Praying against death in climate chaos

 Richard Beck has recently written a series of blog post on intercessory prayer which express well where I've been coming to in terms of seeing prayer as part of creation -more precisely creatio continua and itself an act of participation in continuous/continuing creation. This is very close to my own thoughts about the structure of creation in relation to justice and peace and the place of corporisations. The third post in Beck's series also puts the helpful perspective ... well, see here:

We have to know that, in this life, praying against death will be an experience of failure. You need to know that before going in. And yet, we also need to know that this failure isn't terminal or final, that Christ has defeated death. Eschatologically, God has answered every petition for life and healing with a resounding "Yes!" Easter is God's answer to every petition against death. All prayers against death have been answered in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

I find that very helpful and my mind next goes to praying for /in climate and environmental crises about the things that are going on that makes them crises.  Beck goes on to say that prayers this side of the Last Day are a mix of lament and hope. It seems to me that to attempt to pray in climate and ecological crises is to pray, in some way, against death. Only here we don't only think about the death of people but of species, ecosystems, ways of life, biomes, civilisation ... and perhaps the same insight applies.  In Christ it is 'Yes, yes' but not necessarily before Resurrection. We will fail in our prayers and our physical efforts (which are also, in their way, prayers) for mitigating climate chaos: people and species and biomes will die. But all in the end is harvest, our work in the Lord is not in vain. Somehow. How does that, will that, look in the now-and-not yet, before the End? 

The tension is that we will not bring about the fullness of God's reign, and yet what we do, what we pray, now will be answered 'yes'. And even if it is not yet and not now the act of praying is hope. The act of praying is an act towards discernment whether this petition is for the now or the not-yet End, and if the former, then how are we called to petition with words and/or with deeds.

Futuring formation in a climate of turbulence

Intro

This is a paper I wrote for a recent gathering of people involved in thinking about spiritual accompaniment in our region.

Reading Jane Shaw's volume, I was struck what a different world it addresses. Not only is my class background not really represented (it's all seems quite middle/upper class). I was largely left feeling that this is spiritual practice that seems quite detached from much of the lived reality of the nation that I read recently about in The People [The Rise and Fall ofthe Working Class 1910-2010]. The exception is to some extent is Percy Dearmer. These are people also who lived and worked in a world also where CO2 was below 350ppm (it’s now 420+) and the climate was still the relatively stable holocene we came to know and mostly love (yes, even in Britain!)

My fear is that to continue to think along the same trajectory as these mid-20th century pioneers would be to isolate Christian spirituality from the most important and momentous features of what is now underway. Gaia Vince puts that into perspective as she asks:

"Where are you at with your five stages of grief for the Holocene? That’s the geological epoch we were living in for the past 11,700 years – the period of time when humans invented agriculture, built cities, invented writing, became “modern”, essentially. All of history took place in this epoch, marked by its congenial, relatively predictable climate, in which ice sheets retreated from Europe and North America, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels were high enough to enable the flourishing of grains, like rice and wheat." Now we’ve left those Holocene conditions for the uncharted Anthropocene, an age brought about by human activities and characterised by global climate chaos and ecological degradation...  find myself experiencing all stages simultaneously. Anger that my children won’t get to snorkel the wondrous coral reefs of my Australian childhood; pain and guilt over the millions of Indian villagers displaced by floodwaters, losing their homes, livelihoods, even their lives. Depression over the scale of loss: of wildlife, of glaciers, of verdant landscapes, of safe, reliable weather. It is the last two stages we need to reach – acceptance and reconstruction – if we are to build a livable Anthropocene."  https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/18/heatwave-floods-save-planet-children

 So it does seem important to me to parallel the recent COP28 Global Stocktake with a  taking stock of what lies ahead and what it will mean for churches and Christians to respond well in order to understand, coram Deo, the kinds of communities and people we need to be; with our glocal neighbours and recognising we are [part of] the ecosystems that we rely on for sustenance.

“We must try to understand the meaning of the age in which we are called to bear witness. We must accept the fact that this is an age in which the cloth is being unwoven. It is therefore no good trying to patch. We must, rather, set up the loom on which coming generations may weave new cloth according to the pattern God provides.” (Mother Mary Clare SLG)

Where the climate crisis is causing distress and eco-anxiety, we have the opportunity to ground ourselves in a theology of a God intimately involved in creation – the God who created us, dwells in us (‘us’ including the natural world), and will meet us at our end. -JR Hollins: https://joannahollins.wordpress.com/2023/07/18/the-vicar-or-the-ground-source-heater/

What lies ahead?

