What’s wrong with this picture?
Jo Fisher shares Chris Smith's concern about meetings not signing up to the 10:10 climate change campaign
Until I read ‘What’s wrong with the picture?’ by Chris Smith (4 December) I had not realised just how very unhappy and disillusioned I had been when, at our last Area Meeting in November, it was also decided that we too would not sign up for the 10:10 Campaign. How I sympathise with Chris Smith’s teenage daughter.
What are we about when people can say ‘the request happened too quickly’. The concern about our environment goes back many years (see Quaker faith & practice chapter 25) from the 70s and earlier. How long do we have to take before we act publicly? I was full of joy at Yearly Meeting when the minute on Same-sex marriage was accepted – though that had taken over twenty years. We do not have twenty years on climate change. We need to act now.
Being our local Quaker representative on Churches Together, I have become more aware of other churches’ response and suggest that Friends look at the various web sites – Church of England and Methodist in particular. They are showing public leadership on this issue, while we are undertaking many wonderful initiatives, but not telling the world. Having shown the film The Age of Stupid through Churches Together and attended our local district council debate on Climate Change, which was heartening. I feel angry that Meeting for Sufferings was unable on this issue to put their heads above the parapet and sign up to 10:10 to give the maximum support to our beleaguered representatives at Copenhagen.
