Reflections and actions during COP26 and going on
26th April 2022
Car free sports? Being active, doing sports, going to the gym are all good for our health – and even better if you get to the sports ground, the gym, the pool or the park without driving. If you normally drive, can you walk or cycle of maybe take the bus? Check out routes and times and enjoy an even greater sense of fitness.
see also https://greentau.org/2021/08/02/eco-tips-3/
https://greentau.org/tag/cycling/
25th April 2022
Reduced speed limits, healer public transport and car-free Sundays could help to prevent a global oil crunch caused by the war in Ukraine – the International Energy Agency (IEA) has outlined 10 measures that it believes could cut oil demand by 2.7 million barrels a day within four months. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/mar/18/car-free-sundays-iea-sets-out-10-point-plan-to-reduce-global-oil-demand?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Car free Sundays happen across Europe reducing air pollution and carbon emissions, and creating the peaceful ambience for a day of relaxation.
Why not make your Sundays car free?
24th April 2022
“We can see signs of that grace all around, with eyes to see and ears to hear. That grace can stir us to action – to change our lifestyles, to provoke politicians to the right priorities, to challenge big businesses to have regard not just for profit, but for the future of our very existence.” So writes Frankie Ward in an article for Green Christian (https://greenchristian.org.uk/resources/green-christian/)
Amen. Amen.
This week I have been struck by the zeal of the Just Stop Oil protestors; the healing power of nature experienced via the Blue Prescribing project; the Brabantia adverts in our local hardware shop for rotary clothes driers: avoid the need for tumble driers and support tree planting in Ethiopia.
Be encouraged. With God’s grace, change is possible.
22nd April 2022
We are enmeshed in a economy fuelled by fossil fuel industries that are
reluctant – indeed highly resistant- to change. If change does not happen, we and the world will suffer increasingly the effects of the climate crisis. BP, one such fossil fuel company, has been a sponsor of the British Museum for many years. Despite on going public opposition and despite the move of most of other institutions away from fossil fuel sponsorship, the British Museum is currently negotiating with BP for a further five year deal. This weekend ‘BP or not BP’ will be continuing its campaign to dissuade the British Museum. Find out more from their web site https://bp-or-not-bp.org/news/
or sign their petition https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/the-british-museum-must-not-to-renew-its-sponsorship-deal-with-bp
Here is a piece from their Facebook page:
“Why is BP sponsorship such a big deal?
BP doesn’t sponsor cultural institutions out of the goodness of its heart. Its philanthropic image is a carefully curated marketing scheme, designed to distract from its appalling environmental and human rights record, its decades of funding brutal autocrats (including Vladamir Putin) and its huge contribution to climate change.
From covering up oil spills which harm oceans and animals, to dodgy deals with dictators and warmongers, BP has done it all. The company’s history is inseparable from colonial oppression and its endless quest for fossil fuels has wreaked international havoc for more than 80 years.
This sponsorship deal at the British Museum doesn’t just give BP a false veneer of respectability. It allows the company to use this publicly funded space to throw fancy events, schmooze with UK government officials, and cosy up to representatives of fossil-fuelled regimes from Egypt to Azerbaijan to – yes – Russia.”
21st April 2022
Tomorrow is Earth Day. Founded in the USA in 1970, it is now observed by more than a billion people around the world as a day of action to change human behaviour and create global, national and local policy changes. This year’s theme is Invest in Our Planet: “All TOGETHER now! This is the moment to change it all — the business climate, the political climate, and how we take action on climate. Now is the time for the unstoppable courage to preserve and protect our health, our families, our livelihoods… together, we must Invest In Our Planet.”
“The goal of EDO’s campaign is to push aside the barriers erected by the ancient, dirty fossil fuel economy and their co-conspirators – old technologies of centuries past – and redirect attention to creating a 21st century economy that brings back the health of our planet, protects our species, and provides opportunities for all.“
Counting on… will continue each to suggest ways, big and small, by which we can make that change happen.