It now seems we cannot avoid a minimum of 1.5°C for several decades. This will shift ecological zones, expand deserts, melt large amounts of polar ice, raise sea levels by metres not just the few centimeters we’ve seen so far. It will result in fiercer rain and storms. In turn this will imperil food security. These things will increase tensions in human society, promote migration, there will be wars and rumours of war. The darker angels of our nature will find greater opportunity to ride forth.

We are already seeing the emergence of the conditions of and for a neo-feudalism and a rentier basis for economies being laid down by TNCs and their billionaire owners.

We are already seeing the rise of the political reflexes of that economic shift.

While not inevitable, this path is likely. What we do now in the next 5-10 years is of deadly importance -I use that adverb with forethought!

………………………………………………………………………………

 

TAKE A BREATH -notice our own reactions, hold them before God …

 

This is a vital part of the work of God right now.

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The time for declaring emergency and working for sustainability was 40 years ago. Now our sector [conservation] must focus on being collapse-aware, to aim for ruggedisation and to build a regenerative culture. …. This means anticipating, facing and responding to the linked crises of ecological and climate breakdown, pandemics, rising inequalities, displacement, famines & conflict. … Earth crisis, for short. … Where society is competitive, where there is a lack of shared responsibility, and where heritage isn’t cherished as a commons, collapse is more likely to lead to conflict and displacement. … From <https://bridgetmckenzie.uk/sustainability-is-in-the-past>

Meeting what lies ahead

I suggest that Christians and churches will need to consider upping our game and preparing for action in these missional responses.

Churches *should* have a vital role in the short to medium terms:

·       helping to build community resilience;

·       offering help  for people to learn new skills;

·        providing pastoral care to the anguished, shocked and regretful;

·       truth seeking and telling in the face of disinformation and denial;

·       offering spiritual accompaniment as people re-orient lives around sustainable practices;

·       making known and exemplifying the riches of spiritual practice to support simple lifestyles and neighbourliness. (And be learning and re-learning all of that ourselves)^[i].

These feel somehow monastic. It is also vital and necessary. There are movements afoot already to promote and foment these things. Christians should surely be among them.

What spiritual perspectives support these 'missions'?

Grounding in natural world: we know that there are strands of Christian spirituality that value and rejoice in creation; we need to lean into them but in a way that doesn’t denigrate the urban per se. We should also widen our thinking about incarnation to more thoroughly incorporate (!) understanding that the flesh is matter, imbricated in ecosystems. (We might note and theologise about the way being in nature supports good mental health.)

Preferential option for the poor. Hopefully I don’t need to say more about this?!

Joy in enough, simplification (new Franciscanism?) and rejoining our lives and life-systems to the circular economies of nature. Yes, let’s consider the lilies and the birds how they are supported and support life around them.

Learning the insights of protest movements especially: undoing hierarchy; valuing each; self and other care; listening; (cf Quaker decision making);

It is important that we help the development of a Missio Dei perspective -implied spiritual disciplines of (corporate) attention, discernment and reflection; together and individually. We can use the Five marks of mission to help draw our attention to where to look for God at work.

We have been seeing the way that money buys social perception filters and narrative hegemony. Ctr "You shall know the truth and it will set you free" -rediscovering intellectual humility and valuing truth-seeking -disciplines of study, valuing not bearing false witness, courage in challenging untruths, half-truths and evasions, telling truth to power.

 One of the tests of actual faith, as opposed to bad religion, is whether it stops you ignoring things. Faith is most fully itself and most fully life-giving when it opens your eyes and uncovers for you a world larger than you thought - and of course, therefore, a world that's a bit more alarming than you ever thought. The test of true faith is how much it lets you see, and how much it stops you denying, resisting, ignoring aspects of what is real.     -Rowan Williams quoted in A Splash of Words" by Mark Oakley

 Humility in mission: it is God’s mission, God’s agenda we seek. Too often in the past the churches have tried to own and badge efforts for justice and reform. Too often we have been rivalrous with others. But it is God’s work, we can be content with doing right and good things even if it doesn't have ‘Brought to you by the CofE’ in the corner. Too often we have been arrogant and failed to listen and so we’ve missed the Spirit blowing gently and unexpectedly in the lives and circumstances of others -the sheep not of this fold.

