Of all the green space in London, a little under a third comprises private gardens. (1) How we use our gardens can contribute positively or negatively to improving biodiversity. Solid decking and brick/ concrete driveways prevent wildlife from creating a home, whilst using pesticides and herbicides kill wildlife. On the other hand mowing lawns infrequently (No Mow May etc), planting a year-round range bee friendly plants, and including a mix of of shrubs, trees and plants of different sizes can create a variety of well fed habitats for wild life. (2)
We have a climate crisis! Who is going to raise the alarm?
“Ground temperatures across great swathes of the ice sheets of Antarctica have soared an average of 10C above normal over the past month, in what has been described as a near record heatwave.”
“Shell’s half-year profits climb to £10.9bn after focusing on fossil fuels”
“Five Just Stop Oil protesters jailed for climbing gantries to block M25”
These are all headlines from the Guardian newspaper on 1st August 2024 (which coincidently was also Earth Overshoot Day marking the day on which we humans had consumed a full year’s worth of the earth’s regenerative resources and thereafter are consuming the resources of future generations).
I can’t be the only one to see here both cause and effect of the climate crisis, and the outrageous response to those brave enough to shout ‘Emergency!’?
How can we go on punishing people for telling the truth about the crisis whilst allowing those who are fuelling it to carry in making ever greater profits?
As early as the 19th century, scientists were exploring the way in which increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere – such as carbon dioxide – could increase global temperatures, potentially altering the earth’s climate. (1)
As early as the 1970s Exxon knew of climate change and the contribution made by fossil fuel emissions. Indeed they even commissions scientists to investigate this phenomenon. (2)
Scientific evidence has continued to accrue showing not just the link between greenhouse gas emissions and increasing global temperatures, but also the sharp shape of the curve which demonstrates the speed with which this human-made change to the earth’s climate – and therefore environment – is happening.
The bar chart shows ‘Yearly temperature compared to the twentieth-century average from 1850–2023. Red bars mean warmer-than-average years; blue bars mean colder-than-average years. (line graph) Atmospheric carbon dioxide amounts: 1850-1958 from IAC, 1959-2023 from NOAA Global Monitoring Lab.’ It is a NOAA Climate.gov graph, adapted from original by Dr. Howard Diamond (NOAA ARL).(3)
In 2008 the UK Parliament passed the Climate Change Act which tasked the Secretary of State with reducing the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions by 100% by 2050 compared with those of 1990. The Act also established the Climate Change Committee to advise the government on the steps and targets needed to achieve this. (4) To date the government has managed to meet these targets but its policies – and the way we carry out transport, manufacturing, agricultural and other tasks such as insulating buildings – are not on track to meet the 2030 and 2050 targets.
In 2015 under the auspices of the United Nation’s Conference on Climate Change (COP21) the nations agreed a legally binding international treaty. Known as the Paris Agreement its aim is to collectively limit greenhouse gas emissions such that global temperatures increases should not exceed 2C and ideally stay below a 1.5C increase. (5) NB the increase in global temperatures for the period February 2023 to January 2024 exceeded 1.5C.
To implement the Paris Agreement, the UK government requires large businesses to create plans to show how they will transition to net zero by 2050. To enable this to happen, the government set up the Task Force on Climate Related Financial Disclosures (TCFD). (6)(7)
Companies can be judged as to whether they are Paris compliant or not. This applies to both companies in the UK and across the world. There are independent organisations that keep track of the progress being made by companies whether that is at the planning stage or in implementing their plans. One such organisation is Carbon Tracker which has a particular focus on companies dealing in fossil fuels. (8)
Are fossil fuel companies transitioning away from the production of oil and gas towards a 2050 future of renewable energy? Are fossil fuel emissions being cut? Is less oil and gas being produced? No! And no! And no!
