Displaying items by tag: Environment

After centuries of global plunder, the industrial economy is severely undermining the life support systems of the planet. Just Transition believes we must build visionary economies different from the ones we are now in. This requires stopping the bad while at the same time building the new: changing the rules to redistribute resources and power to local communities, shifting from incinerators and landfills to zero waste, from dirty energy like coal to energy democracy. Burning coal is a huge driver of climate change. Coal mining employs six million people globally, and is the linchpin of many communities. Nuclear energy, fracking, and ‘clean coal’ are offered as economic solutions, but they harm the health of people and the planet. The path of extracting, transporting, processing, and consuming these technologies is paved with cancer and respiratory disease, among other devastating health impacts. These ‘solutions’ turn low-income communities into sacrifice zones.

A Rocha is a respected Christian environmental organisation, currently operating in over twenty nations. On 28 October, Peter and Miranda Harris, its co-founders, along with Chris Naylor, executive director of A Rocha International, and his wife Susanna, were involved in a fatal car accident in Port Elizabeth. Miranda, Chris, and Susanna did not survive. Peter and the driver of the car are being treated at a local hospital and are in a stable condition. Please pray for the families concerned, and also for the future leadership of the organisation.

The Bishop of Colchester joined climate activists at Trafalgar Square on 13 October for prayer and worship before moving to Scotland Yard to urge police to return equipment confiscated from disabled activists who were prevented from demonstrating after police impounded ramps and wheelchairs. The Bishop praised God for the rebel group, saying, ‘When our very existence is threatened by our insatiable exploitation of this precious earth, we have to speak up and take action. This is a wake-up call to the world. It is prophetic. I thank God for Extinction Rebellion and I pray that their voice may be heard - for all our sakes.’ Meanwhile, Father Martin Newell was arrested when attempting to glue himself to the floor in support of disabled protesters, and 77-year-old Revd Sue Parfitt was arrested for gluing herself to the roof of a tube train at Shadwell station. See

From Queensland to New South Wales, successive droughts and the need for extra water to fight bushfires have caused unprecedented shortages. Regions face the prospect of taps running out within months. This is a portion of a national prayer for rain issued by Christian leaders: ‘We acknowledge that You are the Lord of the universe, the One who provides the rain to water the Earth so that crops, livestock and humans can flourish. We ask that in Your mercy You would send rain. We pray for physical rain and spiritual revival rain to flow through Australia. We thank You, Lord, for past revivals, and pray that the latter rain would be even greater than the former rain. Bless the work of our hands, especially the farmers on the land, and give us peace. We thank You for renewal of our land and renewal of our faith.’ See also

Amid growing alarm over accelerating extinctions, a major two-week international conference opened in Geneva on 17 August. 183 member states aim to tighten rules on trade in elephant ivory and other endangered animal and plant species. One million species are now at risk of extinction due to human activities. One of the 56 proposals on the agenda aims to prevent traffickers from passing off illegal elephant ivory as coming from mammoths, by listing the long-extinct mammals as a threatened species and thus subject to regulated trade. White rhinos, the American crocodile, and a range of shark and ray species are also on the agenda, as is the giraffe. The future of biodiversity is at stake, and we have a unique opportunity to change its course. WWF reported that Earth’s animal population has plummeted 60% in 44 years.

13-year-old Nadia Sparkes is called ‘Trash Girl’ for encouraging her peers to clean up their environment. Upset by street litter, she began picking up items and binning them at home; collecting 3,000+ litres of litter. However, school bullies called her ‘Trash Girl’, threatened her with a knife, and chased and punched her. Once she sat in class covered in orange juice that had been thrown in her face. Unafraid, she used the ‘Trash Girl’ name in a positive campaign to encourage others to take action on litter through an online community group that was celebrated by Greenpeace, WWF and Keep Britain Tidy, with online followers of 4,000+. Local artists depicted her as a superhero character, which is being shared in schools to educate students on litter prevention, but Nadia was not championed at her own school and had to leave. However, this term she had a ‘brilliant’ first day at her new school.

Christians throughout the countryside will be celebrating the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus this Easter. Pray that the God of hope will fill them with all joy and peace as they delight in Him, so that they may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Pray also that many people will be drawn into the celebration through various services and activities held across this special time, and that they too might come to know the hope of the good news about Christ (Luke 9:6). As Brexit grinds on, rural affairs are not high on the political agenda; nevertheless they continue to present deep-seated policy challenges, prompting recent calls for a new post-Brexit comprehensive rural strategy to address issues such as infrastructure, labour shortage, housing and health care. Pray for wisdom for those in government and NGOs who are shaping policies and programmes for rural renewal.

The former UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply concerned that the UK’s export credit agency had provided billions of pounds in recent years to support businesses involved in oil and gas schemes around the world. ‘These figures and policies are hard to reconcile with the UK’s commitments under the Paris agreement,’ said Ban, referring to the international climate deal he forged in 2015 as UN chief. ‘The time has come for the UK to change course, in the interests of the whole world,’ he wrote in a comment for the Guardian. Pray that the Government’s priority, at home and abroad, will be to forge opportunities for UK businesses to resist investing in or funding fossil fuel projects. Recent projects supported by the UK include oil and gas fields off the coast of Ghana, a major gas pipeline in Oman, and software for an oil firm in Argentina.

National Farmers Union (NFU) president Minette Batters stated at their 2019 conference that the Government needs to convene a new commission of food and farming experts to establish the principles to maintain British food production standards post-Brexit. Mrs Batter wants this commission to ensure that food imports will have the same high standards as the ones British farmers adhere to, and trade deals will be scrutinised by Parliament and industry. Crucially, there must be a commitment that the Government will act on these recommendations. The NFU also has ambitious plans to tackle greenhouse gas emissions and for British farming to aim to achieve net zero by 2040 by investing in incentivising carbon capture from the atmosphere and biofuels to power carbon capture storage systems. See

The scramble to build new homes in England is producing large housing estates which are being built next to bypasses and link roads. There are no shops, no pub, no doctor, no school, no church, and no jobs; they are too far out of town to walk or cycle, and they lack good local buses. Car travel is the only option. Researchers from a new green group, Transport for New Homes, backed by the RAC Foundation, visited over twenty new housing estates across England and said, ‘We were appalled to find so many new housing developments built around the car, with residents driving for almost every journey. Those cars head for towns and cities clogging up existing roads. Commuter times get longer and longer. Car-based living of this kind is not good for our health or quality of life.’ Also in some estates there is nowhere to park in front of houses, so owners have to park on pavements.