'This year, and for many previous years, snowfall has been so negligible that their food chain is under serious threat.' Photo: Tuomo Lindfors / flickr CC.
Unity of creation
Roger Babington Hill does a personal audit of his ‘greenness’
My first impression on reading chapter twenty-five of Quaker faith & practice (Qf&p) was that it is one that is going to be very easy to agree with. But then I remembered that Donald Trump is set on denying climate change, which he has described as a hoax perpetrated by the Chinese. The US president’s policy seems to be to return to coal mining and coal-fired power stations. His threat is to abandon all the gains of the agreements laboriously formed in Paris and Kyoto.
The reindeer in Lapland could tell Donald Trump about the effects of climate change. They need substantial falls of snow each year to cover the mosses and berries on which they feed. This year, and for many previous years, snowfall has been so negligible that their food chain is under serious threat.
Now we have the unknown consequences of Brexit. At the moment, the EU supports British agriculture very generously and favours an agricultural system that respects the needs of wildlife and birds. It values the proper management of uplands, such as Dartmoor and Exmoor, and allows the farmers there to maintain a lifestyle, admittedly at subsistence level, provided the needs of the environment predominate. There is a danger that, without this EU oversight and support, our government will institute an agricultural policy that maximises food production no matter what the cost to the environment. The soil will be further impoverished through the repeated application of chemicals, growing genetically modified (GM) crops might be encouraged, and wildlife could be marginalised. The cleanliness of our air, water and beaches will be threatened unless our government takes steps at least to preserve the status quo.
Reading chapter twenty-five of Qf&p, and Pam Lunn’s 2011 Swarthmore Lecture, Costing not less than everything: sustainability and spirituality in challenging times, made me undertake a personal audit of my ‘greenness’. I didn’t come out very well. Working from home means that I like to keep it warm, and this may be at a higher temperature than can be easily justified. Much of the food I buy is locally sourced, but not all of it. I like oranges and avocado pears, and I buy them. All this I knew, but what really caught me short was reading in Pam Lunn’s book that it takes ten litres of water to make one sheet of A4 paper. I use a lot of paper.
For the past forty years, I have been lucky to live with, and be inspired by, the Chinese teachings about man and the environment, which show how there is a total interdependence between all species. The ‘Five Phases’ model gives an understanding of how we hold all the basic elements of life in common.
So, what can we do? Pam Lunn makes a strong case for people working together. She advocates that Quakers should make ‘care of the environment’ a formal testimony. (Many think that it is already.)
Where I live, we are lucky to have Transition Town Totnes, an organisation through which committed volunteers and professionals can jointly ‘make a difference’. Its three headline areas of ‘Resilience’, ‘Relocalisation’ and ‘Regeneration’ have struck a chord across the world. I was at a Quaker conference in one of the Nordic countries and mentioned that I came from Totnes. One of the people attending it thought that I must live near to heaven and wanted to know about everything that happens in the town, but I was insufficiently well-informed, which was very disappointing for her.
We can do a lot on a personal level. I know that I must do better. But at least I drafted these few words on the back of a used sheet of A4 paper.