A report produced by Carbon Tracker in March 2024, concluded that of the 25 largest oil companies, none was on track to achieve either the 1.5C nor the less-than-2C warming targeted in the Paris Agreement. (9) This was startling but perhaps not unexpected. At COP28 in Dubai Antonio Gutierrez, the UN General Secretary, told world leaders that they “cannot save a burning planet with a fire hose of fossil fuels… The 1.5-degree limit is only possible if we ultimately stop burning all fossil fuels. Not reduce. Not abate.” (10)
This year, both BP and Shell have declared their intentions to cut back on green energy projects and rather focus on increasing what is still the more profitable (for shareholders if not for the world) oil and gas production.
From BP as they announces their second quarter results, “We are in action focusing, simplifying and growing the value of bp and have accomplished a lot in the past six months. We are high-grading our biofuels portfolio, including an agreement to take full ownership of bp Bunge. We are concentrating our strategy in hydrogen, including taking investment decisions on green hydrogen projects at our Castellón and Lingen refineries. We have also given the go-ahead to Kaskida, which will be our sixth production hub in the Gulf of Mexico, as we progress the development of new oil and gas resources.” (11)
For Shell, the Guardian reported that Sawan, the new chief executive, had ‘reversed a plan to reduce Shell’s oil and gas production by 1-2% a year in pursuit of higher profits. Instead the company would add 200,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day to its production in 2024 and by 2025 would start enough new fossil fuel projects to add half a million barrels a day.’ (12)
With all this increasing production of fossil fuels and resultant emissions, and increasing global temperatures, where – apart from the UN Secretary General – are the voices of outrage, the voices raising the alarm: WHY ARE WE STILL FACING THIS EXISTENTIAL HUMAN-MADE CLIMATE CRISIS?
Having enough food to eat is a necessity for life, and a human right.
The right to adequate food is realised when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement. – General Comment 12 (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, CESCR, 1999).
Yet looking around the world this is not the case. For many people food security is not a reality. Why?
1. Food insecurity can arise because a person cannot afford to buy sufficient food – this might be in absolute terms of calories or in the equally important terms of sufficiently healthy food needed to avoid malnutrition. The issue is not a lack of food, but the lack of money to buy it.
It is an even more widespread problem across the world where 40% of people cannot afford a healthy diet.
Pay-related food insecurity can be a particular problem in urban areas. In rural areas it is possible that people will have access to land such that they can grow their own food. This is often referred to as subsistence farming as it does not necessarily produce additional income to spend on other things.
“The world’s smallholder farmers produce about a third of the world’s food according to detailed new research [June 2021] by the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). Five of every six farms in the world consist of less than two hectares, operate only around 12 percent of all agricultural land, and produce roughly 35 percent of the world’s food” – https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1395127/icode/
Whilst for many people, subsistence farming does ensure they have food to eat, it can be a precarious existence. In Kenya smallholder farmers are being forced to buy commercial seed which then needs both fertilisers and pesticides to ensure a good harvest. Previously these farmers would collect and swop seeds from their own crops, but this has been made illegal as the Kenyan Government tries to ensure that all seeds are certified.
2. Food insecurity can arise because of a failure of one or more harvests. This particularly affects poor countries who struggle to pay the cost of importing food to make up local losses, and subsistence farmers who may not have the capacity to grow and store food to cover more than one year’s needs.
Food security is particularly sensitive to climate change. Climate change is increasing the frequency of both droughts and heavy – destructive – rainfall, raising temperatures and increasing the frequency and intensity of winds, all of which are potentially damaging for crops and for livestock.
Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya are now facing the sixth consecutive year of drought conditions. Hunger is widespread: an estimated 43,000 people died last year in Somalia as a consequence of an inadequate diet. The affects of failed harvests has been accentuated by the rising cost of food that could potentially be imported.
On a far smaller scale, shoppers in the UK have been faced with shortages of cauliflowers, tomatoes and salad ingredients. In part this has been because farmers in the UK and the Netherlands have cut back on the amount of crops grown under glass because of rising energy costs, plus sharp frosts which damaged brassica crops, and in part because of unseasonal cold weather in southern Europe and North Africa damaging crops grown there. Last summer’s drought across Europe led to many harvests being reduced by 30% and which has been felt by consumers in the form of higher prices for risotto rice, olive oil durum wheat pasta.
