Bishop Harold joins call for Lent Carbon Fast
This Lent Bishop Harold is joining other senior church leaders in supporting the Tearfund 'Lent Carbon Fast'. The following press release has been released by Tearfund:
"Senior church leaders in Northern Ireland, are today urging people to cut their carbon rather than give up chocolate this Lent.
Presbyterian Moderator John Finlay, Bishop Harold Miller, Rev Stephen Cave, Director of the Evangelical Alliance, NI, Gordon McDade, Pastor of Ballynahinch Baptist Church, and Paul and Priscilla Reid, Pastors at Christian Fellowship Church, Strandtown are backing Tearfund's call for a cut in personal carbon use for each of the 40 days of Lent, which begins tomorrow. The call comes as a new Tearfund survey reveals that three in five adults in the UK are willing to save energy this Lent.
Tearfund has launched the fast because of the urgent need to reduce energy consumption, and to protect poor communities around the world who are already suffering from the ravages of climate change.
The Carbon Fast is a forty-day journey to a lighter carbon footprint, with a simple energy saving action per day. Actions include:
snubbing plastic bags
giving the dishwasher a day off
insulating the hot water tank
installing draft excluders
"As the climate changes and impacts the earth, poor people are being hit the hardest, by more frequent floods and drought" says Bishop Harold Miller, Bishop of Down and Dromore Diocese. "The tragedy is that those with the power to do something about it - us - are the least affected, whilst those who are most affected are powerless to bring about change. To carry on regardless of their plight is to fly in the face of Christian teaching. We must do all we can to rein in our consumption."
It's estimated that in the UK we emit 9.5 tons of carbon dioxide per person per year; in Ethiopia the average is 0.067 tons and in Bangladesh 0.24. Apparently the earth can sustain 0.8 per person.
Participants will begin the fast by removing one light bulb from a prominent place in the home and live without it for 40 days, as a constant visual reminder of the need to cut energy. On the final day of Lent, people are encouraged to replace the missing bulb with an energy-saving bulb. Over its lifetime that one bulb will save 60kg of carbon dioxide per year and up to £60
Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the MET Office and the first chairman of the IPCC's scientific assessment, advises Tearfund on climate change. He said: "The scientific debate about the basic issue of climate change is over. Climate change is real. Evidence for it is to be seen in every corner of the globe. Tearfund have sounded an urgent warning that climate change is already hitting places like Bangladesh, Ethiopia and Niger hard. Climate change shows us that our energy-hungry lifestyles are harming our poorer neighbours across the world, now. The moral imperative for us to act is unquestionable and inescapable."
Tadesse Dadi, a Tearfund worker in Ethiopia said millions were already being affected: "Climate change may not yet be a problem for people in Europe, but here in Ethiopia its effects are being felt today by millions of ordinary men and women farmers. These poor communities, who have contributed least to climate change, are suffering the most from its effects."
For a copy of Tearfund's Carbon Fast click on www.tearfund.org or call 0845 355 8355