has a knock on effect of reducing your showering related CO2 output by 70% also.

Please note that you do need to ensure that you, personally, are warm before your shower, as otherwise you will still feel cold even if the bathroom is at 27C. Also, this is just a small saving that needs to be part of a more efficient lifestyle such as keeping the temperature of your home at perhaps 20C during winter instead of 25C, ensuring that your home is well insulated and using your car less.

Your Father in heaven is perfect

I think that in our culture the word 'perfect' is off-putting and forbidding. This article has it right; "Your heavenly Father is perfect! Now I’ll admit that the word perfect—so austere, so unattainable—might at first keep you at arm’s length. Anyone who had an overly reserved, emotionally distant father might certainly be intimidated by it."
In fact, I suspect that it's more than having distant earthly fathers; it's a cultural mood which associates perfection with things that are displayed, therefore untouchable and incapable of response or development. Quite hard to associate with love, then.
So what the author, Jim Carpenter, goes on to say is really helpful, especially the higtlighted bit:
"But don’t think of perfect as a total portrait of your Father. It is simply the color and light that illuminate His other features. Like love. Your Father loves you with perfect love. Or look at His wisdom. It’s perfect. He is perfectly faithful and perfectly forgiving. His guidance is perfect. His plans for your life are absolutely perfect for you."
The whole article is worth a look.

Demand for debt advice soars

For several months we've been hearing how 'High Street spending' has shrunk. I can't help but think that thes two things are linked. It highlights the need to stop running our economies off debt-fuelled non-renewable 'growth'.
"It added that the number of people calling for help in each month so far this year had been well above the levels seen in 2004."
Guardian Unlimited Money | Credit and debt | Demand for debt advice soars:

An Effective Spiral Fan

"Increasing the efficiency of everyday technology is a huge boon for the environment, Harman points out. 'If you use three-quarters less energy, then you have three-quarters less pollutants going into the atmosphere.' He hopes that designs like his are also changing the way the world looks at nature. 'Nature has already solved every problem humans face and have ever faced,' he says. 'If you see nature as our university, you're not going to burn down the university; you're going to protect it.'"

Treehugger: PaxFan: An Effective Spiral Fan: [:biomimicry:]

Worried about airline pollution? Sell your car

Well, he has a point and makes it well. "Ryanair's chief executive, Michael O'Leary, has refused to support an industry-wide effort to limit carbon dioxide emissions. Asked yesterday what he would say to travellers worried about the environment, he replied: 'I'd say, sell your car and walk.'"

On the other hand; no car, no ride to the airport ...

Hand that man in the glass house a stone.

Guardian Unlimited Travel | News | Worried about airline pollution? Sell your car, says Ryanair boss:

Is it goodbye to cheap oil forever?

The answer is 'yes' and not just because "Analysts are now openly considering the prospect that high oil prices are here to stay." -the proximate cause is "with most countries producing at full capacity and long lead times to bring on extra capacity in Saudi Arabia, the market is expected to remain tight for a considerable period." but then we start to hit the issue of peak oil where we have extracted more than half of the world's oil and still face rising demand. Worst case scenario on this is that we face a new and global Dark Ages with accelerating conflicts etc. Best case; we manage the transition into non-petroleum economies.
Now ask; what does it mean to love our neighbours now, in an oil-peaking world?
Guardian Unlimited | The Guardian | Is it goodbye to cheap oil forever?:

the future is already here - it's just unevenly distributed

I just came across this quote and wished I'd found it a couple of months ago. I had been trying, for the Lord's prayer book, to express the idea of the Kingdom of God as a present reality anticipating God's Future in terms continuous with, and yet somewhat discontinuous from, the workings of this present age. I settled for writing in terms of the Kingdom coming into the present 'in patches'. The Gibson quote would have been a real boon.
Quotations on the future: "'The future is already here - it's just unevenly distributed.' - William Gibson."

Politically correct Lord's Prayer

I've just been researching the 'net so as to prime the pump for the wiki of my forthcoming book on praying the Lord's prayer. It came to pass that I hit upon this amusing little number; just appealed to my sense of humour.
"Our (mis)Concept of Patriarchal Authority, who, it can be said, inhabits the metaphysical sphere, privileged be your signifier.
May your social structure achieve dominance.
May the enactment of your desire be manifested throughout the physical-metaphysical dichotomy.
Empower us this day with the means of material production,
And refuse to enforce sanctions against our behavior which some see as subversions of a moral perspective, just as we refuse to marginalize the moral perspectives of others who have exerted their individuality.
Don't lead us into situation that some would (mis)understand as detrimental to the full expression of our humanness, but liberate us from the concept of "evil."
For yours is the hegemony, and the dominance, and perceived mystification within the entire continuum of the Western concept of linear time."
Doncha love it?
PlanetMike Jokes Politically correct Lord's Prayer see also my book's 'baby wiki' at http://abbeynous.schtuff.com/

Cities growing means world population may shrink

Apparently the general trend is for urban birth rate to drop below replacement rate of 2.1 . Since migration into the world's cities is currently about a million a week this could mean the global population could start to fall in the middle of this century...
It's all downhill from ... 2050 | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine

Europe’s Ecological Footprint

This is, apropos of telling us about Europe's eco footprint, a great article for explaining clearly and succinctly what an eco footprint is and why it matters.

WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: Europe’s Ecological Footprint

Yet Another Solar Breakthrough?

Let's hope so. It'll be the costs that will matter ...
WorldChanging: Another World Is Here: YASB (Yet Another Solar Breakthrough)

Bacteria Makes and Stores Oil up to 25 Percent of Body Weight

I could see this being a potential help in a post-peak oil transition ...

