Counting On …

Counting on … day 134

3rd September 2025

Vulnerable countries weighed down by debt are often ‘encouraged’ to exploit oil and gas reserves as a way of financing their obligations. Uganda, for example, took a $1 billion loan from the IMF in 2021, using some of the money to build the East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP). Whilst Uganda and its neighbour Tanzania, will eventually get some return from this project, the bulk of the profits (70%) will accrue to Total (62%) and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (8%).(2) At the same time farmers have been displaced from their land, villagers evicted, migration routes for wild animals have been blocked, and vast tracts of the Murchison Falls National Park are at risk from damage and pollution. And the burning of the oil extracted (which will not benefit local people as it will be sold on the international market) will generate over 34 million tons of CO2 emissions per year.

You can support the campaign against this oil pipeline and its climate destroying effects here – https://www.stopeacop.net/

Counting on … day 133

2nd September 2025

Debt Justice (formerly Drop the Debt which organised the Jubilee Debt Campaign in 2000) has this year (another Jubilee Year) launched the Cancel Debt, Choose Hope campaign.(1) The ask is, sadly, still the same: calling on the richest nations to cancel the debts of the poorest – the most vulnerable. Research shows that lower-income country debt payments have TREBLED over the last decade, and right now fifty-four countries are in crisis. (2)

The injustice of this debt crisis means that interest payments to the rich are made at the expense of the poor. As Bernard Anaba in Ghana recently explained:“Public services are in crisis – pupils aren’t getting exercise books and some schools don’t even have chairs or desks for the children. Food prices have sky-rocketed and in hospitals, patients are asked to pay for medication that is meant to be free.”(3)

You can sign their petition here – https://act.debtjustice.org.uk/canceldebt?utm_medium=impactstack&utm_source=website&utm_campaign=Global_south_debt&utm_content=jub25&_gl=1*1g79pn*_ga*NzQxMTM1NzU5LjE3NTQ1NjIyNzk.*_ga_NTSKCLSS55*czE3NTY3OTgwMDkkbzIkZzEkdDE3NTY3OTg2NjEkajU1JGwwJGgw*_ga_PH0J1TDVZM*czE3NTY3OTgwMTEkbzIkZzEkdDE3NTY3OTg2NjAkajU3JGwwJGgw

Or take further action here – https://debtjustice.org.uk/get-involved

https://debtjustice.org.uk/

(2) https://debtjustice.org.uk/news/2025-the-year-we-cancel-debt-choose-hope

(3) ditto

Counting on … day 132

1st September 2025

Climate change adaptation and mitigation can be expensive in terms of upfront investment. Overtime that investment will protect life and well being, enabling communities and economies to survive and flourish. Such expenditure will also be far less than the costs that would be incurred if no action were taken and the climate crisis were allowed to spiral out of control.

Unless governments and international organisations take responsibility for this, the poor and most vulnerable are going to suffer the most. In the UK the poorest members of our population are typically those with poorly insulated homes, those least able to replace household equipment with low energy models, those with least access to cooling green spaces, those least able to afford food as prices accelerate etc.

Globally it is the poorest and least developed counties who are suffering the harshest impact of climate change, and they are the least able to afford the costs of mitigation and adaptation. Often these countries are heavily indebted to richer countries or institutions and spend far more of their annual budgets on interest on these loans than they can on improving living standards through public health infrastructure, eduction, and medical care.

This is why many charitable organisations are calling for both debt relief and debt cancellation for these countries and for substantial grants from the wealthier nations to enable these vulnerable countries both to adapt and mitigate vis a vis climate change and, as needed, to pay for reconstruction when extreme weather events and other climate events have inflicted disaster on these countries.

Counting on … day 131

29th August 2025

Climate adaptation means altering the way we live, how we build new or retrofit existing buildings, how we farm and what crops and plants, the diets we eat, how shape drainage systems and flood defences, how we conserve limited water supplies – basically how we adapt our lifestyles and infrastructure so that we can cope with the ‘new normal’ climates.

The quicker and more effectively we mitigate against climate change, the easier it will be to put in place adaptations that will meet both our needs and those of future generations.

For previous articles on adaptation, see https://greentau.org/tag/adaptation/page/2/

Counting on … day 130

28th August 2025

Increases in temperature and in the frequency of extremes of weather (which for the UK means increasingly unpredictable seasons and no certainty as to whether summers will be hot and dry or not quite as hot but wet) are now a reality we must live with. But hopefully if we act now with sufficient determination, we can ensure that this base line remains static for future generations.

Climate mitigation means changing the way we do things, the way we live, the systems we use, so as to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thus to reduce the rate of increase in global temperatures – hopefully keeping them below 2C. Mitigation won’t be able to reduce global temperatures from the levels they have already reached – we don’t have the means to remove the sheer amount of carbon dioxide that we have put into the Earth’s atmosphere over the last couple of centuries.

