This needs to be read carefully before it gets picked up by GW denialists. The info isn't new, just the packaging and the level of proof.
"'Global warming sceptics could cite my work as evidence that human-generated greenhouse gases played a beneficial role for several thousand years by keeping the Earth's climate more hospitable than it would otherwise have been,' he states in the current issue of Scientific American. However, others might counter that, if so few humans with relatively primitive technologies were able to alter the course of climate so significantly, then we have reason to be concerned about the current rise of greenhouse gases to unparalleled concentrations at unprecedented rates.'"
The Observer | UK News | How prehistoric farmers saved us from new Ice Age:
06 March 2005
RIP Former bishop of Liverpool dies
I want also to pay tribute to David Shepherd who died yesterday. He was a big influence on me as a yong evangelical Christian because of his taking with utmost seriousness the gospel's valuing of the poor and the Christian duty to take, therefore, issues of urban deprivation and evangelism seriously. My sympathy goes to his family and friends and I look forward to meeting him in glory.
"He worked closely with the city's Roman Catholic bishop Derek Worlock, and in the 1980s played a major part in the Church of England's response to the problems of the inner cities. He attacked urban deprivation in Liverpool, putting him at odds with Margaret Thatcher's Tory government, and steered the city through traumatic times. He was also a noted campaigner against apartheid in South Africa."
The Observer | UK News | Former bishop of Liverpool dies:
"He worked closely with the city's Roman Catholic bishop Derek Worlock, and in the 1980s played a major part in the Church of England's response to the problems of the inner cities. He attacked urban deprivation in Liverpool, putting him at odds with Margaret Thatcher's Tory government, and steered the city through traumatic times. He was also a noted campaigner against apartheid in South Africa."
The Observer | UK News | Former bishop of Liverpool dies:
05 March 2005
Local food 'greener than organic'
The personal really is political: ""The most political act we do on a daily basis is to eat, as our actions affect farms, landscapes and food businesses,"
No matter of indifference to loving-our-neighbours-as-ourselves Christians, then.
From the point of view of practical politics this a a great piece of work in domonstrating what the environmentally-related externalities of western food consumption really are: that is to say what costs don't get passed on to the consumer in the price but are passedonto others, usually future generations or marginalised people in the present, usually via the environmental damage.
"Professor Pretty and his colleague Tim Lang, from City University, UK, painstakingly estimated the environmental price tag on each stage of the food production process. That price might reflect, for example, the clean-up costs following pollution, or the loss of profits caused by erosion damage. The price of food is disguising externalised costs - damage to the environment, damage to climate, damage to infrastructure and the cost of transporting food on roads," Professor Lang told the BBC News website. "
I think that this article or rather the study it's based on will prove to be quite important in policy debate. As the article points out there will have to be some imaginitive policy making but if the commitment to Kyoto and the like means anything then this is good research. And painstaking by the look of it.
BBC NEWS | Science/Nature | Local food 'greener than organic' See also 'Food less travelled'.
Matthew 5:38 - 42
"You have heard that it was said, "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.' But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you"
Perhaps one of the passages that most reflects the situation of being in an occupied country with the reference to being 'commandeered'by the Roman army to carry stuff for a mile [that was the legal limit; when SImon of Cyrene was forced to carry the cross of Jesus, it was probably under that law]. But that's getting ahead of ourselves, perhaps.
The Law allows for retribution -but it should be proportionate as against the escalating spirals of tit-for-tat clan vengence that often passed for punishment of wrongdoing in the days of Moses. So we need to hear this as a restraining law limiting the spiral of vangence, not as a positive injunction to make sure that the eye really is taken or the tooth knocked out. It's easy to understand how such things could get out of hand. Recently I was made aware of this in a disagreement with another person over the interpretation of events at a party, where the other person's desire to blame someone else and to ignore the actual behaviour in question led them to escalate the matter more and more. It became frighteningly apparent to me how easy it would be in the absenceof legal restraints and so on, for such a matter to end up as a brawl with the damage being much greater than the original incident. And of course I was feeling pretty angry too at the sheer unfaitrness and unreasonableness of the other person's reaction. Of course it is possible that they feel the same!
So I am left wondering what it means to offer the other cheek in such nitty-gritty occasions of resentment and misunderstanding. IT is most likely, I think, that offering the other cheek should be interpreted against a likely background of the back-handed 'insult' slap. That's the significanceof the right cheek/left cheek detail: a right-handed person slapping or hitting someone's face 'normally' would make contact with the left side of the face [think about it], whereas to hit the right cheek with the right hand requires a back-hander: a blow with far more symbolic freight as a put down and an insult or sign of contempt. So to offer the left cheek is actually an invitation to the perp to treat you as a fellow human being; it is an 'assertive' action which challenges the wrong without doing so in kind and going to the nub of the issue. It is arguably also loving in that it respects the other person: it invites them to be equal and it offers a break in the normal unfolding of things, a disruption, which might give pause for thought. I actually think that Jesus' idea here is far more radical than is often given credit for. It invites us to find ways to break cycles of contempt and violence, it invites creativity and the positive use of suffering [in this situation the person slapped is likely to be dumped on anyway so why not try to make it count redemptively?] and of taking back initiative. Not easy I now, in the heat of the moment. That's why thinking about it 'off the field' is helpful. It's why I often recommend Christians to take the opportunities to do assertiveness training.