3. Food insecurity may arise because the farmers cannot afford to grow the usual amounts of food. Whilst consumers need enough money to buy food, producers need to earn enough to cover there expenses. The last 18 months have seen soaring costs for energy (baby chicks for example need to be kept at a temperature of 30C), fertilisers, and for basic labour. Many farmers in the UK are tied into contracts with supermarkets with fixed prices, making it hard for them to over their costs. Equally as rising costs are not always reflected in rising prices because of supermarket competition, many farmers are reducing the amount of crops their will grow for the coming season. It is better financially not to grow the crop than to grow it and then sell at a loss.
4. Distribution systems can also affect food security. We have seen this recently with exports from Ukraine. Without access to the Black Sea ports, there was no effective way of shipping grain from the Ukraine to countries such as Egypt, where it was most needed. Delays in the distribution system may mean that food perished before it reaches its market. Partly due to distribution issues, but also mismatches in the supply chain between what the supermarkets order and what the consumers buy, as much as 17% of the world’s food production goes to waste.
5. Global food security would be greatly enhanced if meat production was reduced.
“Livestock takes up nearly 80% of global agricultural land, yet produces less than 20% of the world’s supply of calories … This means that what we eat is more important than how much we eat in determining the amount of land required to produce our food.” https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
Eating less meat and using the land instead to grow food for direct human consumption would provide the food needed for the world’s growing population (subject to affordability and distribution issues).
“The UK is 30 to 40 years away from “the fundamental eradication of soil fertility” in parts of the country, the environment secretary Michael Gove has warned.“We have encouraged a type of farming which has damaged the earth …. If you have heavy machines churning the soil and impacting it, if you drench it in chemicals that improve yields but in the long term undercut the future fertility of that soil, you can increase yields year on year but ultimately you really are cutting the ground away from beneath your own feet. Farmers know that.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/24/uk-30-40-years-away-eradication-soil-fertility-warns-michael-gove?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
7. Food security can be potentially threatened by diseases – whether diseases that affect crops or diseases that affect livestock. Recently in the UK we have seen the impact of avian flu on supplies of chicken and egg. Whilst in the Mediterranean the Xylella pathogens is infecting olive trees across the region – it can also infect similar plants such as cherry, almond and plum trees. It was first discovered in olives trees in Puglia in 2013. The spread of the disease have been devastating, with an estimated 60% decline in crop yields in Italy since the first discovery in 2013. The world food supply is particularly vulnerable to the affects of disease because our food supply is dominated by a very limited number of species. Of the 6,000 different plant species used as food, only nine (sugarcane, wheat, rice, maize, potatoes, sugar beet, cassava, oil palm and soybean) contribute 66% of total crop production. Increasing the diversity of plants we grow and eat as food is essential. It is also equally essential that we safeguard our food security by improving biodiversity as a whole for the ecosystem is highly interconnected.
“Biodiversity for food and agriculture is all the plants and animals – wild and domesticated – that provide food, feed, fuel and fibre. It is also the myriad of organisms that support food production through ecosystem services – called “associated biodiversity”. This includes all the plants, animals and micro-organisms (such as insects, bats, birds, mangroves, corals, seagrasses, earthworms, soil-dwelling fungi and bacteria) that keep soils fertile, pollinate plants, purify water and air, keep fish and trees healthy, and fight crop and livestock pests and diseases…Less biodiversity means that plants and animals are more vulnerable to pests and diseases. Compounded by our reliance on fewer and fewer species to feed ourselves, the increasing loss of biodiversity for food and agriculture puts food security and nutrition at risk,” added Graziano da Silva.” https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/1180463/icode/
Last week I took part in the Earth Vigil outside Parliament. Participants sit on the pavement, backs against the wall that surrounds the building, and between 11 and 3pm a prayerful presence is maintained holding the needs of creation before God.
