In this week's British Medical Journal
by Fiona Godlee, editor, BMJ
Back in 2006 I wrote an Editor’s Choice called "What did you do about climate change Mum?" read here. It suggested that doctors might start measuring their carbon footprint. The most interesting thing about this short piece was the response it received on bmj.com read here. What was this stuff doing in a medical journal? What was I doing uncritically accepting the propaganda of the global warming lobby?
Things have changed since then. WHO’s director general Margaret Chan has called climate change the biggest public health challenge of the 21st century. And last week the UN and Red Cross warned that a humanitarian crisis caused by droughts, floods, storms, and heatwaves could overwhelm relief agencies read here. Most chilling for me was a comment at a meeting at the Royal College of Physicians last year. When asked what people should do about climate change, Tom Burke of Rio Tinto said "Don’t be under 40."
To look at the editorial click here
Friday 27 March 2009
Thursday 26 March 2009
Rowan Williams warns of ecological doomsday
The Archbishop of Canterbury has warned that the world faces an ecological “doomsday” if the issues of climate change and the environment are ignored.
Read more here
Read more here
Wednesday 25 March 2009
Stop new coal power stations in the UK
As part of the Carbon Fast, Tearfund have asked us to take action and treat climate change as a justice issue. We can take action to stop new coal power stations now!
Climate change is happening now, and it’s hitting the poorest hardest. But the UK government is set to give the go-ahead to new, coal-fired power stations which would emit massive amounts of greenhouse gas. Please urge the government to say ‘no’ to new coal power stations.
If built, Kingsnorth power station will release 8.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year – more than Kenya’s annual emissions. (Source: Earthscan, The Atlas of Climate Change, 2006. We are finding that climate change is already affecting the world’s poorest people through floods, droughts and rising sea levels. But poor communities produce only a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change. The average annual emissions of a UK citizen are 32 times higher than a Kenyan. (Source: Earthscan, The Atlas of Climate Change, 2006)
With one hand, the UK government is striving to get climate change under control. It has introduced the Climate Change Bill to cut UK emissions and is working on an international climate change agreement.
But with the other hand, the government is doing the opposite – looking to approve new, coal power stations, beginning with Kingsnorth in Kent. These will make it nearly impossible for the UK to make the emissions cuts promised in the Climate Change Bill.
Tearfund is mobilising Christians and churches to ask the government to say ‘no’ to new coal power stations and promote renewable energy and energy efficiency instead. Take action.
Find out more and send an e-mail to Gordon Brown here
here
Please take action. We need to act urgently to ensure that the government works to prevent climate catastrophe for the world’s poorest people.
Please pray
*
* That the government will take the right steps to promoting clean energy in the UK
* That the government won't build new coal-fired power stations
That Christians will set an example with their lifestyles in protecting creation and living in a way that doesn’t harm poor communities"
http://www.tearfund.org/Campaigning/Climate+change+and+disasters/Coal.htm
Climate change is happening now, and it’s hitting the poorest hardest. But the UK government is set to give the go-ahead to new, coal-fired power stations which would emit massive amounts of greenhouse gas. Please urge the government to say ‘no’ to new coal power stations.
If built, Kingsnorth power station will release 8.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide each year – more than Kenya’s annual emissions. (Source: Earthscan, The Atlas of Climate Change, 2006. We are finding that climate change is already affecting the world’s poorest people through floods, droughts and rising sea levels. But poor communities produce only a tiny fraction of the greenhouse gases that are causing climate change. The average annual emissions of a UK citizen are 32 times higher than a Kenyan. (Source: Earthscan, The Atlas of Climate Change, 2006)
With one hand, the UK government is striving to get climate change under control. It has introduced the Climate Change Bill to cut UK emissions and is working on an international climate change agreement.
But with the other hand, the government is doing the opposite – looking to approve new, coal power stations, beginning with Kingsnorth in Kent. These will make it nearly impossible for the UK to make the emissions cuts promised in the Climate Change Bill.