Treehugger: Bacteria Makes and Stores Oil up to 25 Percent of Body Weight

The slippery slope to 'prosperity' teaching

As you may have picked up, I'm about to publish a book on the Lord's prayer. In setting up the accompanying wiki I found one of the advertising links intriguing, so I followed up and ended up with a 7-day procession of emails handing on a set of prayers. The first was "I love you God', the second was "Thank you God", so far so good. Then number 3 seemed okay too: ‘GOD YOU ARE INSIDE ME!’ [sic], there's a bit of a question about how we're to take that but that's a wait-and-see thing. Each of these prayers is given a supplement, and for number three it's a doozy...
"For your new prayer here's a powerful add-on:
'GOD I BELIEVE AND KNOW YOU
ARE INSIDE ME!'
'GOD, SINCE YOU ARE INSIDE
ME, YOU ATTRACT GOOD
THINGS TO ME AS YOU FULFILL
YOUR PURPOSE THROUGH ME."
It's hard not to get the impression that 'good things' is going to end up including material wealth. In which case, a section from my book kicks in as relevant, I think:
" it may seem to certain groups of Christians in affluent societies, that God provides all they need and many of their wants, but the reality is often that they (we) are working the system to our advantage: diverting God's provision meant for answering the prayers of the poor for daily bread to our own use. The fact that 'we' can name it and claim it may be saying more about a privileged position in the global web of trade and power than supernatural aid. We should see this petition in the context of gospel calls to redistribute to the poor. In our global context, praying 'your will be done' in conjunction with 'give us our daily bread' means praying and working for a world where the global systems of production and distribution are fair and sustainable. And it means being prepared to act with restraint with regard to our own desires. Prosperity gospellers should take note of their ecological footprints, and take in the fact that for everyone in the world to live at their level, it would take three to five planet earths. Then they might explain to the rest of us whether they really have faith that God is going to multiply the whole planet like the bread at the feeding of the five thousand."
The 7 Great Prayers for Powerful Praying - For Prayer:

Reverse flow

Last time I was in the USA I discovered that British TV does get shown over there but it tends to be on PBS and vintage comedy like Monty Python. So there's a basic truth about this:
" For years it tended to be mostly one-way traffic, with Anglophiles restricted to watching imports on cable channel BBC America and the big four US networks selling their best comedies and dramas to the BBC and Channel 4."
However, something is happening,
"... 'This summer, they've latched onto the British entertainment market and decided to take a risk on it.' Because of the lack of experience on those types of shows, the US networks have had to import British talent to make and present them."
Who says Brits can't do popular entertainment? But maybe that's not a good thing?
MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media | How Britain managed to dumb down American TV:

Hiatus...

I'm due in London on Monday 20th [tomorrow] for a committee meeting of Baptismal Integrity. So, if I don't blog tomorrow, you know why.
About Us

you heard it here first: break up CAP for Africa's sake

I mentioned before that the EU budget crisis [as it's turning out to be] might open up some useful possibilities for African development. It looks like Downing Street have caught on to that synergy, now, too.
"Downing Street said the CAP 'has a detrimental effect on the capacity of developing countries to export their own products through world markets, and this is why we are arguing that it should be reformed as part of a global deal on export subsidies, which should be ended by 2010'.
'Trade is vital to empowering developing countries to stand on their own feet,' said a spokesman for Gordon Brown. Britain wants the EU to abolish export subsidies within five years, without demanding tit-for-tat concessions from poor countries, at this year's critical World Trade Organisation talks."
Having now made that argument just before G8, it'll be harder to back off from too.
The Observer | Business | Blair vows to break up CAP for Africa's sake:

Jihadists trawl Europe for recruits

Before the Iraq invasion there was no Islamist involvement in Iraq, well there is now. "In the past six months, old and dormant networks - including some that had been concerned with violence in north Africa, others with the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, and others in criminality - have been reactivated across Europe.
Some intelligence sources believe that there are now up to 21 networks active in Europe, some of them linked to more than 60 groups in the Mahgreb area of north Africa, involved in training and recruitment of volunteers, many for suicide bombing missions in Iraq."
Talk about 'own goals' ...
And the worst of it is that lots of warnings were that this is precisely what would happen. Grrrrrrr.
The Observer | International | Insurgents trawl Europe for recruits:

New US move to spoil climate accord

Looks like despite the good signs that have recently been emerging from the USA, the Bush administration still has its head in the sand:
"...Washington officials:
� Removed all reference to the fact that climate change is a 'serious threat to human health and to ecosystems';
� Deleted any suggestion that global warming has already started;
� Expunged any suggestion that human activity was to blame for climate change.
Among the sentences removed was the following: 'Unless urgent action is taken, there will be a growing risk of adverse effects on economic development, human health and the natural environment, and of irreversible long-term changes to our climate and oceans.'"
This is getting beyond a joke; it's all our futures they are jeapardising. Pray like mad ...
The Observer | International | New US move to spoil climate accord:

Nouslife banner

... been working on this collage ... a few personal fave images ...

WaterRockPlant

The river Wear is low and this is the view from the bridge at Finchale Priory. Straight down.
Fotango - share the moment!

Sacred Tribes Journal of Christian Missions to New Religious Movements

Journal of Christian Missions to New Religious Movements
just a 'heads up' for all readers interested in how Christians relate constructively to the emerging spirituality /ies in the West.
INDEX: Sacred Tribes Journal of Christian Missions to New Religious Movements

Mene mene tekel uparsin

I draw attention to this for two reasons: one is that I know one of the artists, so this is a salute to Pippa. The other reason is that this looks like a really great idea
"Two Christian artists, Pippa Hale and Stuart Tarbuck, have been posting unusual lines from the Bible around Leeds to mark a city-side festival of the visual arts. Their project is called Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin -- words from the story told in Daniel (Daniel 5: 25-30) which appeared on King Belshazzar's palace wall and warned him of his impending death. There are 13 of these Biblical quotes, which include some of Jesus's sayings, posted on signposts, paving stones, park benches, shop widows and billboards.The public are likely to be taken aback by some of the lines chosen, which include: 'Go throw yourself into the sea,' and 'Blessed are the breasts'. The latter is taken from Luke 23: 29: “Blessed are the barren women, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed,” (NIV)."
Shame there's no pictures.
[object HTMLFormElement]:

Christian Spirituality as a Way of Living Publicly

Just another article to commend -by Philip Sheldrake: it's a good exposition of the links between 'private' and public and an expose of some myths about the self and society. Even more importantly, there's some good stuff on urban spirituality and cities which deserves to be read by emergers and Alt.worshippers. Enjoy!
Philip Sheldrake - Christian Spirituality as a Way of Living Publicly: A Dialectic of the Mystical and Prophetic - Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 3:1

New model paradoxical time travel

It looks like quantum physics eliminates that paradox beloved of some sci-fi writers; where someone erases themselves or someone they love by changing their past in some way. "Quantum behaviour is governed by probabilities. Before something has actually been observed, there are a number of possibilities regarding its state. But once its state has been measured those possibilities shrink to one - uncertainty is eliminated. So, if you know the present, you cannot change it. If, for example, you know your father is alive today, the laws of the quantum universe state that there is no possibility of him being killed in the past. It is as if, in some strange way, the present takes account of all the possible routes back into the past and, because your father is certainly alive, none of the routes back can possibly lead to his death."

So far so good. The article says, "In other words, you can pop back in time and have a look around, but you cannot do anything that will alter the present you left behind." But is that really likely? Surely just by breathing and leaving behind microbes we would be changing things? So, does the observer's paradox rule time travel out?

BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | New model 'permits time travel':

Work Buy Consume Die

I so like this message.
Adbusters : Blogs - Work Buy Consume Die

Binding the Business Strongman

I thought that this is an interesting articlette. It's about business ethics and the way that Christians often seem to let 'Darwinian' thinking predominate over Christian. If I have a bit of further thought, it's about this: "The question that must be asked here is if Darwinism has supplanted Christianity as the predominant worldview, then how can anyone expect the leaders of a company to operate the company in a way that is contrary to the soulless, anything-goes-ethics of Darwinism? The leopard can't change its spots. So why do we think that the business world can change if the people running those businesses no longer operate from a Christian perspective?"
Two lines of further enquiry need to be spun off from this, I think.

One is to push a bit on just leaving it with the world-view; the reason businesses seek short-term profit is that they are legally obliged to. Let's not stop with [rightly] saying that Christians should stand up for right in the business arena, let's also campaign to change the way corporations are chartered so that they aren't only accountable to shareholders.

The second spin-off is to note that Darwinism as a kind of ideology is/was a reflection and a support for market capitalism. It is now becoming clearer that it is a particular take on the fossil record. It is arguable that evolution is more justly characterised by co-operation than competition. Even more interesting is the reflection on why we are beginning to notice it now.

It is time to shape our corporate institutions and not just ask individuals to bear the load. The time is right.

Cerulean Sanctum: The Christian & the Business World #7: Binding the Business Strongman:

What's my theological worldview?

There goes my cred! I was actually quite surprised that it rated me thusly. Perhaps you're not though ... ?

You scored as Emergent/Postmodern. You are Emergent/Postmodern in your theology. You feel alienated from older forms of church, you don't think they connect to modern culture very well. No one knows the whole truth about God, and we have much to learn from each other, and so learning takes place in dialogue. Evangelism should take place in relationships rather than through crusades and altar-calls. People are interested in spirituality and want to ask questions, so the church should help them to do this. Emergent/Postmodern 79% Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan 64% Neo orthodox 57% Roman Catholic 50% Charismatic/Pentecostal 50% Modern Liberal 46% Reformed Evangelical 43% Classical Liberal 43% Fundamentalist 36% What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com

QuizFarm.com :: What's your theological worldview?

Bono and US vs world poverty

A very intriguing interview with Bono of U2 about his efforts to get Africa on the agenda. Lots of good things including; "He [Bono] was personally credited with the dramatic public U-turn on Aids of Jesse Helms. 'Christ only speaks about judgment once and it's not about sex but about how we deal with the poor, and I quoted Matthew, 'I was naked and you clothed me, I was hungry and you fed me.' Jesse got very emotional, and the next day he brought in the reporters and publicly repented about Aids. I explained to him that Aids was like the leprosy of the New Testament.'"
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bono talks of US crusade:

Unknown gods, declining churches, and the spiritual search of contemporary culture.

This is good stuff, I don't have much to add; it's a really good sermon/ article on mission to a post-Christian society. Highly commended.
Unknown gods, declining churches, and the spiritual search of contemporary culture.

Virtual money for virtual goods

Most of the money we have doesn't exist tangibly. So ... "Until earlier this year, virtual trading was a curiosity. The buying and selling of magical weaponry, non-existent currency and imaginary castle between players of online games was a strange quirk of the system. But money talks, and the fact that players of these games were spending their hard-earned real cash on synthetic stuff in a digital environment - things they could not touch, taste or smell - soon got the attention of business minds."
It's all in our minds.
Guardian Unlimited | Online | Virtual trade gets real:

Renewable energy and the devolution of power

"The more you think it through, the more you realize: a lot of today's centers of power and influence stand to lose big in the transition to a post-oil, distributed-energy society. Power, both literal and political, will devolve downward and outward. This is, in fact, just the point jimbeyer makes in this comment: 'Renewable energy is about the permanent loss of a major source of control of much of modern humanity.'"
Renewable energy and the devolution of power | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine:

Peak uranium

Bad news for nuke apologists: "world uranium production has already peaked:"

Loads of helpful stuff in this article.

Put up your nukes! | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine:

Can animals be homosexual?

I am one of those who is not fully persuaded by either side of the debate on homosexuality. I've been interested to hear that some people have found some examples of homosexual behaviours in animals and used them to argue that they support various views when applied to humans. It's never struck me as a good line to take, this sums up why: "occasional homosexual behaviour is not the same as exclusive homosexuality. 'The issue is complicated because we don't know anything about the eroticism in the heads of animals,' says Linda Wolfe, head of anthropology at East Carolina University."

In fact there's a lot to be said for this 'common-sense' view: "According to the Wolfe, the explanation may be little more than animals seeking sexual pleasure. "
So shall we leave this argument out then?
Guardian Unlimited | Life | Can animals be homosexual?:

What is the best way to store radioactive waste?