 Courage:

 "In a time of overlapping global crises, it’s clear that radical courage will be required of us as individuals and as a society - in our communities and institutions at local and national levels, and not least among those in public life - if we are to make decisive progress on our interconnected economic, environmental and social challenges, and create truly just and flourishing futures ... That will require at least two things: the willingness to step out of our comfort zones and into the storms and waves, to protect the poor, the vulnerable and nature itself, and a clear sense of where to find the resources beyond ourselves to discover that courage." -Justin Welby

 Re-learning hope: not as optimism or wishful thinking or escapist eschatology. We can no longer work for a better world, only a less-worse one (accompanying people in bereavement from modernist progressive optimism). Hope as a humble sustaining of work with God in the world and among God’s people, simply knowing /trusting that “our work in the Lord is not in vain”

Finding spiritual perspectives that help us to deal with complicity. BLM and the current climate/enviro crises remind us how we are deeply formed and held in life-patterns and attitudes that do not serve wider human flourishing. Understanding corporate sin and our participation in it in ways that help us to live wisely ourselves and to minister to others, is vitally important. I personally believe that this is where conversations about sin and atonement ought to be circling. Not to mention liturgy and theological formation.

What does "holy and righteous life" look like in these conditions?

As well as regular attentive reflection on the world around us -human and more-than-human; as well as discernment of God’s mission and our own vocations within it; as well as meeting together for mutual encouragement and upbuilding … we will need to consider some marks of a holy and righteous life that we have not paid so much attention to over the last century (or maybe I’m wrong?)

·       Resilience through facing despair, complicity and world-view bereavement with gentleness, truthfulness and Godly neighbour love.

·       Peacemaking

·       Community building /Mutual aid to try to nurture resilience against the threats of divisive rhetoric and selfish responding to crisis. It will also enable the kind of working together that will actually save lives and enable human and ecological flourishing

·       Casting down the mighty and lifting up the lowly

·       Bearing witness to truth

·       Dealing wisely with complicity

·       NVDA, Civil disobedience

·       21^st century alms-giving that recognises structural dimensions of alleviating want.

As I mention these things, I’m so often aware that there are precursors. Christians in past times of civilisational change and collapse have done many of these things in various ways. Often it has been monastic and mendicant orders who have been at the forefront….

Over to you....

^[i]From < https://www.facebook.com/groups/2349278635285005/?multi_permalinks=3536698376543019&notif_id=1691680506613098&notif_t=group_activity&ref=notif

Foundation, Empire -and the mission of the church

 I've been watching the TV series 'Foundation'. I read the books about 50 years ago (I know!) but scarcely now remember anything but an outline and some character names. A lot has happened in my life since I read the series and now watch it adapted to television. For one thing, I committed my ways to Christ and have a role which involves official ministry in the church's mission.

In the intervening years, a constant companion for me has been concern for ecology, for creation. Latterly this has become a more urgent concern and I have realised that we have collectively run out of time. We are living on borrowed time. In fact, some of us, globally speaking, are not even living on borrowed time. All through my adult life I have unconsciously (I now realise) assumed that we would have time, that there was time to persuade and to change and to head off the worst. That assumption, that naive hope, has now been stripped from me.

The situation of living on borrowed time  needs to be spelled out in greater detail. And this is where the connection in my mind with Hari Seldon and Foundation starts to kick in. In Foundation, the scenario is that the Empire is about to decline and collapse, giving way to a dark age, an age of vast human suffering and misery. For me that scenario has clicked with the likely paths our own current civilisation seems to be on. Whatever happens now, some global warming is 'baked in' and we have already seen the kinds of effects it is having. The prospect is that such effects will continue and worsen. How much worse is unknown. 

It seems likely that parts of the earth will become uninhabitable for humans. It seems that there will be greater extremes of weather, including drought and storms. It is inevitable that coastal and low-lying cities like London will have to find ways to cope with encroachment of tides or be abandoned in part or wholly. The clear implications of that basket of effects will be population movements, migration. We should also reckon on food supplies becoming erratic as land becomes unsuitable for cultivation. This "erratic" food supply will, as usual, be dire for the most vulnerable and stressful for those who are usually less vulnerable. More migration. These kinds of stresses in the past have exacerbated intercommunal and international tensions. We might be unsurprised to see wars or at least armed 'incidents' and also insurgencies, civil disorder and revolutions.

