Carbon Fast

Tearfund are encouraging us all to use Lent to cut our carbon emissions with a carbon fast. Rosemary found 50 takers for Tearfund's leaflets which give one new carbon reducing idea for each day of Lent. Several congregation members are giving up meat for Lent as well. To quote from Tony Juniper's How Many Lightbulbs does it take to Change a Planet?

The World Bank concludes that the recent destruction of the Amazon rainforest has been 'basically caused' by cattle ranching. The UK is one of the biggest consumers of the beef produced there. . . In the EU 41% of all methane emissions are from agriculture, mainly from animals. To this must be added emissions of nitrous oxide (another powerful greenhouse gas) arising from the nitrogen fertilizer applied to grasslands to improve meat and milk yields from grazing animals.

Plans are now afoot to produce a vegetarian recipe book for the church to help with this. This Sunday also, Jane initiated a mini clutter sale - a table at the back of church with items she no longer needs, inviting us to take any we can use and put a donation in the refectory fund box. Whoever brings the stuff is responsible for taking the leftovers away again afterwards so we don't need to time it to coincide with a scout jumble sale.