This article doesn't answer the question, but it does tell us the options. I can't say I'm very happy with any of them, though.

Guardian Unlimited | Life | What is the best way to store radioactive waste?

'In 50 years' time no one will be using oil any more'

This is only a test but it is a hopeful one. "On a good windy day, which Utsira has plenty of, where speeds average 10 metres [33ft] per second, the turbines can power the whole island. Any surplus is used to break water molecules into hydrogen and oxygen. On days when the wind is weak, the stored hydrogen is used to produce electricity, either by burning it in a combustion engine or fusing it chemically with oxygen in a fuel cell, a kind of battery. The only by-product of the operation is water."



What I thought was good also is this message for th NIMBY faction in Britain: "People were a bit concerned that the wind turbines would make a lot of noise, but they don't."v Okay so the original speaker didn't mean it as a message to Brits, but we can take a hint. Can't we?



Guardian Unlimited | Life | 'In 50 years' time no one will be using oil any more':

Right Now

I think that you may like this. Just occasionally it gets a bit schmaltzy for my taste but it is a nice assemblage of imagery, sound [with a choice of options] and message.

Right Now

Airbrushing

We all know that it happens. But here's a good example of what it does. Could be useful as a mental antitoxin?
Greg's Digital Archive

War on Hierarchy, Death of Folders

Jordan Cooper picks up something I've been watching for a little while: Google and Macs eliminating folders. "the future of the Desktop is about more than just Search: it's about finding a way to break free from the legacy of Folders. "
My interest is the mindscape angle. Power now moves away from those naturally gifted in organisation and usually who really enjoy tidying and categorising things, towards the rest of us who want something quick and easy and intuitive. Tags and labels go a good way in that direction. I've grown to hate having to make choices between allocations when what is needed is both.

This represents a move away from mental 'box' metaphors to something more dynamic. It represents a change from categorisation to something more open and even provisional.

Now apply that to the way our culture is beginning to look at spirituality and organisations and I think you may notice some similarities. This will be an amplifying feedback thing. The new PC enabled way of organising info reflects a cultural trend, but it will also embody it and reinforce it.

So we are looking at a cultural spirituality which can hardly help being drawn to multivalency and is uncomfortable with too early and too rigid categorisation.

John's gospel becomes our set text.... ?
Discuss.
weblog :: jordoncooper.com: Google's War on Hierarchy, and the Death of Hierarchical Folders:

Inuit to sue USA over climate

"The Inuit hope that the commission will agree that climate change is tantamount to a U.S. abuse of their human rights by thinning the ice on which hunters depend and by threatening species ranging from polar bears to seals.

Watt-Cloutier said that Washington, the world's top polluter, was doing too little to limit emissions of carbon dioxide from factories, cars and power plants that are widely blamed by scientists for driving up temperatures."

Sounds doomed to failure but the victory for the USA could be Pyrrhic, like McD's spat with the London Greenpeace two.

Science News Article | Reuters.com:

Climate change is costing us money, -BT

Another reason for thinking that the tide of opinion is turning at corporate levels. DOmino effect?

Climate change is costing us money, says BT - silicon.com

Welcome to Holism

This could turn out to be quite a useful resource to help us stay abreast of what is happening in the holistic spirituality world. Now why would we want to do a thing like that? Well have a look at the following.
"We live in a period of remarkable change out of which a new, open-minded and open-hearted approach to spirituality is emerging."
This is the new plausibility structure that we are living in. In other words, if we do not express things in a way that resonates with this kind of sensibility, we are doomed to appear so odd that we may as well be Moonies or Scientologists. Now that may indeed be what we are in a sense, but I don't think we need to be as way off-beam as that to be both authentic to the gospel and authentic to our culture. So is 'open-minded' and 'open-hearted' compatible with Christian faith? Well, I will take it that broadly speaking 'open-hearted' is compatible with our Christian affirmation of hospitality and loving respect for others, a privileging of relationship above form and so so on.

The difficulty lies with 'open-minded', I suspect. Usually because we are pretty heavily into making sure that doctrinal 't's and scriptural i's are crossed and dotted respectively. And yet open minded can simply be about being prepared to recognise that someone else probably has good reasons to hold their view, and that if we take the time to understand it they will be more willing to hear what we have to say and we will probably have heard enough to say things that affirm quite a lot and build common ground. We may need to be open minded enough to realise that they may say things that will challenge us and change our mind or approach to something. I trust that Christian faith has the resources to go on making sense for a long time to come. The question is whether we will be prepared to dialogue adequately with our neighbours to learn how to express things in ways they can hear, including the way we bahave and organise ourselves. Open minded can mean an attitude of recognising that the Holy Spirit has a habit of talking through Asses [as with Balaam] and we can learn a lot by paying humble attention to those who may even appear to be criticising us. I want to be open minded in that respect. Not so keen on the idea of open-mindedly allowing people to chuck all sorts of rubbish into my thinking, but even then it's what I do with it that is important; I like the idea of sorting out all the recyclable stuff and building art with it!

Anyway, the article goes on. to describe holistic spirituality.
"This holistic spirituality:
- Welcomes and celebrates diversity of culture and belief.
-Honours the beauty, power and mystery in nature, universe and all existence - by whatever name it is known - and our natural place within it.
- Recognizes that all life is connected, interdependent and developing to fulfil its potential.
-Cultivates the essence of all spiritual traditions: - Connect with and experience the wonder and miracle of existence. - Guide your development with wise self-reflection. - Serve the community of life.
-Affirms the core morality of all faiths, joined with the ethical imperatives of ecology and absolute respect for the development of all human beings.
- Is dedicated to the creation of:Social Justice - World Peace - Environmental Harmony Development, Prosperity and Fulfilment for All."
Again, seems to me that there's little to decry on the face of it. Though I suspect that the first point, again, may be a sticky one for many of us on the belief side; I guess that most of us at least in theory are willing to go with celebrating cultural diversity. And maybe that is a case in point for interpreting and discovering a way to go with the belief aspect too. I mean, when we say that we celebrate cultural diversity we are affirming that other cultures have a right to exist and that there is much to be learned from other cultures and much to enjoy. It doesn't mean that we are committing ourselves to affirm that, for example, exposing unwanted newborn children on hilssides is good birth-control [Roman culture of the early church period] or that the expectation that widows will imolate themsleves on their husband's funeral pyre [India before and during the British Raj].

