The Wave (2)

Tearfund report that:

"An estimated 50,000 people dressed in blue, encircling Parliament and calling on the government to take action for a strong climate deal, isn't an everyday sight.

But it was an inspiring one. So was 3,000 Christians praising and worshipping our God of justice in Central Hall, Westminster and the thousands who took to the streets of Glasgow and Belfast.

Today, Christians from around the UK came together to act justly and march humbly for God and for His poorest and most vulnerable children across the world, already suffering the effects of a changing climate.

Changing the world is a long process that requires perseverance, grace and the power of God's Holy Spirit. But it can also be fun! If you made it out today, we hope you had a fantastic time surrounded by people passionate about justice. And if you couldn't be there but prayed for The Wave, thank you.

Click here for pictures and coverage from the day and to find yourself in the sea of blue. If you were there we'd also love to hear from you - tell us how you got on at campaigning@tearfund.org.

Next stop, Copenhagen! Get ready for updates from the two weeks of climate talks and keep praying for a strong and fair deal."

Click here for more photos from the St Johns Seven Kings group at The Wave.

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Ben Harper - Better Way.

The Wave

UK climate negotiators are off to crucial talks in Copenhagen next week. And what better send-off than thousands of passionate people dressed in blue encircling Parliament. That's what our Peace & Justice committee at St Johns Seven Kings think and they will be meeting at the church at 9.30am on Saturday 5 December in order to travel into Central London together to take part.

We want our message of climate justice to be ringing in the governments' ears, reminding them to seal a strong and fair deal for the world's poorest people. That's why Tearfund, among others, are joining with the Stop Climate Chaos coalition for The Wave church service and march this Saturday, 5 December.

The day will look like this ...

11am: Church service at Central Hall, Westminster, SW1H 9NH, central London (opposite Westminster Abbey). From there we will walk together to join the march. Maps will be provided on the day.

1pm: March leaves Grosvenor Square. Assemble there if you can't make it to the service.

3pm: Encircling of parliament followed by tea and cakes with Tearfund at the Mothers Union, Mary Sumner House, 24 Tufton St, SW1P 3RB

Or join The Wave in Glasgow and Belfast city centre on the same day.

To get in the mood, why not take e-action from Tearfund's website. Also please pray for The Wave, the climate talks and the people most affected by climate change.

Oxfam say, "These marches are the best chance we have to tell the UK government and world leaders that we care about what is agreed at the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen this December."

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The Beach Boys - Don't Worry Baby.

Meditation on a green plastic milk bottle top

I wrote the following meditation for today's All-Age service at St Johns Seven Kings which has been planned by our Peace & Justice committee and which focuses on the Countdown to Copenhagen:

Each of you was given, as you arrived, a green plastic milk bottle top. Please hold it in your hand now and spend a moment looking at it.

It is a familiar everyday object; one that we see most days but do not think about. We handle it when we remove it in order to pour out our milk and then replace it to help in keeping the milk fresh. When the milk bottle is empty then we throw it away.

The world's annual consumption of plastic materials has increased from around 5 million tonnes in the 1950s to nearly 100 million tonnes today, which means that we use 20 times as much plastic today than we did 50 years ago. All plastics, including these bottle tops, but also many of the materials used to make the clothes we are wearing and the carpet we are walking on, plus hundreds of the other products we take for granted, are made from petrochemicals and a main ingredient in petrochemicals is oil. Our increased use of plastics uses up the world’s limited supplies of oil more quickly.

It is estimated that only 7% of plastic waste is recycled at present, so 93% of an increasing number of plastic items, including our bottle tops, currently go to landfill. These bottle-tops are a symbol of waste, a sign of our throw-away society. How many do we throw away each week, each month, each year?

Bottle-tops are hard to recycle because there are only a few companies that genuinely recycle them and only a few charities that genuinely collect them. We will have to go out of our way if we are to recycle bottle-tops, just as we also have to go out of our way if we are to recycle items that are not on our Council’s list for collection in our recycling boxes.