Tearfund is mobilising Christians and churches to ask the government to say ‘no’ to new coal power stations and promote renewable energy and energy efficiency instead. Take action.
Find out more and send an e-mail to Gordon Brown here
here
Please take action. We need to act urgently to ensure that the government works to prevent climate catastrophe for the world’s poorest people.
Please pray
*
* That the government will take the right steps to promoting clean energy in the UK
* That the government won't build new coal-fired power stations
That Christians will set an example with their lifestyles in protecting creation and living in a way that doesn’t harm poor communities"
http://www.tearfund.org/Campaigning/Climate+change+and+disasters/Coal.htm
Tuesday 24 March 2009
You can sign the put people first petition
Monday 23 March 2009
Put People First
David Golding of Make Poverty History North East has highlighted the Put people first coalition which says:"The financial crisis has graphically demonstrated to people in rich and poor countries that the current international economic system doesn't work. We need a radically different economic system which puts people and the planet first. The only sustainable way to rebuild the global system is to create a fair distribution of wealth that provides decent jobs and public services for all, to end global poverty and inequality and to build a green economy. I call upon the G20 leaders to Put People First when they meet in London on April 2nd." Why don't we add our names to this petition or go to the church service, march and rally in London on 28th March, just before the meeting of the G20 group of world leaders.
Put People First is a major new coalition of British agencies uniting to promote the interest of ordinary people, and particularly the poor, throughout the world. Its members include Cafod, Christian Aid, Jubilee Debt Campaign, Micah Challenge, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund, Traidcraft, and scores of others. Website, www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk
Put People First is a major new coalition of British agencies uniting to promote the interest of ordinary people, and particularly the poor, throughout the world. Its members include Cafod, Christian Aid, Jubilee Debt Campaign, Micah Challenge, Oxfam, Save the Children, Tearfund, Traidcraft, and scores of others. Website, www.putpeoplefirst.org.uk
Thursday 19 March 2009
Puddles of Grace
As I sit quietly,
Snug in the warm
I am content to listen,
To the relentless downpour;
Watching as droplets
Collide with the glass
And slide down in rivers
To pool on the grass.
A necessary hindrance
To the tasks of the day
The water collects
And over pedestrians does spray.
Its purpose and importance
So easily forgot
To those of us who live
Where it is less hot.
But to those who live
In the dry, arid lands
And whose breath is sucked out
By the harsh, parched sands,
The droplets of mercy,
That fall from the heavens,
Bring healing and hope
And sustenance to millions.
How much we take for granted
In our lands of plenty
Where food and water’s consumed
And our bellies never empty
Yet we don’t taste the joy
Or feel the pleasure
Of finding puddles of grace
That bring life without measure.
Becca Mayo 2009
Snug in the warm
I am content to listen,
To the relentless downpour;
Watching as droplets
Collide with the glass
And slide down in rivers
To pool on the grass.
A necessary hindrance
To the tasks of the day
The water collects
And over pedestrians does spray.
Its purpose and importance
So easily forgot
To those of us who live
Where it is less hot.
But to those who live
In the dry, arid lands
And whose breath is sucked out
By the harsh, parched sands,
The droplets of mercy,
That fall from the heavens,
Bring healing and hope
And sustenance to millions.
How much we take for granted
In our lands of plenty
Where food and water’s consumed
And our bellies never empty
Yet we don’t taste the joy
Or feel the pleasure
Of finding puddles of grace
That bring life without measure.
Becca Mayo 2009
Wednesday 18 March 2009
Food Justice
The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it...and God said ’It will be yours for food’. Gen 2:15 and 1:29.
I find it interesting that the first picture God gives us of His created world is a model for sustainable food production, of Adam as a farmer. The fact that there is widespread hunger in the world can only mean that we are not stewarding the earth as God intended it. Surely providing sufficient food for all is one of the foundational principles of justice.
So where have we gone wrong? What do we do to make it right? Where should we as Christians be investing our time, efforts and money in changing this?