So can I beleive that Jesus is the Way, truth and life and in some way welcome and celebrate diversity of belief? Actually I can and do -and in fact in a way similar to most other people who do too. Here's how: I welcome the different philosophical approaches of societies which Christian faith has embedded itself in, both historically and contemporaneously. The engagment that this has brought of Christian theology has helped to produce some important thinking and development for Christians and society and continues to do so as we wrestle with post-modernity, for example. In the engagement we learn more about God and God's way as well as about ourselves. If it is true that "God has yet more light to break of of his word" [can't recall who said that] then perhaps we should expect that some of that light amy pour through the cracks opened up by wrestling with the content of other people's beliefs, especially if there is the possibility that some, at lest, of their drive to develop their beliefs has been in response to feeling the tug of the Spirit. It is the witnesses to truth that Christian evangelists and apologists look for in other cultures and spiritual traditions and responses that we can certainly affirm without even challenging our inherited traditions and ways of thinking. It's only when we get heavily into boundary maintenance that we get twitchy about such things.

About the only thing that I can't celebrate is outright denial of Christ, but even then, if we listen carefully we can learn much, even if it doesn't cut much ice with one person may actually help us to commend Christ to others. So, there is even a redemptive celebration possible there. The key is remaining open-hearted and to some extent open-minded.

I'm running out of energy for this just at the moment, but I think that I've said enough so I'll leave it there for now, at least.

Welcome to Holism.info:

'I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate £10 to a legal defence fund'

For Brit readers only; if like me you are very skeptical of the alleged benefits of ID cards and regard them as a potential danger to civil liberties not to mention a likely annoyance and furthermore a darned expensive way to achieve very little in fact except endanger liberties ... you know what to do; click on the header and sign the pledge!
'I will refuse to register for an ID card and will donate £10 to a legal defence fund' - PledgeBank - Tell the world "I'll do it, but only if you'll help"
Also see: http://no2id.net/index.php

Survey about the Bible use -missing points?

Emerging for ministry want to know about how we 'emergers' relate to scripture so they have a survey they hope folk will fill in. I have to say that I found it a frustrating survey. It seemed to presuppose certain ways of looking at 42 [the answer to life the universe and everything -watch Hitchhikers guide...] that I didn't really grok. Let's have a look at some of it.
"1) Do you consider Scripture to be: (check all that apply) Directly revealed from God Nothing more than the story of God’s people Containing some errors, but still God’s Word Completely without error Additional comments:"
This seems to be unable to capture the data that is most significant for me. I checked all and could have left them all unchecked: it simply misses the points because it seems to tied up in modernist debates to pick up the potentially significant differences that post-modern and integralist approaches open up. In comments I pointed out that I was happy with 'God-inspired'. By that I was getting at the point in my mind that I Howard Marshall would have some difficulty with this question. Where is the box for views that combine various of these views or simply see them as missing the point?

Next up. "2) Regarding your beliefs about Scripture, would you say that they: Have remained consistent over time Have changed over time Are being rethought Not sure "
Hmmm. 'Not sure' would indicate that I'm not sure I can answer this question in the terms put. I think that they have remained consistent BUT they have changed or developed. I am constantly revising my view of things as I interact with Scripture and the world and my own heart ... Can this question really capture anything useful apart from who is prepared to sign up for which slogans or project which image of themselves?

Okay then we have "3) How often do you engage Scripture? Daily Weekly Monthly Less Often "
Okay, what does 'engage' mean? And isn't there an implicit 'right answer' in this? So how useful will the answers be except to judge how many people might be prepared to break ranks? Even granted that someone in my position where I 'engage' [by my definition] with scripture aobut 5 times a week ... that's not daily, but 'weekly' gives a wrong impression. The early Christians without access to personal Bibles prbably had to make do with two or three times a week if they were lucky ... I don't like the implicit valuing of answers, given the feel of the questionnaire and the stable it comes from. Badly designed question, I'm afraid.

"4) By what means do you engage Scripture?
Reading a physical Bible Reading a Bible electronically (PDA, computer) Reading the Bible online Listening to the Bible in some form " There are no means to indicate more than one, note too the individualistic bias implicit in all of this. How about those of us who at various time pray offices with other people where the Bible is presented in various forms, often simultneously? Is not group discussion of a passage 'engaging' with the Bible? The modernist assumption of the individual reader wins again.

At least with this: "5) What is the main translation of Scripture you prefer? KJV or NKJV NRSV NASB CEV NIV Other" they had this: "If you selected other please specify:". I hope a lot of people put 'Greek' down!

I had a bit of trouble with this one too: "10) If you're a part of a weekly gathering, is the Bible taught at those gatherings? Yes No " Well yes in some, no in others. 'Taught' has a lot of freight I'm not sure I buy into [I would prefer 'learnt from' or 'interacted with']. If it's "taught" in 51% of them do I get to put yes but no if only 49%? What is in a significant proportion where it's not "taught" it is still used but interacted with in other ways; meditated upon, acted out, role played, used as a liturgy, combinations of the foregoing ... Again it is the presuppositions behind the question that need more challenging. With this question and the ones around it, there seems to be a priviledging of certain models of church gathering implicit. Part of the point of at least some emerging church is to question those models.

I hope that this survey will be used as a pilot for the real thing so that these bugs and others can be evicted.
emerging.forministry.com � Blog Archive � Online Survey about the Bible in your life

Spin, Lies and Corruption?