20th April 2022
At the heart of a plant based diet are beans and pulses. Hodmedod’s is a good place to source these as they specifically stock ones grown in the UK – both supporting UK farmers and reducing food miles. Variety is good for the diet – split green and yellow peas; blue, wrinkled, marrow fat, Carlin and black badger whole peas; fave beans, chick peas, haricot beans, green and red lentils …..
To save on electricity and cooking time, weigh out daily amounts (approx 30g dried weight per portion) half-filling glass jars. Then fill up with hot water, secure lids, and leave to soak for an hour or over night. Place the jars into a large pan and fill round the jars with water. Bring to the boil and simmer for about an hour. Leave to cool. These jars of cooked beans are now ready for use – and because they have been boiled with lids on, don’t need to be stored in the fridge.
NB cook red kidney beans separately as they need to boil vigorously for ten minutes to remove natural toxins.
19th April 2022
The plight of refugees is topical. Their needs are something we as nations and globally must address and plan for. The acceleration of the climate crisis will add to the number of people forced to flee their homes.
Then they also will answer, “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?” Then he will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”
Matthew 25:44,45
Even just as human beings x regardless of our faith – can we ignore the plight of people forced by fear to flee their homes? If we were in their position would we not want someone to help us, to give us something to eat and drink, clothes to keep us a warm, a roof over our head, and a reassurance of protection?
“Love your neighbour as yourself” said Jesus repeating the commandment given in Leviticus. The commands in both Leviticus, Exodus and Deuteronomy are clear that the duty of care is just not to your kin but to the stranger and the alien.
You must treat the foreigner living among you as native-born and love him as yourself, for you were foreigners in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. Leviticus 19:34
According to the UNHCR ‘An asylum-seeker is someone whose request for sanctuary has yet to be processed’. They are a person who is in the process of having their status as a refugee legally determined. To label such as person as being illegal is wrong. To remove that person from the place where they have come seeking safety, and exporting both them and their claim, is wrong.
As Christians we should stand up and voice our complaint to the Government that what they propose is both abhorrent and wrong. Not to do so is to spurn Jesus’s teaching. Write or email to your MP and to the Home Secretary and make your voice heard.
18th April 2022
Can we count on our faith to cope with and address the suffering the climate crisis is and will cause? Can we be sufficiently open to God’s guidance to know what to do, and sufficiently willing and committed to change our lives accordingly?
Easter-tide seems a good time to explore this for it is a season concerned with new life, new beginnings and new understanding.
17th April 2022
Christ is risen! Happy Easter!
The resurrection is God’s promise of Life.
Last night I had a lovely surprise – a little tap on the kitchen door and Heidi popped her head round. She had come home after three weeks protesting with Just Stop Oil. I wasn’t expecting her until maybe mid week. It was such a wonderful feeling of joy and love – a small taste of the feelings that the disciples must have felt when Jesus returned to them.
When Adam and Eve went against God’s wishes in the Garden of Eden, God rather than confiscating their lives, allowed them to live but thereafter they had to live with the hardships that their actions had produced. The resurrection is God’s assurance of the continuation of Life – it does not exempt us from having to live with the damage we have caused, but surely today of all days must give us the impetus to want to transform how we live, to heal the injuries we have caused, to live according to God’s will in loving harmony with all our fellow beings.
The urgency of the climate crisis is such that globally we need to cut our emissions by about 50% over the next 8 (just EIGHT!) years and to zero by 2050. Halving emissions in 8 years is not compatible with expanding oil and gas production, is not compatible with policies that do not swop gas boilers for passive haus insulation levels, petrol cars for enhanced public transport and active travel, industrial farming for regenerative agriculture.
Do make changes in your lifestyle. Do press the government and businesses for systemic change. Do stand up for climate protestors and for the victims of the climate crisis.
16th April 2022
A sunny bank holiday weekend! Something to enjoy! Take time to see what’s growing and sprouting and popping up: new shoots, flowers and blossoms, bees and insects, new leaves, birds singing. This is the wonderful world God has created and which we seek to cherish.
The Green Tau 