When I started looking at this issue I needed to change the way I referred to poorer countries. I grew up learning to use the phrase ‘Developed World’ for our richer western countries and ‘Developing World’ for countries in poverty. This somehow implies that they need to catch us up, to take on our way of thinking. I prefer now to use ‘Minority World’ and ‘Majority World’ which alters my perspective to what the majority in the world experience.
I think it would be fair to say that today we in the Minority World see food as a commodity. ‘Corn futures’, wheat crops, coffee, beef etc are all part of the stock exchange with their associated profits and losses fuelling multi-national commercial interests. The Majority of the world see food as a basic requirement for life.
50 years or so ago the Majority World was dominated by small-scale farming where people provided their own food and traded the surplus for additional income. In more recent years they have been encouraged to enter world markets and produce large-scale single crops such as coffee, wheat, rice etc that can be sold for a profit to the Minority world. Whilst this profit does benefit the local farmers and they are able to buy food for their family with their income from the crop, it nevertheless benefits Western companies too.
This is a significant change and has significant implications. One of the results of this change is that crops produced by the Majority become subject to the vagaries of world trade. When prices in the world stock fluctuate, or are affected by the present credit crisis, the price of the crop drops dramatically. This leaves the Majority farmers with an abundance of, for example, coffee, which has little financial value to them and more crucially will not feed them. Or as a cruel contrast, in Peru, the birthplace of the potato, the price is such that a man’s yearly crop of potatoes is only worth around $40. World Vision recently had a campaign focussed on Peru to widen children’s diets to combat malnutrition, the result of a reliance on eating the surplus potato crop. They could grow the potatoes but not sell them. We all remember the Ethiopian famine in the 1980’s but do we remember that the Minority world continued to buy food from them throughout the crisis?
Another key issue is that the world’s population has increased substantially and so the last century has seen a vast increase in the need for land on which to grow crops. Thousands of years ago a hunter-gatherer needed approximately 20 hectares per person to support a life. The population of our world measured against available land now results in only 0.25 hectares per person and it is predicted that by 2050 this will drop to 0.1 hectares. This has fuelled a change in food production in two ways.
Firstly, we needed to improve the yield of each crop. The Industrial Revolution started the much needed improvements in farming technique and more recently scientists developed the genetic modification of crops and better chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These technologies surely started off with good intentions but they have become entangled with serious political and moral issues. Morally and ecologically do we want to genetically modify food and potentially pollute the land with chemicals? Politically do we want to invest in the multi-national companies that develop and produce genetically modified seeds and chemicals at the expense of the farmers?
In Senegal, where World Vision have a large supportive presence, the Government’s response to a recent widespread food crisis has been to give two thirds of the allocated $792 million budget to subsidizing the development and production of fertilizers, seeds and pesticides. The money, and therefore profit, is in the main therefore directed to foreign owned, international corporations whilst the people continue to go hungry. Farmers in Britain are giving up their farms not because their land is unproductive, or because they no longer love farming, or because there isn’t a market for food. They are giving up because it is unprofitable. Our farmers are also at the mercy of big business interests.
The second development resulting from the need to increase food production has been to increase the amount of land available for crops. Again, this sounds like a good strategy but is currently resulting in huge areas of precious rain forest being cut down, cultivated for a few years but then abandoned, as the soil is not appropriate for agriculture. The 1930’s saw Roosevelt’s New Deal encouraging farmers to cultivate the vast plains of America’s heartland. The result was the dessication of the light soils which went on to create a devastating wind blown dust cloud which killed hundreds and blighted the land.
So what can we do?
Firstly, I am uncomfortable with a generic ‘condemning of the corporations’ and an attitude of suspicion towards science and technology. The issues are complex and evidence often contradictory. I prefer to pray for wisdom for those leaders responsible for food production and discernment for scientists in their developments. We need to expand our food production efficiency but in ways that do not abuse the land or leave the farmers unsupported. We are all part of the solution and it is unhelpful to see it as ‘them and us’.