When we arrived a young police constable asked what we were doing.
“Praying for the earth”
“Well if you need anything …” he replied.
We take up our places and quietly began to pray as tourists and workers and parties of school children walked by – a back and forth, crisis-crossing flood of human life. ‘Lord help us change our lifestyle and our priorities and safeguard the next generation.’ Abruptly the murmur of urban life is broken by loud, upbeat music (via an amplifier) whilst a commentary is loud-hailered by a one man protest group, hurling abuse at the Tory party.
Restore focus once more on our silent prayer. Behind the many legs of the passersby, waves of traffic slide past by as traffic lights regulate their flow. Buses in twos and threes, black cabs swinging round tight curves, delivery vans and construction trucks, SUVs that are certainly not for utility and bikes which are! ‘Lord help us shape a better future, a better use of people’s skills and resources; a cleaner, kinder world.’ From the opposite side of the square another amplifier sets off in competition with the first. The music is more classical in tone. These protestors are women speaking out against the oppression of their comrades in Iran. They are wrapped in flags.
Refocus, centre down, pray. A trickle of people come and go through the chicane that gives access to Parliament, inside whose doors policy is worked on, debated, argued, and often fudged. ‘Lord help change the systems that shape our economy. So often they damage the lives of ordinary people and the health of the environment – bring wisdom and humility to the hearts of minds of those in power.’ A kerfuffle in the middle of the road – police are rushing forwards – has someone fallen over? No not fallen down but sat down. Not one but a dozen or more sat or lying in the road, odd hands glued down, other hands grasping ‘Insulate Britain’ banners.
The frenzy of the moment is heart stopping. Brave? Vulnerable? Safe? The faces look confident. Now the road swarms with police and journalists – where did they all come from? More activists and members of the public add to the melee. Traffic grinds to a halt. It takes a while for the police to restart the traffic, directing them along the unoccupied traffic lane – a rogue motorcyclist tries to take an alternative route and is reprimanded.
A degree of order returns. Traffic moves in waves controlled by the lights.
Pedestrians continue to cross-cross the pavement, now and then stopping to take photos. Tourists add pictures of both the Houses of Parliament and the freedom to protest to their phones. More police vans, more police officers arrive and a slow process of note taking and questioning, surveying and evidence collecting starts. ‘Lord be with those who risk their comfort to stand up for the cause of justice. Be with those in other parts of the world who risk their lives in this cause. Challenge our churches to recognise what is happening and what needs to happen.’
A quick reconnoitre confirms we know some of the glued on protestors. Both they and the women of Iran are held in prayer. ‘Lord surround them with your protection that they may know they are loved. May their endeavours for justice be fruitful.’
Person by person the road protest is slowly – almost tediously – dismantled as the protestors are conveyed to the back of police vans and driven away. The media presence holds strong filming and interviewing the protestor in the road – they have certainly caught the attention of the press. And the public too. Passers by continue to stand and stare and take photos – what will they say when they get home or when they share these images on social media? Will their sensibilities about the current crisis of climate and justice have been raised? Only 2 or 3 shout abuse or remonstrate with the protestors.
Pray, think, reflect. ‘Lord transform the hearts and minds of all who pass by today. Fill them with compassion and a desire for justice. Safeguard the earth that it be not destroyed by our folly.’
And tomorrow and next week and next month …. the protests will go on for we need justice in our world and there are many willing to demand it. ‘Lord have mercy.’
The Green Tau blog comes from my love of life, of the natural world and of those human endeavours which are kind and generous. This love itself stems from my Christian faith which prioritises living life well and seeks to establish heaven on earth so all may live life to the full.
I want to use this blog to reach out to people, to inform them about the facts and the dangers of climate change, to point to changes we can make, and ways in which we can change the behaviour of businesses and governments, to minimise the adverse affects of climate change and at the same time achieve fair and sustainable lifestyles that benefit everyone.
In the short term the Green Tau blog will focus on COP26 climate conference, why it’s important and what it can achieve.
The Green Tau 