It is easy to recycle the paper, tins and plastic and glass bottles that the Council will collect from our homes but more difficult to recycle the cardboard, printer cartridges, bottle tops and other items that will only be recycled if we take them to the recycling centre. Will we do the easy thing or the harder thing when it comes to recycling?

Our bottle tops are green and green is the colour that we associate with the countryside and with environmental care. Our bottle tops can be reminders to us that we can be green, if we do the extra things that make a difference when it comes to recycling or conserving energy or lobbying MPs for Government action on climate change.

Please take your green milk bottle top home as a reminder of actions you want to take as a result of today’s service – like recycling things you currently throw away or switching off appliances that are usually left on stand-by or going to The Wave on 5th December to demonstrate your support for a safe climate future for all. Put the bottle top in your pocket and each time you touch remind yourself of what you have said you will do.

Let us pray ... Lord, we hold these bottle tops and they remind us of our wasteful, throw-away world which is rapidly using up the resources you have given to us. Make us truly sorry for our wasteful actions and turn us into those who conserve the world’s resources and lobby for Governments to stop the waste and stop climate chaos. May we be part of a wave of people around the world seeking and achieving a safe climate future for all. Amen.

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Athlete - Hurricane.

Blog Action Day - Choose Life

This is my post for "Blog Action Day", a summary (copied from the Anglican Communion News Service) of the lecture given yesterday at Southwark Cathedral (sponsored by the Christian environmental group Operation Noah) by Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, in which he sets out a Christian vision of how people can respond to the looming environmental crisis.

Beginning with the story of Noah and the Flood, Dr Williams highlighted the “burden of responsibility for what confronts us here and now as a serious crisis and challenge”. Our relationship with the rest of creation is intimately bound up with our relationship with God. The Bible offers “an ethical perspective based on reverence for the whole of life”. “To act so as to protect the future of the non-human world is both to accept a God-given responsibility and, appropriately, to honour the special dignity given to humanity itself.”

Drawing parallels with the financial crisis, Dr Williams argued that we are in danger of losing touch with what makes us distinctively human. We urgently need to revise some of our assumptions, including those that are incompatible with our duty of care for the whole of life.

Dr Williams warned against looking for a single solution to the complex environmental challenges which face us. “Instead of a desperate search to find the one great idea that will save us from ecological disaster, we are being invited to a transformation of individual and social goals that will bring us closer to the reality of interdependent life in a variegated world”.

Dr Williams urged action at the personal and local, as well as at the national and international, levels. He acknowledged “the potential of the crisis to awaken a new confidence in local and civic democracy [and] … a new sense of what is politically possible for people who thought they were powerless”. “Our response to the crisis needs to be in the most basic sense, a reality check, a re-acquaintance with the facts of our interdependence within the material world and a rediscovery of our responsibility for it”. “When we believe in transformation at the local and personal level, we are laying the surest foundations for change at the national and international level”.

Dr Williams underlined the particular role that belief can play in recovering a sense of balance and interdependence. “What we face today is nothing less than a choice about how genuinely human we want to be; and the role of religious faith in meeting this is first and foremost in setting out a compelling picture of what humanity reconciled with both creator and creation might look like.”

The Archbishop urged leaders to take bold decisions at the Copenhagen summit in December. He encouraged the taking of effective collaborative local action to reduce carbon emissions and to maintain pressure on local governments and businesses to do the same. And he encouraged the small actions which mark a break with destructive patterns of consumption and waste and help “to make us more aware of the diversity of life around us”.

In conclusion, the Archbishop emphasized that “the Christian story lays out a model of reconnection with an alienated world: it tells us of a material human life inhabited by God and raised transfigured from death; of a sharing of material food which makes us sharers in eternal life; of a community whose life together seeks to express within creation the care of the creator”. Quoting Moses in the book of Deuteronomy, he concluded “I am giving you a choice between good and evil, between life and death… choose life”.

The full text of the lecture can be found here: http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2563.

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P J Harvey & Gordon Gano - Hitting the Ground.