On 6th June I attended the
Operation Noah Annual Supporters' Meeting at the Friends Meeting House in London. It was good at last to meet Penny Dakon Kiley whose
church at Didcot will be hosting the Green Faiths event next Saturday. It was also great to see Ruth Jarman who told me that
Hartley Wintney's green energy project is well under way, thanks in good part to the event promoting the use of pv panels on community buildings which was organised by GREN and RITE last November.
I arrived a bit late, but in time to hear David Atkinson, Honorary Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Southwark, speak of ON's Carbon Exodus project, encouraging us to leave the 'bondage' of the neo-liberal model of perpetual economic growth and hold on to the story of God's faithfulness despite the seeming hopelessness and constant setbacks of the journey to the promised land.
The principal speaker was Lynn McDonald, a former Canadian MP, co-founder of Just Earth and the editor of the complete writings of Florence Nightingale.
Professor McDonald reminded us that the acidification of the seas is 'quite terrifying' and that a mere 2 C rise in temperature is expected to cause 20-40% species extinction on the planet. She challenged those who talk of nature's ability to restore itself by saying that it took the planet 50 million years to recover from the extinction event that destroyed the dinosaurs.
'How we are living now is perilous, it is wrong, it is anti-Christian . . . but we don't feel guilty' she said because our moral code does not provide for such circumstances, it does not provide for future consequences of present actions or something as massive as species extinction and she acknowledged that our attempts to limit the harm of our actions are hampered by the fact that the whole system in which we live is geared to growth. She recommended a number of authors, including Lester Brown,
Plan B: Mobilising to Save Civilisation, B, McKibben,
Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet and J Hanse,
Storms of My Grandchildren. She emphasised that scientists are still saying it's not too late to make a difference.
She suggested that faith groups should be working to make people literate and numerate in climate change, to help them understand the seriousness, saying
'what tends to be taught is light green. People don't hear hard facts very much. We have to upgrade our knowledge'. She warned that green teams can give a false message that stopping climate change can be done cheaply: 'Cheap grace won't do it'. We must resist the temptation to give a soft message and to reassure.
She also argued that it is important to work with secular experts and other faith communities, bemoaning the fact that many people think 'doing their bit' is 'sorting their garbage, not even reducing it'.
She cited Florence Nightingale's dual commitments to faith and reason, science and action. Nightingale stressed the need to 'learn the laws of health' and that mortality could be reduced by learning these. FN once remarked 'it did strike me as odd that we should pray to be delivered from plague, pestilence and famine while all the sewers ran into the Thames'.
McDonald concluded by comparing the situation with the abolition of slavery, healthcare for the poor or votes for women - profound changes accomplished often by small groups of people, but we don't have the time these took to achieve.
