Hurricane Rita and Your Thermostat
Now that hurricanes Katrina and Rita have passed, leaving destruction, misery and soul-searching in their wake, columnists can turn to the serious business of speculation.
Has 2005 simply been an exceptional(ly unlucky) hurricane season for the US or do these violent sisters signify something more serious? Are they business-as-usual or global warming's 'smoking gun'?
Although more and more people think the latter, we shouldn't need to smell the smoke before we put the fires out. As Robert MacFarlane recently wrote, global warming is an eschatological crisis without any drama. Unlike that other global nightmare, nuclear war, no one presses any button. There is no instant, city-wide desolation. Instead, there is only the all-but-silent drip-drip of ice melting as we go about our everyday business.
No red button and no obvious culprit means no easy solution. In their recent report, 'Decarbonising the UK', the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research argued that there is 'an urgent need' for coherent climate policy across all relevant government departments.
This is undoubtedly true but the ultimate solution lies beyond even joined-up government. Expecting ministers to 'solve' our problems whilst we live our lives unchanged is unrealistic and hypocritical. If the problems are ours, so must be the solutions.
This will demand a range of responses: from using renewable energy sources, to campaigning for aviation taxation, to modifying our everyday behaviour. When you make a cup of tea, how full do you fill the kettle? As winter approaches, do you reach for a jumper or the thermostat first? Have you any idea how far your food has travelled before it reaches your fork?
Many of these gestures may seem negligible but, as Edmund Burke once wrote, 'No one could make a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.'
Regrettably Christians have sometimes been part of the problem rather than the solution, prioritising a questionable reading of 2 Peter 3 ('the earth and everything in it will be laid bare') over the Bible's more consistent, emphasis on careful stewardship. Yet things are changing (see links below for further details) and more and more Christians are finding themselves in the environmental vanguard.
Ultimately, the way we eat, travel, shop, and holiday reveals our attitude to creation. And our attitude to creation reveals our attitude to each other and to God.
Nick Spencer
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