1st November 2024
Green Christian has produced a useful nemonic for sourcing food sustainably – LOAF = Local, Organic, Animal friendly, fairly traded.
For more details – https://greenchristian.org.uk/gc-campaigns/loaf-2/why-use-your-loaf/
Author: Judith Russenberger
Environmentalist and theologian, with husband and three grown up children plus one cat, living in London SW14.
I enjoy running and drinking coffee - ideally with a friend or a book.
Counting on … day 204
31st October 2024
Other ways of eating more sustainably include eating food that is locally -or even home – produced and eating what is in season. Shorter supply chains reduce the chances of food becoming damaged/ lost, whilst by being fresher, ensures greater retention of nutrients. Locally produced food also strengthens the local economy and community.
As well as eating what’s in season, we can also preserve any seasonal excesses. Surplus fruits can be made into jam, and fruit and vegetables into chutneys and pickles. Surplus produce can also be dried, frozen or bottled.
Preserving tips – https://greentau.org/2021/08/23/preserving-fruit-and-vegetables/
Counting on … day 203
30th October 2024
Whilst the Ethical Consumer’s report ‘Closing the Gap 2024’ shows that meat and dairy consumption is declining in the UK, food waste is not.
Typically food loss is food that is grown and processed but not eaten – ie food that does not even pass from the farm or factory to the retailer or consumer. Food waste is food that has reached the retailer or consumer but is them not eaten. This could be food that has not been sold by the retailer because it has become damaged or because more has been ordered than has been bought. 30% of food waste is attributable to the retailers, but 70% of food waste derives from households.
This can include those parts of the food we typically do not eat such as banana and onion skins, apple cores etc but the majority is food we buy and chose not eat. The most frequently wasted foods include bread, milk, potatoes and chicken. (1) We can reduce this waste by not buying nor cooking more than we will eat, eating up leftovers, and by storing food more carefully.
For tips about reducing food waste –
For more information on what is food loss and food waste – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352550920314202
Counting on … day 202
29th October 2024
About 34% of all our greenhouse gas emissions are food related so looking at what we eat and making changes can be – cumulatively – a very effective way of addressing the climate crisis.(1)
80% of agricultural land is used for feeding and grazing livestock, yet produces only 17% of global calories.(2) Reducing the meat and dairy products we eat, not only reduces the emissions linked directly to the livestock, but also frees up land that could be used to grow plant based foods for humans, and frees up land that could be rewilded to boost both biodiversity and natural carbon capture.
The Ethical Consumer’s report ‘Closing the Gap 2024’ records that this change in diet in the UK has already started, so let’s carry on and boost this trend even more!
Tips for swopping to a plant based diet – https://greentau.org/2021/10/12/eco-tips-11/
- https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-021-00225-9
- https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
Further reading https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/how-tweaking-your-diet-can-help-save-planet
Green Tau: issue 96
Walking the Talk
28th October 2024
A few weeks ago, whilst I and others were holding our weekly Earth Vigil outside Parliament, a passerby stopped to quiz us. In transpired that he was not interested in the wellbeing of the environment and rather wanted to justify his position by proving that we were hypocrites. His line was that we could not be taken seriously in calling for a rescinding of the Rosebank licence whilst possessing shoes, clothes, rucksacks etc made from plastics – ie oil. He would not listen to our response that we were constrained by a world that is still heavily embedded in using oil even as it transitions away from oil, such that there is not always a readily available non plastic alternative.
But what really incensed me was that I do try and do everything I can to live ecologically. I wear second hand clothes, darn my socks, patch my rucksack and my trainers, shop at a refill shop, avoid buying anything in a plastic wrapper, don’t fly, eat a vegan diet that includes wonky and unwanted fruit and vegetables, and beans and pulses grown in the UK.
I do do all I can to walk the talk!
And it’s not easy especially when you feel your are a minority of one. When we are away from our normal locality – and especially so when on holiday in Switzerland – it feels as if everyone else is saying, why are you so awkward? What difference can it make whether or not you eat a little cheese, eat a cake made with butter, an icecream made with milk? Will eating a croissant make any difference to the world? When I stay with family and they make a special dish just for me, I feel I awkward and think I must seem so very pedantic.
Or when others are discussing their past and future holidays, a quick (and let’s agree in the present tax regime, cheap) flight to Italy/ Turkey/Spain, or a leisurely holiday exploring Japan, Korea and Malaysia, or a winter trip to sunny Oz. Am I grouch or a kill joy because I won’t fly? And this is where I do feel guilty: am I being selfish, as I know my husband would love for us to travel the world?