The root meaning of mitigate is to soften, to calm or pacify.

Counting on … day 128

26th August 2025

Base lines shift not only in our psyche but in science too.

“A heatwave is an extended period of hot weather relative to the expected conditions of the area at that time of year, which may be accompanied by high humidity…[It is] met when a location records a period of at least three consecutive days with daily maximum temperatures meeting or exceeding the heatwave temperature threshold.” (1)

Heatwaves are thus relative rather than absolute. As temperatures have risen, so the threshold for a heatwave has increased. (2) In London the threshold was 26C but as of 2022 it is now set at 28C. We have had four heatwaves this summer in London, so I guess it is possible that the threshold marker will be raised again.

https://weather.metoffice.gov.uk/learn-about/weather/types-of-weather/temperature/heatwave

(2) https://www.rmets.org/metmatters/shifting-baseline-uk-heatwaves

Counting on … day 129

27th August 2025

Climate change means that the likelihood of hotter and more prolonged heatwaves will increase. Culturally in the UK, the pessimistic view is that our summers of cold and wet and not as good as the long, hot and relaxing summers that Europe enjoys. Therefore spells of hot weather are seen as things to be enjoyed! We have not yet come to understand that heatwaves can be uncomfortable, damaging for our health and destructive for agriculture.

Our buildings and urban areas – unlike many of their European counterparts – are not designed to provide shade and protection from high temperatures. Nor are our working practices adapted to cope with excess heat. High temperatures do damage our health: the heat wave in June of this year likely caused 600 deaths. (1) High temperatures and lack of rain damages both crops and livestock. 84% of UK farmers have reported reduced crop yields. (2) With many other countries on whom we rely for food imports similarly affected, rises in food prices and shortages are inevitable.

Rising temperatures should not be seen as a means of getting a suntan, but treated as real risks that need to be addressed if we care for people’s (and other living things’) wellbeing both here and world wide.

11th August 2025

I am taking a couple of week’s break to read and reflect, exploring new ideas and revisiting old ones.

Counting on … day 127

8th August 2025

We live in a time of global shortages as well as global overconsumption, so living with enough may involve re-examining what ‘enough’ looks like.

Whilst I can get all that my family needs, such as foods, clothes, shelter, medicine etc, there are other people who cannot either access or afford these essentials. Should I reduce the amount I think I need, to make more available for others?

Isn’t that the dilemma of Earth Overshoot Day? Here in the west in consuming what we ‘need’ for our comfortable lifestyles, we are doing so at the expense of other people, often those living in the global south.

If for example, eating meat on a regular basis means we are ‘using’ agricultural land that could otherwise be used to grow food to better feed others or that could be better used to restore biodiversity and/ or store carbon, then should we not significantly reduce our consumption of meat?

Enough becomes eating less meat.

As well as meat, we might consider reducing our western levels of consumption of electronic and electrical goods which use large proportions of limited resources such as lithium and copper. These limited resources might be better used to meet the more pressing needs of others? (Or being left in the ground so as not to damage the environment).

Enough becomes consuming fewer electrical goods.

And might we also consider how much plastic we consume? Plastic use becomes yet one more reason for companies to justify extracting more carbon-emitting oil from the ground. Plastic waste causes widespread pollution damaging both our own health and the environments of others across the globe.

Enough becomes consuming less plastic – especially single use items and plastic packaging.

There are many such ways in which we can re-examine what enough looks like.

Counting on … day 126

7th August 2025

According to the Book of Acts (Acts 2:42-47), one of the features that attracted people to the first Christians was their willingness to share what they had with each other, to hold their belongings in common.

Living simply, sustainably, and joyfully within the limits enough, would logically involve sharing and holding possessions in common. This enables things to be shared. It also means that fewer possessions are needed overall which makes for better use of limited resources.

Some people share the use of a communal car or subscribe to a car sharing scheme. (1)

Libraries provide a collection of books (as well as dvds, audio tapes etc) which are held in common for everyone to use. And there are also toy libraries and Libraries of Things as well as street sharing schemes, that allow a community to own things such as electric drills, lawn mowers, wallpaper strippers, that the whole community can use.

Churches are places kept open for the use by anyone in the community. Church/village/community halls are large gathering spaces that anyone can use (for a fee and terms and conditions will apply).

Roads are communal spaces where anyone can drive, cycle or walk (again terms and conditions apply).

Green spaces and parks are publicly (or sometimes privately) owned which are kept open for the whole community to enjoy. Ditto public sports centres and swimming pools (fees and conditions may apply) – few of us could afford, either in terms of finance or space, to build and own a swimming pool for our own use, but having a public one kept for common use makes real sense.

In Cambridgeshire there is a village owned heat pump to which householders can opt to connect! (2)

The more we can hold and use in common the better.