So, in many ways, it wouldn't be unfair to call what we are embarked upon, a "dark age". An age when more and more people die, suffer loss, are undernourished, unhoused and displaced, fall into servitude, are brutalised, exploited and traumatised.

None of this is to imply that things up to the moment have been idyllic (far from it), just to say that it could -probably will- get worse by a number of measures. This too reminds me of the Foundation story. The dark age is relative, the Empire is cruel and brutal in keeping order but one catches glimpses of many people living lives which are at least okay: materially speaking they are well fed, have homes and good things in their lives -provided they don't threaten Empire's power. However, the dark age multiplies the detriments. In both Foundation and in our real world trajectory now, the further dangers are that human collective knowledge and now-how are eroded making reconstruction harder. This can be further triangulated with the medieval period in western Europe -the so-called dark ages*- where the monasteries played a role in preserving information which could later be retrieved and added to. They also, let's note in passing, played a role in healthcare, agricultural know-how and sometimes, at their best, in protecting the interests of ordinary people or at least mitigating some of the worst effects of bad, venial, governance.

It has been interesting to note the portrayal of responses to the prognosis of Seldon and psychohistory in the Foundation story. Again, there are parallels. There is denial on the part of those in charge and a 'shoot the messenger' reaction. Tick: we are seeing that. There is a prioritising of dynastic concerns which minimises the responses. Tick. -Our billionaire overlords seem to be doing something rather like that, abetted (gaslit, cajoled, wealth-groomed) by those who hold the formal reins of governance.

As I've already nodded towards, there is a parallel too in the 'solution'. In the books and the TV series, the Foundation is set up to provide a repository of knowledge for reconstruction, and a means to help shorten the dark age. Interestingly, and making the parallel more visible, the Foundation spawns an order of monks, in effect, whose mission is to try to help shorten the period of darkness and to keep alive the 'light' of knowledge and humanity (in the sense of 'humane'). I can't help thinking that Asimov was giving a hat tip to the role of monastic communities in the European dark ages*.

This is what I think we need to take on board with regard to the mission of the churches in the coming century (or centuries). We need to be asking "what is God doing and calling us to collaborate with?" In answering that question, we may do well to consider the role of the churches (including monastic expressions) at their best during the 'dark ages' in western Europe. We would do well to consider also how they failed or fell short. In writing that, I'm also mindful that I have written 'western Europe' several times. I'm somewhat aware that we might also look at churches in other parts of the world during times of civilisational stress to learn from their experiences. And given that there are commonalities of desire for human flourishing and spiritual disciplines, it may be also that the experiences of people of other faiths can help us to consider our vocation as churches. And that's not to pass up that the encouragement to people of other faith traditions to similarly dig deep to retrieve their own resources to help human flourishing in such challenging circumstances. It wouldn't be the first time Christians have learned from other faiths. It is strongly arguable that the Renaissance was greatly indebted to the re-discovery of classical learning and manuscripts held and preserved by the Islamic nations which became available as a result of the Reconquista in the AD1400s.

We would do well also to consider the understandings we have amassed about sociology, economics, psychology as well as the physical sciences and their related technologies. It may be that capacity for advanced research in the latter is diminished but the ways of understanding and thinking can enable better adaptation for communities to changing conditions and harsher natural conditions. It is important also to consider that we have been coming to understand that some indigenous perspectives and accumulated understandings of biomes and skillful human living in them are worthy in seeking human flourishing. The collective wisdom and learning can inform people settling and/or adapting in new conditions. The attitude, at their best, of respect for natural process and reflexively understanding interconnection, an ecological instinct almost, is valuable. The attitude of considering how we might be good ancestors and trying to take the long view is one that we need to take on board. Not doing so is part of the reason why our civilisation is failing now.

