Eco Blog - St. George's Berlin

 The St. George's Eco-church committee has talked about promoting vegetarian cooking, and Greenpeace UK has started its own blog with vegetarian recipes called "Veganuary" ( LINK ). The recipes may not suit everyone (I have had little success with " vegetarian" meats and sausages), but reducing our consumption of meat and eating more vegetable-based dishes is important for saving God's creation.

  (A personal journey from committed carnivore to No Meat Athlete) Growing up in England during the late 70’s and 80’s every main meal was a variation on the theme of potatoes, another vegetable and a piece of meat. The son of an Irishman my childhood potato consumption was more than many would eat in a lifetime. And when I say ‘a piece of meat’ that could have been an overdone pork chop, a not-so-juicy chunk of roast beef, the weekly dose of ‘minced beef’, which would later become a source of medical and political concern, or the undisclosed list of body parts that constitute the filling of a sausage. This description of English cuisine is probably enough to roll the eyes of the most ardent anglophile, but to me this was the way people ate, and it is the way I continued to eat until I went to university. Sometimes for financial reasons but mostly for convenience I would go for extended periods without eating meat. However, my true colours would eventually show as I tucked in t...

 Greenpeace is collecting signatures for a petition to stop  Shell from "damaging whales’ precious ocean habitat." Greenpeace continues: "Unfortunately, we don’t have time on our side. Shell is due to start their destructive seismic testing at any moment. But if enough of us take a stand, we can force them to back down." Here is a  ( LINK ) to the petition. Several members of the Eco-Church committee have signed already.

 Guardian author Senay Boztas wrote on 26 November 2021 in an article called ‘Every tree counts’: Dutch come up with cunning way to create forests for free"  ( LINK ):  : "The idea behind it is simple: every day unwanted tree saplings were being cleared and thrown away when those young trees could be carefully collected and transplanted to where they are wanted."   Trees can contribute materially to reducing atmosphere carbon and to restoring oxygen, but they need space to grow. Much of the land in our cities is currently covered with concrete and asphalt to make it easier for people to drive and to park cars. According to Leander Jones in the Guardian on 6 October 2021 ( LINK ):  "A 2014 report commissioned by Berlin’s regional parliament found that 58% of traffic space was devoted to cars, even though only a third of journeys on Berlin streets (and only 17% within the S-Bahn ring) were made by car. Only 3% was set aside for bicycles, which accou...

 On 18 November Rebecca Solnit wrote in the Guardian about avoiding despair. In her article "Ten ways to confront the climate crisis without losing hope" ( LINK ) she says: "The world as we knew it is coming to an end, and it’s up to us how it ends and what comes after. It’s the end of the age of fossil fuel, but if the fossil-fuel corporations have their way the ending will be delayed as long as possible, with as much carbon burned as possible. ... If we succeed, those who come after will look back on the age of fossil fuel as an age of corruption and poison. ... We must remake the world, and we can remake it better. " Remaking the world is what the Christian church is about. In Christopher's sermon this morning he talked about one desperate prisoner in a harsh London gaol overcoming his fear and changing the world around him. Such thing happen, but they do not happen without our engagement and commitment. Rebecca Solnit has ten recommendations that include ba...

In Christopher's sermon he quoted Gus Speth, a climate scientist who said as long ago as 2016 that the causes of problems with the environment were selfishness, greed, and apathy, and that those problems could not be solved by technology. In the COP26 climate conference many countries are reluctant to take steps that might impact their economies, and the very rich in these countries appeared to be reluctant to sacrifice increases in their own wealth for the welfare of the planet. The apathy of those who are not very rich may well grow from a fear that they will suffer. In the eco-church committee meeting this week we discussed encouraging people to pledge to take at least one action that would improve the environment. Small things matter. We could pledge to eat less meat during the week, or only to eat meat that is environmentally sound (cattle fed in pastures not feedlots, or free range chicken). We could pledge only to buy new clothing...

 A Guardian headline on 14 October 2021 says "The Climate disaster is here:  Earth is already becoming unlivable. Will governments act to stop this disaster from getting worse?" ( LINK )    “We are on a catastrophic path,” said António Guterres, secretary general of the UN. “We can either save our world or condemn humanity to a hellish future.”  The article describes what the temperature increases mean and will mean as temperatures increase. Poor countries will suffer more than rich ones, but in the end everyone will suffer. As a church we give money for wells in Africa. That is important for people today, but if that is all that we and others do, it will not save the lives in the longer run. The article gives many examples of consequences. Here is one example: "A 'heat dome' that pulverized previous temperature records in the US’s Pacific northwest in June, killing hundreds of people as a billion sea creatures roasted alive in their shells off the coast, w...