So why is it important to tread this lonely path?
Firstly because unless someone starts, no one will ever start. I maybe the first not to fly amongst our friends but hopefully I won’t be the last.
Secondly because the more people take these steps the easier it will be for other to follow. If I always ask for a vegan cake when I’m buying a coffee, then hopefully in a few years time, vegan cakes will be the norm on cafes. Plant based milks are pretty much standard nowadays!
Thirdly because the more people are seen to be travelling by train not plane, or eating humous not cheese, or carrying a keep cup rather than using a single use throw away variety , the more normalised such behaviour becomes.
Fourth as such patterns of behaviour become normalised – even popular – so businesses and governments will change their thinking.
Fifthly because eventually the world could change for the better!
However I am not hopeful that any of this will happen fast enough to prevent the huge catastrophe that the climate crisis is brewing. And that makes it a very hard path to tread. I am making life awkward for myself and my husband and my friends and family with only a very small chance that it will make life better for them. But equally I know that not trying would be even more hurtful.
Counting on … day 201
28th October 2024
From the foreword to Ethical Consumer’s ‘Closing the Gap 2024’, “This report acknowledges the millions of small changes individuals are making which collectively yield bigger benefits. That can be tweaks to your diet or transport choices, reducing food waste or changing how you heat your home – there’s a cumulative power of many small actions!
“Another small action lies in the power we all hold to ask companies about their climate obligations. And if you’re not satisfied with their answers, you have the power to take your customers elsewhere.”
https://www.ethicalconsumer.org/sites/default/files/media-file/2024-10/Climate-Gap-2024 -report-Ethical-Consumer-2.pdf
Proper 25, 22nd Sunday after Trinity
27th October 2024
Reflection with readings below
How often have you looked for something – your keys, a jar of jam, a lost coin – and not seen it, only to have your partner come up and say, There it is! And you realise you had been looking at it all the time and not seen it!
In a similar but different way, maybe you have been out bird watching. Initially the view may look to be all leaves and branches but as you attune your eyes you find you can spot one, two or several birds. They were there all along but your eyes initially hadn’t seen them.
Again in a similar but different way, maybe you have been watching the news, but although the pictures pass before your eyes, you don’t really see what’s there. The newsreel shows homes and streets blown to smithereens, their inhabitants – those that survived – dazed and traumatised, but our brains tune out: this is just a film, it’s not real life.
Sometimes we look and do see, but pretend that we haven’t. We turn a blind eye to d eye to the situation – as people did around Al Fayhed. And as many did – and do – in the oil industry, refusing to recognise the damage caused to the climate and environment.
Looking and seeing are different things. Looking is perhaps more about exploring where as seeing is about knowing. Job has discovered this. He now sees and knows God in a different way – in a clearer light. And this has brought him into a better, closer relationship with God.
Looking and seeing can also be about truth telling, standing up for what is right.
Today’s gospel story is also about seeing – and for Timaeus it is about seeing anew. Timaeus is physically blind but this has not stopped him from hearing about Jesus and knowing what miraculous things Jesus can do. Maybe he knows more about Jesus than many other bystanders, for he calls Jesus, ‘the Son of David’ which might suggest that Timaeus recognises Jesus’s messianic status. And perhaps it is that insight that motivates Timaeus to be persistent in wanting to speak to Jesus, and bold in asking for what he really wants. He has had to hold his ground against those in the crowd who were trying to silence him.
So what of us with our often dodgy looking skills?
We can learn to be more observant in our looking, spending time to really look, and being prepared to look below the surface and ‘between the lines’ so that we can perceive the full truth of the situation. We can also learn how to distinguish between what is real and what is white or green wash. Think how easily advertisers persuade us to ‘see’ their product from their viewpoint! We can also learn to be articulate, telling the truth that we see – telling it as it is.
Our observant looking may also lead us into a closer relationship with God. And a closer relationship with God may help us to see more clearly – to understand how we fit into the world, how we can be good neighbours and, as importantly, how we can be good to ourselves. There are some problems we cannot solve but must be willing to trust that everything and every situation is known to God.
And hopefully our closer, more insightful looking will show us how we can be of use, in what ways we can offer help or encouragement or empathy. Equally it may lead us to ask the right questions both of those in authority, or with gifts or skills, and to make the right requests of God.
“Thanks be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits you have given me, for all the pains and insults you have borne for me. O most merciful Redeemer, friend, and brother, may I know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day.”
A useful prayer attributed to St Richard of Chichester.