George Monbiot, who's normally worth reading casts some serious question marks in the direction of the recent debt-relief announcement. If he's right we are carrying on in the kind of way that enoucraged these countries to become heavily indebted in the first place; imposing policies which do not work because they really serve the purposes of global [read: 'western backed'] finance. "There is an obvious conflict of interest in this relationship. The G8 governments claim they want to help poor countries to develop and compete successfully. But they have a powerful commercial incentive to ensure that they compete unsuccessfully, and that our companies can grab their public services and obtain their commodities at rock bottom prices. The conditionalities we impose on the poor nations keep them on a short leash.
That’s not the only conflict. The G8 finance ministers’ statement insists that the World Bank and IMF will monitor the indebted countries’ progress, and decide whether or not they are fit to be relieved of their burden.(9) The World Bank and IMF, of course, are the agencies which have the most to lose from this redemption. They have a vested interest in ensuring that debt relief takes place as slowly as possible."
It really does indicate that we need some way of doing global financial stuff that isn't in the pockets of the west and particularly of western corporations.
George Monbiot � Spin, Lies and Corruption:

More hopeful news from the USA

Polling seesm to show that ordinary US citizens are far more concerned about climate than their government and this seems to be a cross party thing and not particularly linked to gender. Let's hope the message percolates through.

THere is concern about the atmosphere ... "Asked the best way to address this problem, 93 percent want the government to require the auto industry to improve gas mileage, an opinion that showed no gender or political gap.

This puts the electorate squarely at odds with Congress, which recently rejected a proposal to make SUVs and minivans more fuel efficient.

'This is a wake-up call to Washington. The political class appears to be out of touch with their constituents,' Esty said."

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY BLOG - Solar-Energy-Wind-Power.com: Energy Independence:

Rejoice with me!

It's only a little thing really but it was looming large and demotivating. You see to publish this book [nearly there!] I need to create the look and feel of the pages and export it to the printers as a .pdf file. No probs, I thought, OpenOffice.org exports pdf's. Only, hang on it doens't embed fonts. So I sign up to the referenced website to be able to do that; the initial reading of their help stuff seemed to suggest it would. Then I discover that actually their thing will only deal with embedded fonts if they are already embedded, so I need to create a Postscript file for the thing to make into a .pdf ...
Anyway before you fall of your chair with the tedium; I discover that by installing a non-existant printer on my system that is a postscript printer I can then 'print to disk' a postscript file of the document. Hurrah and halleluiah!
All because I want my readers to have pictures, a decent contents page and an index!
Create Adobe� PDF Online: easily convert and create PDF documents

Surfers sign up to web pledges

As social software goes this seems to me to have quite some potential, so I flag it up as one to watch. Me? I'm joining Brian Eno's thing on making votes count.
Anyway, do have a look at what it wanted and also what has already been achieved ... it' quite revealing. I thought this one was particularly interesting: "... will engage in earnest conversation with someone whose views I really despise to try to understand them more but only if 15 people will sign up. Target met, pledge over."
Guardian Unlimited | Online | Surfers sign up to web pledges
Pledgebank

THe USA corporates world emerges from denial

We may now permit ourselves a brief moment of rejoicing. "USA Today and other media like it have finally awarded a TKO to climate scientists and greens. As it turns out, USA Today's conviction is because big corporations, utilities, republican governors, and even religious groups are now demanding action on climate change. There really is increasingly broad-based recognition of the problem. Still, it's more than a little annoying that media evaluate critical issues based not on the overwhelming scientific evidence, but rather on the proclamations of Arnold and a few CEOs. "

The debate is over. Finally. | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine

BibleWiki

This deserves looking at, a kind of open source theology but with the Bible. They want help with even simple tasks like ... "If you want to play with the wiki concept, but don't have anything to write, then you should probably start with the list of the Books of the Bible, pick one, and either split it into separate pages (take something like Luke as an example), or start to hyperlink people, places, even concepts.
If you want to start adding content, but don't know where to start then you should probably begin with the list of wanted pages, or perhaps even just try a random page."
So you don't even yet have to add 'clever' content, just help format if you have a moment.
Perhaps a gift of time and effort ... ?
Main Page - BibleWiki:

Nuclear Energy Won't Mitigate Climate Impacts

If this stacks up it should mean that the nuke renaissance is dead in the water: "Van Leeuwin and Smith report that 'the total fossil energy consumption associated with uranium mining, milling, enrichment and power station construction is so large that nuclear power emits more carbon dioxide than a gas-fired power station'."

Oh and then there's this ...



Treehugger: Nuclear Energy Unsustainable: Won't Mitigate Climate Impacts:

My right to offend a fool

My growing misgivngs about the proposed bill on religious hatred is fuelled further by this article by Polly Toynbee. Polly is a vehement atheist and has no time for my 'superstitions' no matter how well thought-out they may be. However, I do often enjoy and find her writing helpful. So I do take notice when she writes:
"This bill is not 'closing a loophole' as Labour claims, but marches right into dangerous new terrain. Here is an example: it is now illegal to describe an ethnic group as feeble-minded. But under this law I couldn't call Christian believers similarly intellectually challenged without risk of prosecution. This crystallises the difference between racial and religious abuse. Race is something people cannot choose and it defines nothing about them as people. But beliefs are what people choose to identify with: in the rough and tumble of argument to call people stupid for their beliefs is legitimate (if perhaps unwise), but to brand them stupid on account of their race is a mortal insult. The two cannot be blurred into one - which is why the word Islamophobia is a nonsense. And now the Vatican wants the UN to include Christianophobia in its monitoring of discriminations."
The whole article is worth a look -even if it also serves to demonstrate how 'religious' secularists can be!
Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | My right to offend a fool:

EcoSpheres

Object lesson? Art? Money-making? Probably all three. I could see this being a bit of a fashion. Price is out of my league though.

