Why should Christians be green? Don’t we pay taxes so that the government can deal with issues like global warming? And besides, hasn’t the church got better things to do?
These are the kinds of questions which go through the minds of many ordinary churchgoers as the TV news carries yet another story of what the scientists are saying about changing weather patterns.
Future London, Footprints of a Generation was an exhibition sponsored by the Mayor. Held at the Truman Brewery in East London and then the Science Museum (futurelondon.co.uk), it may go on tour around the London boroughs.
The exhibition takes you through five successive arenas, covering transport, food, the natural world, buildings and the Olympics. In each arena the visitor is first confronted with the damage our lifestyles cause, then presented with greener choices.
So, in the transport arena, the visitor walks through a giant exhaust pipe. In the buildings arena there is a dry garden and energy-saving appliances. The aim is a positive one — to inspire Londoners to ‘green our lifestyles and our city’.
Political activity
Recently the three main political parties (in England) have been making more noise about global warming. The Conservatives’ new Aims and Values statement talks of the opportunities of green technology and tough carbon targets. The Lib Dems want to tax environmental pollution and resource depletion. In its Energy Review (2006) the Labour government emphasised the importance of restricting global warming to 2°C.
So the debate has moved beyond ‘Is it happening?’ (yes), and ‘Does it matter?’ (yes), and even ‘Can we do anything?’ (yes), to ‘What should we do?’ The main parties have different emphases, but they all share a bottom line: ‘Living and working with environmental care in mind does not mean a reduced standard of living or quality of life’ (Ken Livingstone).
Public opinion
The parties are all trying to maintain a delicate balance: to assure voters both that the environment is safe in their hands, and that any green policies will be painless. Politics is always the art of the possible, and there seems little popular enthusiasm for significant lifestyle changes.
This is why the fuel protests in 2000 halted the fuel duty escalator so easily. The average motorist was beginning to feel the pressure to either accept more tax or else reduce his mileage; neither choice was acceptable.
Even though flying is the fastest growing source of CO2 emissions, government policy is to massively expand airport capacity, notably at Stansted. For we will not give up our cheap flights to Edinburgh or Nice, and the government knows it.
Fingers crossed
This lack of popular support ties the hands of all the parties. Green policies are popular in theory, but not in practice. Therefore everyone hopes that some technological wizardry will cut our emissions of greenhouse gases. Then we can continue to consume while reducing the emissions that are responsible for global warming.
The parties intend to set taxes at a level that will encourage the development of green technology, but not force us to change our behaviour in ways we resent. This represents a huge gamble — that technological advances can cut emissions faster than the demand for energy rises.
If the gamble fails then the consequences may be catastrophic, although not necessarily for us. It is the poor who are likely to suffer most from climate change, because they do not have the resources to adapt quickly enough. This is true of most natural disasters, even in the richest countries. When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans last year, who died? It was overwhelmingly the poor and under-privileged.
The risk is high that the gamble will fail. (See box alongside on avoiding dangerous climate change.)
Materialism
No mainstream party can think of curbing our consumption because we are, at heart, materialists. Life consists in what we own, the places we visit, and the experiences we enjoy. Having rejected God, we are left with an aching void that we must fill with whatever can satisfy for a few fleeting moments.
So we think nothing of eating out-of-season foods that have been transported across the world to reach our plates. Our comfort demands our air-conditioned living rooms on wheels. We leave appliances on standby because we cannot bear to wait a few seconds. We fly to the Mediterranean for a few days to catch some sun. We are mostly heedless of the environmental consequences.
Salt and light
But Christians are different. We want to take proper care of the creation God has entrusted to us. It does not trouble us unduly if we have to curb our lifestyles. After all, we know that there are many things we cannot enjoy now. We do — if we are real Christians — make real sacrifices for the sake of serving Christ. But we look forward to enjoying creation to the full when God makes all things new. Our citizenship is in heaven; in this world we are just a-passing through.
Salty Christians may, in the providence of God, be the preservative that halts the runaway pollution of the West. The light of Christian other-worldliness may penetrate the darkest corners of materialism.
People are beginning to take climate change seriously. But they do not know how to respond, because there are no easy answers. There is no guarantee that reducing our CO2 emissions to safe levels will be compatible with our present way of life. What a witness it would be to the watching world if the church were to accept this! We have the power to change our lifestyles, because we are not materialists. We do not have to taste all the world can offer, because we are waiting for the world to come. We can live sustainably without being bribed.
Peter wrote to us that we might suffer as a result of doing good (I Peter 3.13-17). Of course, he was not thinking of our environmental actions, but of other ways in which Christians stick out like a sore thumb. Yet the principles remain the same.
Peter declared that we are actually privileged if we suffer for doing good. He encouraged us not to fear or be troubled, but to remember Christ. The apostle expected our distinctive behaviour to make people puzzled: how can these Christians act like this? Then what opportunities will arise to tell of our hope and the reason for it! If we speak with gentle respect, not with harsh arrogance or a superior attitude, we will shame the world!
Next year is the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade. William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect led the fight in the teeth of British economic interests and at great personal cost.
The world still respects and honours these evangelical Christians. Their contribution to the cause of the gospel is incalculable. Will future generations look back with gratitude to a similar attitude and struggle from us?
Taking the pledge
The Future London exhibition ended with a display inviting the visitor to make a pledge. The suggested pledges were small changes such as using energy-efficient light bulbs, car-sharing, or buying locally-sourced food.
This ‘taking the pledge’ evokes the Victorian temperance movement. Now we know that movement had its bad side. At times it confused a vow with conversion, or abstinence with godliness. But we cannot dismiss it altogether, for we do see virtue in temperance and frown on alcohol abuse.
Perhaps it would be good to commit ourselves to specific green actions. We need not fill in a card and carry it around! But green pledges would signal to our churches and the watching world that we are serious about stewarding God’s creation. We shrink back from abusing our bodies with alcohol; why should we pollute the environment?
Dr. Tim Mitchell,
Highbury Baptist Church;
formerly of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Avoiding dangerous climate change
* In September scientists from the Tyndall Centre (www.tyndall.ac.uk) published a climate road map for the UK. They concluded that immediate action is required to avert dangerous climate change.
* The research assumed that global warming should be limited to 2°C since the Industrial Revolution. The UK government has accepted this target, believing that this may avert the worst effects of climate change (Energy White Paper, 2003).
* To achieve a reasonable-to-high probability of not exceeding 2°C implies that atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases are stabilised at 450 ppmv of CO2 equivalent. If each nation is allowed a fair share of that CO2, the UK’s allocation between 2000 and 2050 would be 4.6Gt.
* None of the three main parties has policies in place that would limit UK emissions to 4.6Gt.
* Indeed, there has not yet been any sustained fall in UK carbon emissions. Officially, we are on target to achieve domestic CO2 reductions between 1990 and 2010 of between 12% (the Kyoto commitment) and 20% (the government’s voluntary target). However, these figures are misleading. If UK contributions to international shipping and aviation are added, there has been no overall reduction since 1990.
* To limit UK emissions to 4.6Gt would require us to start a decades-long programme of carbon reduction within the next few years. Annual emissions would have to fall by 70% in just 25 years.