I think that the other sentences in this passage are similarly examples of cycle breaking for the Kingdom. Responding with disruptive actions and words that call for reflection and challenge assumptions and try to create a better future than the trajectory that the initial actions notmally follow.
They used to say 'count to ten', that would help but even better is to stop and think a moment. To learn to put 'natural' anger aside and to redirect it into redemptive action.
I don't htink I did very well with the person I mentioned above at the party. However, I think I've learnt a whole lot from having this passage sitting besied me while I have thought about what happened. Next time ... I pray it'll be different and redemptive.
Perhaps one of the passages that most reflects the situation of being in an occupied country with the reference to being 'commandeered'by the Roman army to carry stuff for a mile [that was the legal limit; when SImon of Cyrene was forced to carry the cross of Jesus, it was probably under that law]. But that's getting ahead of ourselves, perhaps.
The Law allows for retribution -but it should be proportionate as against the escalating spirals of tit-for-tat clan vengence that often passed for punishment of wrongdoing in the days of Moses. So we need to hear this as a restraining law limiting the spiral of vangence, not as a positive injunction to make sure that the eye really is taken or the tooth knocked out. It's easy to understand how such things could get out of hand. Recently I was made aware of this in a disagreement with another person over the interpretation of events at a party, where the other person's desire to blame someone else and to ignore the actual behaviour in question led them to escalate the matter more and more. It became frighteningly apparent to me how easy it would be in the absenceof legal restraints and so on, for such a matter to end up as a brawl with the damage being much greater than the original incident. And of course I was feeling pretty angry too at the sheer unfaitrness and unreasonableness of the other person's reaction. Of course it is possible that they feel the same!
So I am left wondering what it means to offer the other cheek in such nitty-gritty occasions of resentment and misunderstanding. IT is most likely, I think, that offering the other cheek should be interpreted against a likely background of the back-handed 'insult' slap. That's the significanceof the right cheek/left cheek detail: a right-handed person slapping or hitting someone's face 'normally' would make contact with the left side of the face [think about it], whereas to hit the right cheek with the right hand requires a back-hander: a blow with far more symbolic freight as a put down and an insult or sign of contempt. So to offer the left cheek is actually an invitation to the perp to treat you as a fellow human being; it is an 'assertive' action which challenges the wrong without doing so in kind and going to the nub of the issue. It is arguably also loving in that it respects the other person: it invites them to be equal and it offers a break in the normal unfolding of things, a disruption, which might give pause for thought. I actually think that Jesus' idea here is far more radical than is often given credit for. It invites us to find ways to break cycles of contempt and violence, it invites creativity and the positive use of suffering [in this situation the person slapped is likely to be dumped on anyway so why not try to make it count redemptively?] and of taking back initiative. Not easy I now, in the heat of the moment. That's why thinking about it 'off the field' is helpful. It's why I often recommend Christians to take the opportunities to do assertiveness training.
I think that the other sentences in this passage are similarly examples of cycle breaking for the Kingdom. Responding with disruptive actions and words that call for reflection and challenge assumptions and try to create a better future than the trajectory that the initial actions notmally follow.
They used to say 'count to ten', that would help but even better is to stop and think a moment. To learn to put 'natural' anger aside and to redirect it into redemptive action.
I don't htink I did very well with the person I mentioned above at the party. However, I think I've learnt a whole lot from having this passage sitting besied me while I have thought about what happened. Next time ... I pray it'll be different and redemptive.
04 March 2005
EEN urges conservative Christians to embrace the Earth
I pray that this group achieves their hope and aim with USAmerica's evangelical Christians; an embrace of the importance of environmental issues. May it be.
Science & Theology News - News: EEN urges conservative Christians to embrace the Earth
Science & Theology News - News: EEN urges conservative Christians to embrace the Earth
Nike go eco
Step in the right direction by Nike.
Nice ideas, shame about the design.
Consider this | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine
Nice ideas, shame about the design.
Consider this | Gristmill: The environmental news blog | Grist Magazine
Green Energy Sector Should Stop Squabbling
"Murley said every watt of power sold to the electricity networks by the renewable sector was one that the established nuclear and fossil fuel powered generators could not sell.They were in it for the money, so should the green electricity industry be, he said. It was a straightforward commercial fight."
Planet Ark : Green Energy Sector Should Stop Squabbling - Banker:
Planet Ark : Green Energy Sector Should Stop Squabbling - Banker:
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