Thursday 15 October 2009

Climate change, me, the world and ringing bells 350 times

On this blog action day on climate change I'm in Crete. It's an island, you can get here by boat or by plane. In the five days before I got here I took six different planes. Not something I'm proud of at all. Also not very enjoyable as I am not fond of airports or planes. When I travel in Europe I try really hard to organise myself to take the train, but sometimes circumstances just don't allow for that. I should doubtless try harder. Just like I should get around to fitting a timer to our central heating (though as this isn't working at all and it's minus 1 in the morning in Ferney so Dr B may feel the repair is more important than the timer), sorting out the wormery making sure I turn gadgets and lights off when not in use, eating less meat and doing a carbon audit of the house ... sometimes it's difficult to continue to motivate yourself, feel part of the bigger picture and know that together we really can make a difference to climate change. In fact only together can we make a difference.
However, as a rich woman in the privileged West I have more responsibility to try and change my lifestyle if our planet is to survive sustainably for generations to come, I need to feel more challenged.
The international organisation I work for has a long history of campaigning on climate change - going back to a time when it was seen as a pretty marginal issue. This year as the Copenhagen negotiations approach the World Council of Churches alongside 350.org is planning a creative way of church bell ringing to try to draw attention to the need for all of us to take action, you can get involved too on December 13th - use blog action day to spread the message:

At 3 p.m. – marking the end of a high profile ecumenical celebration at the Lutheran Cathedral in Copenhagen, the Church of Our Lady – the churches in Denmark will ring their bells, and Christians around the world are invited to echo them by sounding their own bells, shells, drums, gongs or horns 350 times. We envisage a chain of chimes and prayers stretching in a time-line from the Fiji Islands in the South Pacific – where the day first begins and where the effects of climate change are already felt today – to northern Europe and across the globe.
You can download the logo pictured here to use for posters and local campaigning and also translate some of the material for use in your local context, there's information about the campaign in German, French and Spanish on the site - Finnish and Danish are also available. Let the WCC Climate change desk know that you are going to take part in this event and send them any prayers or liturgical material you develop.
Ringing the bells is a wake up call, are we ready to hear, ready to change the way we live? Am I ready to do that or do I encourage others to take action without bothering to do much myself?

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