As churches, then, we might consider our own part in Foundation. Not for a galactic empire, but for human flourishing in the long term on the only planet we have. The only planet we have been entrusted with. As churches, 'Foundation' means discovering together God's mission in the present keeping an eye on the likely future. It means adapting and renewing our discipling, our engagements with our communities, our structures (for surely we cannot continue as we are). We will need to listen to the Spirit and one another's discernments to "hear what the Spirit is saying to the churches". We will need to learn disciplines of simplicity of life, corporate discernment, and humble, patient learning. We will need to learn the discipline of sitting light to our preferences and to let of some, perhaps many, of the things we have grown attached to in the way that we 'do church together'. We will need to become peacemakers in earnest and set our hands to the plough of learning how to do that work (and find ourselves blessed in it!). We will need to face and process our own grief and bereavement of the kind of life we have come to expect and hope for, and our collective guilt in making the world worse for our afterbears (opposite of forebears). We will need to learn how to minister among the shocked and traumatised, the cynical and the dispirited (having faced those things ourselves).

I feel like this could be the introduction to a series of fuller considerations of those different dimensions to what I suspect we are called to. And probably some more too. Maybe I'll be able to do that. I'm sensing that the five marks of mission may be a helpful frame to hang some of that consideration on.

Well, a blog post is meant to be provisional, and that seems to be what this is! Let's see if I can pick up some of these strands in the coming weeks and months.

Footnote

*The term "dark ages" is contested by historians because there were at times some very good, hopeful and even progressive things occurred during the period often named such. However, as a label for a time when civilisational collapse, whether partial or more wholly, takes place, it serves. Especially as it is explicitly part of the Foundation storyline.

Why our plutocrats aren't bothered by climate change

Of course! the reason for lack of real motivation and action on the part of our governments is that those in government are pretty much networked into the class of those who are making money by the current financial system.

Now, they might still be interested in stopping the worst and costly effects of the changes that climate change would bring about were it not for the fact that the way things are set up, there is a greater incentive to make money out of selling new stuff to those affected. You see, if you own the means of production, then producing more is more profitable. New homes, new crops, new clothing choices, and all changing rapidly as we work through the succession of effects. All of that means opportunities for selling stuff especially for those with the capital to invest in the new products. It's the same problem at base as with the way we count GDP: it shows up as 'better' for the economy measured by GDP to clean up pollution, for example, than to prevent it; cleaning it up produces measurable economic activity where as stopping it doesn't. And where do the profits from that measurable economic activity go?

In most cases these are people working with organisations, businesses, which do things like scenario planning. The scenarios will certainly include the cases of greater amounts of climate change (above two degrees C). These will then have sophisticated SWOT style planning applied to them. So I conclude that this planning has shown them that there are, from the point of view of profit, greater opportunities than threats in the scenarios which bear down on the poorer members of our global society. As a Friends of the Earth spokesperson said:

“Compensating coastal communities affected by climate change is simply a matter of social justice, ... At the moment, the government is dumping these costs on individual households and vulnerable communities.”Almost 7,000 UK properties to be sacrificed to rising seas | Environment | The Guardian:

This is just the pattern that we are already seeing: the cuts are being made at the expense of the poorer and more vulnerable and letting off the richer (and financially more resilient) from doing their fair share: we are not all in it together. Trickle down economics doesn't work but we are left with the attitude that once was justified by it: that enriching the 'entrepreneurs' is a Good Thing. Of course most of the entrepreneurs turn out to be rentiers not particularly adding any value to the economy as a whole and removing money from the economy by salting it away offshore.

The point we need to grasp is that if you are wealthy enough, you will feel that you can spend enough money to make sure you are shielded from the worst effects: it's easy to move home, easy to buy the stuff you need to deal with the effects, even relatively easy to employ private armies security to keep you safe from the civil strife. They can survive in a new medieval economy by becoming barons.

Why I am very concerned about fracking ...

Of course we can see the argument for getting away from being supplied by potentially hostile and/or unstable countries. However there are major -and I mean major- problems with the whole enterprise.
Most importantly it doesn't help address our need (indeed duty) to decarbonise our economy. So unless it were accompanied by a very rigorous set of mechanisms to make sure that our exploitation of these fossil carbons did not contribute to increasing the net amount of carbon and other greenhouse gasses, we should not even be considering this. This is one of the things driving a fairly furious response from members of the public and unless this is taken seriously we could have Twyford Down style protesting going on and given recent revelations about policing such things, a potential for even more bitter civil liberties issues arising. Will the costs of handling civil discurbancc also be including in the licenses? I suspect they won't; and that will mean effectively a hidden taxpayer subsidy. Better surely not to create that situation in the first place.

Secondly are the fairly major concerns about more immediate enviromental impacts. The fears about earth quakes would appear to be well founded at the moment. As do concerns about contamination of water tables and the effects on crops (I note the recent case in East Yorkshire). Again, failure to take such concerns seriously is likely to risk civil discurbance and raises the question of who will pay for policing, court cases, etc.

Thirdly, it's hard to work out why the energy security issues cannot better be met by pursuing even more rigourously the non-carbon paths already beginning to be explored and which show considerable and accelerating promise. Given this alternative strategy shows every chance of furthering several good outcomes (decarbonising, local jobs, regional jobs, potential for Britain to rejoin global leadership in related areas of tech ...).

Add that for many of us there is a big suspicion that the present government are too fond of  doing things that work well for informally influential friends and moneyed interests but are not necessarily helpful to the welfare of the wider population and for which our grandchildren will curse us heartily, and you have a recipe for a much less happy nation and huge costs in the short to medium term and stacking up exponentially as climate change accelerates.

See some further views here.
You might also 'enjoy' this news piece:

Why would a solar physicist embrace the non-rationality of religion?

It turns out that the guy who has done a very thorough job of rebutting climate-change denialist claims, is an active Christian and a good scientist. This seems to worry the author of the article:

How can a rational mind like Cook's – a solar physicist by training – also embrace the non-rationality of religion, if indeed he even accepts the premise? Predictably, he uses evolution as an example. "I hold much store in empirical evidence ... There are multiple lines of evidence that humans evolved from lower life-forms. However, there are questions where a little more humility is required."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/blog/2010/aug/25/solar-physicist-religion

China wrecked talks

I think this might be an important perspective which may have a lot of truth in it; I suspect it may turn out to be a significant view in years to come. See it here: How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room | Mark Lynas | Environment | The Guardian
First off, the summary view:

"The truth is this: China wrecked the talks, intentionally humiliated Barack Obama, and insisted on an awful 'deal' so western leaders would walk away carrying the blame."

I'm reckoning that this may turn out to be the date from which we date China's accession to superpower status, politically.
Certainly, they 'played' their game cannily:

"The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. The diplomatic snub was obvious and brutal, as was the practical implication: several times during the session, the world's most powerful heads of state were forced to wait around as the Chinese delegate went off to make telephone calls to his "superiors"."

Clever piece of political theatre.
I think that this was China flexing muscle and as such gives us a glimpse of things to come.

The analyst, who has attended climate conferences for more than 15 years, concludes that China wants to weaken the climate regulation regime now "in order to avoid the risk that it might be called on to be more ambitious in a few years' time".
This does not mean China is not serious about global warming. It is strong in both the wind and solar industries. But China's growth, and growing global political and economic dominance, is based largely on cheap coal.

So there you have it folks: China is in the front line of climate change and will be taking it seriously, but ...

Eat more plants - environment will like it

Every so often I post stuff like this and I'll continue to do so because the research keeps coming in and the arguments still stack up: if we're serious about our environmental footprints, then we should reduce or remove meat in our diet. This time it's from the New Scientist: "Livestock are responsible for nearly a fifth of all greenhouse emissions, from the methane produced by their guts and manure, to nitrous oxide emissions from the fertilisers used to grow feed for them. Because it takes several kilograms of plant matter to grow a kilogram of meat, producing meat and animal products such as cheese usually greatly multiplies the environmental damage done by farming. The huge amounts of land required are driving the destruction of rainforests, for instance. Even small reductions in consumption, such as making Mondays meat-free, could make a big difference."
To me the argument is simple and I don't eat meat. I find myself how much of a sore spot this is with some people I talk with (when they ask me why I don't eat meat: I don't go around making myself objectionable). It's like I've suggested they give up sex with their spouse or suggested they live on a 50p a day! "I like my meat too much"; come on folks: surely you like your grandchildren more; enough to try to save them from the second dark ages? Enough to hope that when you're old they won't be reproaching you for not doing more? "What did you do in the climate talks times dad/mum/grampa/gramma?" "Oh, I just went on living in denial and expecting other people to make sacrifices." I hope that won't be the epitaph future generations will write for us -when they've managed to work out a way to be civilised again without cheap oil and in the thin strips of fertile land overlooking our drowned coastal cities.
Oh, and remember, this expectation of eating meat every day; it's recent, it hasn't killed anyone not to eat meat for a few days a week.
Better world: Eat more plants - environment - 18 September 2009 - New Scientist

PM etc 10:10 yay

I find this somewhat encouraging: Gordon Brown turns down heat and Peter Mandelson gets on his bike to support 10:10 campaign | Environment | The Guardian: "The prime minister said he would turn down his central heating by one degree, ensure his appliances were not left on standby and recycle more. 'It is these small changes that, if everyone does them, will make a big difference,' Brown said, 'With fewer than 100 days until [UN climate talks in Copenhagen], this is a great opportunity to show we are all prepared to take action.'"
Just as long as they don't think that's all they have to do: but the solidifying effect of taking action and doing so publicly is probably a Good Thing.

10:10

I've already been doing many of the things that are involved in cutting my carbon emissions, so before signing up I need to find out whether there are further things I can do, but if you haven't really started on this, well, can I ask you to consider starting now with this? (Ideas to help on the site here). 10:10: "By committing to cut your emissions by 10% in 2010, you will join thousands of individuals, schools, hospitals, businesses and organisations all actively helping to combat climate change by making simple changes to their lifestyles, homes and workplaces. More importantly, your voice will help to put pressure on the politicians to cut Britain’s emissions as quickly as the science demands. If we in the UK can prove that fast, deep cuts can be made at a national level, then we may just inspire all the other big polluting countries to follow suit."

At least get it right on the Arctic

Here's the buzz: "The right-wing, conservative, climate-denial blog-and-twitosphere is abuzz with the news: Greenpeace admits live on the BBC that it lied about arctic melting."
And it really serves as on object lesson in spin and blatently dishonest and slanderous (and now libellous) misdirection on the part of those USAMerican conservatives who are running with this. Greenpeace's rebuttal (=putting the actual salient facts out there) is here: Greenpeace - Making Waves: Greenpeace admits: BBC got it wrong about arctic sea ice melting
And here's what I think is the main paint:

it's fair to say we could have been more precise. We could have inserted three letters into the offending sentence: S-E-A, to make it crystal clear to the casual reader. But the term "ice-free" to refer to an absence of ice on the ocean came straight from the NASA report we were citing, and is the common description you'll find in scientific publications as well as among journalists. If you Google "ice free summers" and "arctic" you get about 230,000 hits. Oh, and gosh, look what the first article is: a story from the BBC itself talking about the retreat of SEA ice, but what's the headline? "Arctic summers ice-free by 2013"

Of course, the other thing this highlights is actually that some GWdenialists have ceded the game: by arguing this they acknowledge that the arctic ocean is likely to be ice-free in summer even if Greenland isn't.

Energy in U.S. -signs of hope

It's not as sexy as some sci-fi style techie things but ...Worldchanging: Bright Green: Energy Efficiency Gains in U.S. Could Cut Sharply Energy Use, Study Says: "A crash program to improve the energy efficiency of American homes, offices, and factories could slash energy consumption by 23 percent by 2020 and produce $1.2 trillion in savings, according to a report by the McKinsey consulting firm." Did you get that: nearly one quarter(that's a fourth to our cousins over the pond) of power could be saved. Contrast with The folly of 'magical solutions' and add to the mix the intriguing hopefulness of USAmerican figures for building wind generation capacity in a recession, and you get the idea that USA-China co-operation on climate and energy might just begin to do what's needed. Might. Just.

Climate change video FAQs

This is just a flagging up post: Climate change video FAQs | Greenpeace International: "These are the most frequently asked questions about climate change determined by you - Greenpeace supporters. Our busy climate campaigners have sat down for a video one-to-one to give you the answers."
I've not yet been able to view them; let me (and anyone else reading this) know what you think.

City Living Trims GHG

Check it out; I've already mentioned this research but this time Worldchanging has picked it up here. Worldchanging: Bright Green: Does City Living Trim Greenhouse Gas Emissions? And the headline info: "downtown residents use radically less energy, and consequently emit about two-thirds less climate-warming CO2 than their suburban counterparts."
We need to think about this missionally: to me this sounds like a call to urban new monasticism (and the Beguine movement of the thirteenth century looks like a good reference point for that). And also for a relocalisation of suburban communities which is a community development task, but a missional one at that. It's interesting, having read placement reports from students attached to suburban churches that local community is a real issue. That said, there are not always easy ways to address it, but it must be done.