Job 42:1-6, 10-17
Job answered the Lord:
“I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand,
things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
‘Hear, and I will speak;
I will question you, and you declare to me.’
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear,
but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself,
and repent in dust and ashes.”
And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring. The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. He also had seven sons and three daughters. He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers. After this Job lived for one hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children’s children, four generations. And Job died, old and full of days.
Psalm 34:1-8
1 I will bless the Lord at all times; *
his praise shall ever be in my mouth.
2 I will glory in the Lord; *
let the humble hear and rejoice.
3 Proclaim with me the greatness of the Lord; *
let us exalt his Name together.
4 I sought the Lord, and he answered me *
and delivered me out of all my terror.
5 Look upon him and be radiant, *
and let not your faces be ashamed.
6 I called in my affliction and the Lord heard me *
and saved me from all my troubles.
7 The angel of the Lord encompasses those who fear him, *
and he will deliver them.
8 Taste and see that the Lord is good; *
happy are they who trust in him!
Hebrews 7:23-28
The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but Jesus holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. For the law appoints as high priests those who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.
Mark 10:46-52
Jesus and his disciples came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.
Lamenting our shortcomings
26th October 2024
The LORD is a shelter for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble. Psalm 9:9
You Lord, are the source of all good things:
We praise you.
You call us to tend and care for your creation:
May we strive to do your will.
You have made us as brothers and sisters with all that lives:
May we live together in peace.
A reading: Psalm 10:1-6, 12
Why, O Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?
In arrogance the wicked persecute the poor—
let them be caught in the schemes they have devised.
For the wicked boast of the desires of their heart,
those greedy for gain curse and renounce the Lord.
In the pride of their countenance the wicked say, ‘God will not seek it out’;
all their thoughts are, ‘There is no God.’
Their ways prosper at all times;
your judgements are on high, out of their sight;
as for their foes, they scoff at them.
They think in their heart, ‘We shall not be moved;
throughout all generations we shall not meet adversity.’
Rise up, O Lord; O God, lift up your hand;
do not forget the oppressed.
Response based on Daniel 9:4-10
Great and awesome God,
keeper of promises
and steadfast in love,
we have sinned and done wrong:
our greed has made paupers of those we should love,
our desire for more has taken away even the little they had,
we have despised and oppressed our brothers and sisters.
Great and awesome God,
keeper of promises
and steadfast in love,
we have acted wickedly and rebelled:
we have carved out our paths
and ignore the ways of your creation
leaving behind us a trail of devastation.
Great and awesome God,
keeper of promises
and steadfast in love,
we have turned aside from your commandments:
we over-grazed the land, over fished the seas,
we have decimated the forests and polluted the waterways,
we have taken more than we can restore.
Great and awesome God,
keeper of promises
and steadfast in love,
we have not listened to your prophets, who speak in your name:
we have ignored the wail of the sea birds,
the gasps of the rhino
and the disappearing drone of the insects.
Great and awesome God,
keeper of promises
and steadfast in love,
shame falls on us:
we let islands drown and ice sheets melt,
we let the tundra burn and rivers dry up,
we let cities flood and fields whither.
Lord our God,
to you belong mercy and forgiveness,
reform and redeem us,
renew a right spirit within us,
that all your creation may be treated
with love and care.
Amen.
The Grace.
Counting on … day 200
25th October 2024
There are a multitude of other petitions out there calling for the restoration of nature as more and more people realise the desperately depleted state of biodiversity in both the UK and world-wide.
Last month WWF handed in a petition to all the major political parties with 57,685 signatures to prove that the public want real action from the new government, and all political leaders, to stop the destruction of nature. (1)
Here are a selection of similar live petitions –
Wild Card has a petition calling on the Church Commissioners to rewild 30% of the estates they control – currently this petition stands at over 100,000 signatures
The RSPB is calling on the government to provide better funding for nature friendly farming
And Rewilding Britain is calling for the government to rewild 30% of British land and waters by 2030
Counting on … day 199
24th October 2024
Globally we can support the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty. This is supported by numerous parliamentarians, cities, faith groups, academics, scientists, charities and NGOs. The Treaty calls for the:-
Prevention of the proliferation of coal, oil and gas by ending all new exploration and production;
Phasing-out of the existing production of fossil fuels in line with the 1.5C global climate goal; and
Fast-track real solutions and a just transition for every worker, community and country.
You can endorse this as an individual or as a group, church, company or business – https://fossilfueltreaty.org/#endorse
The Green Tau 