Shop : EcoSpheres UK

A clean set of wheels -LPG

A kind of addendum to Mark's earleir post about LPG. Mark wasn't sure when I asked him whether LPG was a better deal for the climate in the usage rather than just in terms of using our fossil heritage more efficiently. Well this appears to be the answer. "LPG is also a cleaner fuel than petrol, and dramatically cleaner than diesel. Compared with petrol, LPG vehicles emit about 20% less CO2. While LPG emits similar levels of CO2 to diesel, one diesel car is equivalent to 20 LPG cars with regard to nitrogen oxides (NOx), and 120 LPG vehicles in terms of particulates, both of which are major causes of ground-level air pollution. One important environmental caveat with LPG is that it actually uses up to 20% more fuel by volume than petrol. It is simply a cleaner way of burning a fossil fuel, not a way of reducing the need to drill for oil."



Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | A clean set of wheels:

A clean set of wheels? Not really

And here's why the new Lexus RX400h may not be as cuddly-cute green as it's being advertised to be. It's an object lesson in greenwash and looking beneath the advertising at those weasel compartive words; compared with what? "Emily Armistead, a climate campaigner for Greenpeace, is enraged that sections of the motoring media have hailed the RX400h as a 'green' SUV, seeing that its carbon emissions, while lower than its rivals, are roughly equivalent to that of a Ford Mondeo estate. 'It has marginally less impact on the climate, but it is demonstrably not a green car,' she says. 'You're still driving two tonnes around unnecessarily to do the shopping.' Armistead points out that the differential in Vehicle Excise Duty between SUVs and cars is tiny - about �100 a year. When you consider that it can cost �1,200 to get new tyres for a Range Rover, this is never going to persuade their owners to consider more fuel-efficient, less polluting vehicles."

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | A clean set of wheels:

The beiginning of something significant in the EU?

"ministers have decided to highlight what they privately call the 'French rebate'. This is the £7bn in agricultural subsidies which go to France every year, almost 25% of the EU's entire budget in this area, compared with £2.5bn which goes to Britain."
The French and indedd the EU might witsh they'd thought a bit more deeply about this. I highlight it becasue one of the issues that aid charities in the UK are highlighting is that CAP is a major hindrance to fair and free trade. It is hypocritical that the EU promotes free trade and doesn't practice it. [Ditto the USA when it comes to farm subsidies -calling for -and enforcing through the WTC- LDC's to open up their markets while refusing to do so them/ourselves]. I hope that this is the beginning of the end for it. But make no mistake there are huge entrenced interests. On the other hand the Geldof-Brown axis could yet proove to be powerful at Live 8....
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | UK launches offensive on EU rebate:

Yes! -Prayer beyond words and evangelism

Andy G at Emerging Evangelism writes about an encounter following a youth death in their community after which they kept the church building open for people to come and pray or whatever. The incident he narrates is significant for me in that it illustrates things I have been saying in relation to the importance of how we relate to the new spiritualities that are growing up. "A couple of girls, aged around 15, came in. They said they wanted to prtay, but had never prayed before. What should they do? It was the verb that got me thinking. They didn’t ask ‘what should we say?’, they asked ‘what should we do?’ So I introduced them to apophatic prayer - prayer beyond words. I talked them through a basic relaxation exercise, then I told them 3 minutes’ worth about the God who made and loved them and the Saviour who died for them and now sits with God, praying for them. I invited them to be themselves quietly in the presence of God and Christ, without feeling a need to say anything if they didn’t want to. So we sat there, in companiable silence - three of us down in Galleywood, three Persons of God up above. It felt right. I met one of them a few weeks ago. She said she’s prayed like that everyday since, and she felt different because she had. No, I haven’t seen her in church. But it’s a start."
And the point is that it is not so much the preaching [there was only something going on indirectly at that level] but the showing of ways to meditate and be in God's presence. It may be that Andy was able to start further on with people in a more fully Christian country [?] and so the stuff about Christ sitting at God's side to intercede was less problematic than it might have been here, however the instinct is right. We need to share what we have and not be too apologetic about what that is. We need to trust that God's spirit is active.
Emerging Evangelism � prayer beyond words and evangelism.
Some of my blog posts that impinge on this topic:
http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2005/06/silence-is-golden.html
http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2005/06/shamanic-retreats.html
http://nouslife.blogspot.com/2005/06/new-spirituality-apologetics.html

We Eat Oil

"Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten." and this article gives us a history of human farming and then shows why and how we've ended up eating oil. I've said a few times on this blog that we eat oil, if you're puzzled then this article will tell you what you need to know. Warning, it is a scary contemplation. However as world Christians in a globalising world we should make ourselves acquinted with such facts. How can we pray 'Give us today our daily bread' without bearing in mind what it costs to answer that prayer?
The Oil We Eat (Harpers.org):

The Oil We Eat

"Every single calorie we eat is backed by at least a calorie of oil, more like ten." and this article gives us a history of human farming and then shows why and how we've ended up eating oil. I've mentioned a few times on this blog that we eat oil, if you're puzzeld then this article will tell you what you need to know. Warning, it is a scary contemplation.

The Oil We Eat (Harpers.org):

Things that Keep You from Writing Your Book

Some of you may recall from previous blog postings that I am writing a book. You may further remember that I have decided to self publish and reading this I think that my reasons may have been sound:
"- Writing a book is hard work
- Most authors make no money
- It's almost impossible to find a publisher
- Once a book is printed, that's when the real hard work begins. It's called sales and marketing. By the way, the publisher will do very little sales and marketing. It's up to you."

I'll say amen to the first: it has been quite an eye opener to be reminded of how much work is involved.
Making no money I am prepared for for though obviously I would hope to cover my costs and perhaps make a small profit.
The real reason that I didn't see much point in hawking it around publishers was that [a] its a lot of hard work, [b] it then takes ages to get the thing printed and out there and [c] like it says there; they don't even then do much by way of marketting, its really up to you/me the author unless you are a megastar like JK Rowling or get discovered as a potential megastar. Frankly a book on praying the Lord's Prayer just isn't in that league!

So I reckoned that publishing it myself means it gets out there sooner, I don't have the added heartache of publishers saying 'no' until perhaps finally someone decides that it fits with their market profile and if I am going to have to do the promo anyhow ...

