Dear Friends,
“It’s Too Darn Hot” sang (and danced) the wonderful Ann Miller in the 1953 film version of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me Kate”, one my favourite musicals. It’s a song I’ve been humming over the past few days. How are you coping, as the thermometer creeps higher?
While we shouldn’t confuse climate and weather, climate change makes the probability of extreme weather events like the current heatwave more likely.
At St Nicolas, we take the climate crisis very seriously. Our Justice, Peace and Environment Group (JPEG) are looking at our Eco Church status. We were awarded Eco Church Silver, but the criteria have been updated and there is more to do to get us back to silver before we start to think about Gold. Our Net Zero Project has been launched to look at how we can reduce our carbon emissions by making changes to our buildings (the next meeting is on 3 July, contact the office if you’d like to take part). Those of us who took the Carbon Literacy course, now have some choices to make to say what practical steps will we will take to reduce our carbon footprints. I know that many of you are involved in organisations that support the planet and nature.
We take it seriously because we believe that part of our duty as Christians is to take care of our beautiful planet: the Earth is the Lord’s. And we believe we have a duty to communities across the world who are more vulnerable to climate change: love your neighbour.
We need to act, for we can each make a difference. If you haven’t already, you can calculate your carbon footprint online using sites like Climate Hero (https://www.climatehero.org/). And, of course, we need to pray: for those here and around the world suffering from rising temperatures, for resources to help vulnerable communities adapt, for world leaders to acknowledge the climate emergency and to develop fair policies to tackle it.
Yours, trying to keep cool,
Wendy
Wendy Neale