Obama Outlines Plan for High-Speed Rail

After I visited the states the last time and travelled from Washington DC into the heart of Virginia by train, I felt that there was money to be made in the USA having a faster rail network. 50MPH top speed is a joke for a national passenger rail system. No wonder flying is a national pastime there! I think I blogged about it. The positive side of that, though was that it was a comfortable journey: there was lots of leg room and the drinks car was a real social centre it seemed. Anyway, it seems the president has been seeing sense: Obama Outlines Plan for High-Speed Rail | Autopia from Wired.com: "Obama outlined a strategy that focuses on 10 rail corridors that slice through regional population centers across the United States. Each state would compete for a chunk of the $8 billion in stimulus money that will be distributed to rail projects in the next two years. Another $1 billion will follow over the next five years. Funds will be awarded according to each states' plan to develop and improve the rail corridors."

I note that one of the rail corridors is pretty much one of those that I rode on back then. I think I mentioned it in a blog post.

Cap And Trade Works!

FYI : "Europe's cap and trade system is having the intended effect: by putting a price on carbon emissions, it's made a meaningful dent in climate-disrupting pollution." More at Worldchanging: Bright Green: Cap And Trade Works!

Support a green recovery for Europe

"This Sunday, Europe’s leaders will meet to agree on further steps to tackle the economic crisis. They face a crucial choice: pour money into an unsustainable economic system which clearly has holes; or embrace a Green Recovery Plan that invests in low carbon technologies, energy efficiency, green jobs and public transport.

The European Union has a historic opportunity to shift away from short-term, protectionist measures and take bold action to create jobs and save the planet. We need all European governments on board. So let’s send our top political leaders a flood of messages, urging them to embrace a green New Deal that lays the foundation of a sustainable economic recovery." Support a green recovery for Europe:

Less meat = less climate costs

I keep pointing it out, but the evidence seems to be surfacing thick and fast. Come on people, get on board. Eating less meat could cut climate costs - environment - 10 February 2009 - New Scientist: "reducing our intake of beef and pork would lead to the creation of a huge new carbon sink, as vegetation would thrive on unused farmland. The model takes into account farmland that is used to grow extra food to make up for the lost meat, but that requires less area, so some will be abandoned. Millions of tonnes of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, would also be saved every year due to reduced emissions from farms."

Meat free health service?

This was always going to be an attractor of adverse comment. However the point is sound and it looks like the idea only amounts to offering more meat-free options. Which, speaking as a vegetarian who has had to spend quite a lot of time in hospitals in the last year, seems a good idea. Particularly as I was looking for options that also weren't going to act badly with my LDL cholesterol count -ie needing not to have a lot of dairy or eggs involved either. So I welcome this and invite readers to take to heart an easy way to reduce your carbon footprint. I must say, I'm also amazed by how addicted to meat so many of my contemporaries seem to be: the thought of not having meat even for a few days seems to terrify.

suggestion that hospitals could cut carbon emissions from food and drink by offering fewer meat and dairy products. Last year, the United Nations climate chief, Rajendra Pachauri, provoked a global debate when he said having a meat-free day every week was the biggest single contribution people could make to curbing climate change in their personal lives, because of the chemicals sprayed on feed crops and the methane emitted by cattle and sheep. Last week, the German federal environment agency went further, advising people to eat meat only on special occasions. Pencheon said the move would cut the relatively high carbon emissions from rearing animals and poultry, and improve health. Last year the NHS served 129m main meals, costing £312m, according to Department of Health figures. "We should not expect to see meat on every menu," said Pencheon. "We'd like higher levels of fresh food, and probably higher levels of fresh fruit and veg, and more investment in a local economy."

Green economic development in Britain

Definitely worth looking at, this publication from NEF. Tackling Climate Change, Reducing Poverty Here's an example of good news which illustrates the point and why our government should be considering this path as a major part of its somewhat Keynesian plan to spend us out of recession: "in a deprived community in Braunstone, Leicester, an alliance of local groups helped raise funds for photovoltaic solar energy systems to be placed on the roofs of 50 south-facing houses. Local small firms were given training to install the solar panels, which have now cut carbon emissions on the estate and lifted residents out of fuel poverty"
And I say, perhaps this is another area that local churches ought to be looking at encouraging as part of their community development mission; something which should also build local resiliance.
See also this article in WorldChanging.