The downside is that I do have to put up some money probably in the region of £250 to actually get everything sorted that I need.
Anyway, I'm into the final stages at the moment. It's written, proofread, I have pictures which I have taken and editted and I am currently fine-tunig the format and drawing up plans for marketting. I will be using some of my redundancy money to prime the pump and away we go.... scary though.

Oh and the nearly unique selling point: there's an interactive element for readers to share their own ideas and read further ideas from me and other readers. It represents my foray into the world of wiki and you can find the nearly term embryo here.

Needless to say this blog is part of the marketting strategy! -And so you will read about it here about it here when it's available. I hope that it will cost no more than £8 and it should be obtainable in North America from a printers in Canada, but I'm not yet sure how that works. It will have an ISBN and so it will also be picked up by Amazon in due course.
Blogging about Incredible Blogs - by Ken Leebow: 10 Things that Keep You from Writing Your Book

Silence is golden

It's nice to see the Retreat Association presented so positively. We should take note of the trend for non-Christian people to go on retreat. This article is a nice account of how and why. It's a Suandy lifestyle article but has some thought-provoking things to say none the less. Including this: "According to Will Hutton, chief executive at the Work Foundation, research shows that for many people the message is: 'I don't want to give my all to employers. I want some part of me that's mine.'" And one interviewee siad, very significantly: "'We are endlessly reactive. Even people whose lives seem very successful are asking, "Where is the silence in this? Where is the space to confront mortality or who you are?"'"

I think that this opens up some very important things in terms of Christian mission in a post-Secular age. Especially as the Retreat Association comments are pretty positive and so is the visit to the convent described in the article. We have to be aware of this aspect though: "Buddhist retreats appeal to people who don't want to be preached at. Monique, who used to work for the BBC, says: 'Religious vocabulary puts me off.'"

There is clearly a place for hospitable guarded-against-intrusion space for people to find themsleves again without being subjected to any further messages. Poor talkative little Christianity will need to learn to hold her tongue in mission quite a bit more ....
The Observer | Review | Silence is golden:[:newagery::culture:]

Bury CO2 at sea, says DTI

Mentioned a couple of weeks or so back on this blog. Looks like UKgov is getting serious.Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Bury CO2 at sea, says DTI

technology and cultural industry

This is a good background read for anyone considering the way that technology impacts human society and cultural development. It explores the way that sound recording may or may not have influenced the development of live performance music. Though the term isn't used, reflexivity is a big issue. I'm hoping shortly to do some work on embodiedness and technology in worship and this article will be one of the reference points along with a book on worship which reminded me very much of the article in that it deals with certain technological developments and relates them to worship and theology.

The New Yorker: The Critics: A Critic At Large

[Footprint] Solar Thermal Energy Systems

Let's take the stance that we don't have enough land to use biomass energy but circumstances are such that solar energy can be used for heat.

Again, we are looking for a simple sustainable system AND we are looking to provide heat over a wide duration of time - not just when the sun is shining. We need:

1. A way of capturing the heat in sunshine.
2. A way of storing the heat.
3. A way of moving heat from the capture area to the store.
   

Enclosures with transparent covers (like a greenhouse) has always been a good way to capture heat from the sun. As for storing heat we need to heat something up and then later, when we need the heat, we need to allow the heat to come out of it.

'Passive solar gain' into buildings through windows is useful it can be a very inefficient and expensive form of heating due to the large amount of glass, the need to variously shade and unshade the glass, the need to capture the heat within floors and walls and the loss of heat through the large expanses of glass. So I'm tempted to think that windows are for lighting and not for heating!

A great way of storing heat is in water. However, it can become a little expensive to have an insulated watertight pond. Another option is stone or masonry - often this is cheap and just needs to be piled up and insulated. For both of these options we need to move heat from the point of capture to the store. A fluid is what is needed - something that can flow from the capture point to the store. For a water store we can use water to move the heat, for a stone store we can use air.

The simplest option that I can see is as follows:

1. Capture: On the ground mount glass on bricks. The bricks form the edge and the glass is mounted over them to trap a volume of air within the brick area. Now, we want the volume of air to get hot, but we want the heat to only be in the air and not in the brick or the ground where it will be lost to the surroundings if the sun goes in. One thing I have seen is to use long black ceramic fibres just randomly thrown into the container - like a ball of wool after a child has been playing with it and you have had to gather it up. These black fibres rapidly get hot by absorbing heat from the sun and in turn heat up the air in the container. They do not store much heat in themselves and so little heat is radiated back through the glass when the sun goes in. As hot air rises it is best that these glass covered enclosures are on a slope with ambient (unwarmed) air coming in at the bottom and leaving at the top toward the...
2. Store: ...which is uphill from the capture point. The hot air passes into the stone heat store, heating up any stone or masonry before it is exhausted from the coolest part of the store which is most distant from where the hot air came in.
3. If heat is needed in the building at the time you have hot air coming in then it can be directed straight to the building, perhaps via the heat store (via the heat store exhaust?).
4. Note that the building is best positioned above the heat store, so that air can be used, without need for a fan, to bring the heat up. However, it may be important to insulate between the heat store and the house to avoid heating of the house during hot weather. This depends on your exact layout and your climate.
   

If the capture point can't be at the lowest point, with the heat store above it and the building above that then you may need to use fans to move the hot air around the system. In the interests of simplicity it can be useful to avoid fans.

If you have an solar air heating system you may wish to use the air to heat water or to heat water directly from the sun to provide your hot/warm water needs.

As an aside I'm tempted to think that it would be useful to have three water supplies - cold water (~8C), warm water(~45C) and hot water(~70C) (which is much more difficult to achieve) - there is little point wasting precious hot water when all you need is warm water.

London ghetto transformed by sustainable homes

"An independent study has found that residents use 40-50% less energy to heat their homes in the refurbished block where recycled newspaper insulation (Warmcel) was used as wall and roof insulation, delivering affordable warmth to residents while substantially reducing C02 emissions."

Treehugger: London ghetto transformed by sustainable homes: