Cakes and Climate change

Last Sunday environmental and development issues seem to have been a theme of the children's groups. My four-year-old returned from Scramblers with a poster about Creation, inevitably with a few Thunderbirds added and I couldn't quite fathom why the space for a picture of himself had been filled with a ladybird and a dalmatian. The Exclaimers were looking at the story of Dorcas/Tabitha. Ann used Tabitha's occupation making clothes for widows as an opportunity to look at recycled clothing and what happens to clothes sent to charity shops. This included finding out how rags are rewoven into new cloth in India. Meanwhile the Pathfinders have each been given £2 to make into more money for Christian Aid. Last week Johnny was selling crockery he'd decorated. This week four of the girls were selling cakes they'd baked. Next week we get to throw wet sponges at Josh and (I think) Johnny too.

This week's notices included a last minute plea for more action to make the Climate Change Bill a really meaningful document. Christian Aid want us to e-mail Hilary Benn and ensure the government don't renege on their earlier promise to ensure companies have to report their carbon emissions. Tearfund, A Rocha and Cafod are all trying to get more MPs to sign their support for amendments that will increase the target for reducing CO2 emissions to 80% (in line with scientific advice) as well as to ensure that shipping and aviation emissions are taken into account. The bill is back in the House of Commons this week - if you're reading this in time please click on the links and take action too!

Depressingly I later received an e-mail from Richard drawing my attention to a MORI poll which shows that most Britons doubt that humans are the cause of climate change.
My husband is currently reading William Hague's biography of William Wilberforce: I had not realised that having abolished Britain's slave trade the government then set about closing down the operations of other European countries by effectively buying them off. One of the actors in the film of Wilberforce's achievement, Amazing Grace, likens the abolition of the slave trade to abolishing oil today. If such actions could be taken then . . . ?

I also received a phone call after church from Alison about tomorrow's Panorama episode exposing Primark's use of child labour (9pm BBC1). If I can persuade my e-mail account to start working I'll alert other green team members to this.

I was pleased to note that Mates, Dates and Saving the Planet appears to have been borrowed.

Books and flower meadows

Every June 5th is World Environment Day. This year my children's book club (Red House Books) marked the occasion with a great selection of reduced-price environmental books for children, many of which are excellent for adults too. Consequently I bought a handful to add to the children's library. I Wonder Why There's a Hole in the Sky (for age 5+) was immediately borrowed by one family who are relatively new to the church and hadn't yet realised about our eco-congregation ambitions.

For 9 year olds and upwards we have You Can Save the Planet (some parents may blanch at some of the advice - limited toilet flushing for instance)
Especially for girls aged 10+ (and mainly because I like the title) there's Mates, Dates & Saving the Planet: a girl's guide to being green and gorgeous
For 12+ there's You Can Save the Planet: A day in the life of your carbon footprint and
An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore (the excellent film of which was watched by our home group plus three younger members a couple of weeks back). I'd especially recommend both of these to adults too. (And anyone who has not yet seen the film, Richard and Rosemary or Mark and I can lend you a DVD).

I also handed out postcards about the proposed eco-town at Weston Otmoor. The Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Wildlife Trust are campaigning against this location because it threatens to destroy the beautiful wildflower meadow at Woodsides Meadow. In the last fifty years 98% of our traditional hay meadows have disappeared and this is a rare survival. The postcards are to be sent to the Minister of State for housing.

Jubilee Debt Campaign - Pick up The Pace

Yesterday Chris gave the following notice:

Ten years ago many of us went to Birmingham to help form a human chain of 70,000 people around the area where the leaders of the G8 were meeting, to demand that the huge debts crippling the world’s poorest countries be cancelled.

In the last ten years, as part of the HIPC process, $88 billion of debt has been cancelled for 25 countries who have had to meet a whole series of tough conditions; but this only represents about 20% of the debt that needs to be dropped. 36 of the world’s poorest nations, suffering under a huge debt burden while millions of their people live in extreme poverty- have been left out of the HIPC process altogether.

Recently the focus at St Johns has been on Fair Trade and Saving The Planet, but as the tenth anniversary of the launch of the Jubilee Debt Campaign approaches, we have been asked to help to focus once again on getting un-payable debts cancelled for the world’s poorest people.

You can help to do this in 3 ways:
1. The easiest way is to take a postcard and send it to the International Development Secretary with your signature, saying that you want our government to lead the way once again and PICK UP THE PACE of debt cancellation.
2. Fast for a day to register your support for the 36 countries so far excluded from debt cancellation. If you can do this for one day this week you must take a slip of paper which gives the web address of the Jubilee Debt Campaign so that you can register your fast. YOU MUST REGISTER YOUR FAST
3. Join the JOURNEY TO JUSTICE event next Sunday at 2.30 p.m. at the International Convention Centre in Birmingham. Activities begin earlier at 12.30. Details of the event are on the Jubilee Debt Campaign website.

Interestingly, both Tom Wright and Rowan Williams in recent publications have made relevant observations: in Surprised By Hope, Wright refers in general to ‘the massive economic imbalance of the world’ and in particular Third World Debt, as ‘the Number One moral issue of our day (p228); Williams in Tokens of Trust (p128) says that the Church ‘is meant to be the place where Jesus is visibly active in the world’ and that sometimes, just sometimes, we are able to say ‘I have seen the church and it works’. Of the three examples he gave, one was the 70,000 in Birmingham.

All postcards were taken and eight copies of the website for registering a fast.

Coal fire power station at Kingsnorth

Last week I received an e-mail from Greenpeace about the proposed Kingsnorth coal-fired power station. So this week I encouraged people to go to their website or that of Christian Aid to protest about it, or to sign the following letter to John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business. There was lots of support for the letter, although many rightly also raised the question of what power we should use. Many also referred to the recent news about increased air travel - a subject for next week's campaign letter?

Dear Mr Hutton
We are writing to you to express our grave concern about the possibility of a new coal-fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent. We know that coal is the most environmentally damaging means of generating electricity and understand that Dr Jim Hansen has warned the Prime Minister that ‘the single greatest threat to the climate comes from burning coal’.

We understand that you are hoping to use carbon capture and storage technology. However, since this is not yet commercially available, and may never be, it seems an appalling risk to take. Clearly it will not be available for the first years of the Kingsnorth plant’s emissions. In just ten years it would be responsible for greater carbon dioxide emissions than he 30 least polluting countries combined. This is morally unacceptable.

Please do not make a mockery of the forthcoming climate change bill by permitting this power station to be built. At the very least a public enquiry should be held on this matter. More effort must also be put into developing renewable energy sources.
If we do not act responsibly over our climate emissions we must expect to deal with
- The creation of 150 million environmental refugees – overwhelmingly in poor countries
- Acute water shortages for 1-3 billion people
- 30 million more people going hungry as agricultural yields go into recession across the globe
- Sea levels edging towards increases of up to 95cm by the end of the century, submerging 18% of Bangladesh.
Please stop this madness.