Secondly, I think that a clear moral principle should be to provide food first with profit being a secondary priority. I think that God wants us to allow the Majority to provide their own food before providing for the Minority. We should get their surplus and not their first fruits. This can only be done with a change in the attitude of western investors. We can encourage this by supporting lobbying groups such as the World Development Movement and by buying food from the Majority World at a reasonable price that allows them to live full lives, that is fairly traded products.
Thirdly, we should be fighting for smaller scale, organic, sustainable, good quality food production across the world. We should be speaking out against the craving for cheap food as this is driven by profit rather than provision. In addition the evidence is that cheap, fast food is of poorer nutritional quality and rarely respects the earth it’s grown in. I believe we should be buying more locally produced, organic food to support our farmers. This would also serve to reduce our reliance on transporting food long distances, therefore reducing our individual carbon footprints.
I think we need to return to the principles of Genesis where Adam was a good steward of the earth whilst also being a farmer and provider of food. Our faith in God should convince us that we can produce enough food for our survival without abusing the stewardship of the earth. We need to move away from the slavery of profit to patterns of sustainable farming. We need to restore the close relationship between our food and our land, between justice and provision.
Helen Fairmaner
I find it interesting that the first picture God gives us of His created world is a model for sustainable food production, of Adam as a farmer. The fact that there is widespread hunger in the world can only mean that we are not stewarding the earth as God intended it. Surely providing sufficient food for all is one of the foundational principles of justice.
So where have we gone wrong? What do we do to make it right? Where should we as Christians be investing our time, efforts and money in changing this?
When I started looking at this issue I needed to change the way I referred to poorer countries. I grew up learning to use the phrase ‘Developed World’ for our richer western countries and ‘Developing World’ for countries in poverty. This somehow implies that they need to catch us up, to take on our way of thinking. I prefer now to use ‘Minority World’ and ‘Majority World’ which alters my perspective to what the majority in the world experience.
I think it would be fair to say that today we in the Minority World see food as a commodity. ‘Corn futures’, wheat crops, coffee, beef etc are all part of the stock exchange with their associated profits and losses fuelling multi-national commercial interests. The Majority of the world see food as a basic requirement for life.
50 years or so ago the Majority World was dominated by small-scale farming where people provided their own food and traded the surplus for additional income. In more recent years they have been encouraged to enter world markets and produce large-scale single crops such as coffee, wheat, rice etc that can be sold for a profit to the Minority world. Whilst this profit does benefit the local farmers and they are able to buy food for their family with their income from the crop, it nevertheless benefits Western companies too.
This is a significant change and has significant implications. One of the results of this change is that crops produced by the Majority become subject to the vagaries of world trade. When prices in the world stock fluctuate, or are affected by the present credit crisis, the price of the crop drops dramatically. This leaves the Majority farmers with an abundance of, for example, coffee, which has little financial value to them and more crucially will not feed them. Or as a cruel contrast, in Peru, the birthplace of the potato, the price is such that a man’s yearly crop of potatoes is only worth around $40. World Vision recently had a campaign focussed on Peru to widen children’s diets to combat malnutrition, the result of a reliance on eating the surplus potato crop. They could grow the potatoes but not sell them. We all remember the Ethiopian famine in the 1980’s but do we remember that the Minority world continued to buy food from them throughout the crisis?
Another key issue is that the world’s population has increased substantially and so the last century has seen a vast increase in the need for land on which to grow crops. Thousands of years ago a hunter-gatherer needed approximately 20 hectares per person to support a life. The population of our world measured against available land now results in only 0.25 hectares per person and it is predicted that by 2050 this will drop to 0.1 hectares. This has fuelled a change in food production in two ways.
Firstly, we needed to improve the yield of each crop. The Industrial Revolution started the much needed improvements in farming technique and more recently scientists developed the genetic modification of crops and better chemical fertilizers and pesticides. These technologies surely started off with good intentions but they have become entangled with serious political and moral issues. Morally and ecologically do we want to genetically modify food and potentially pollute the land with chemicals? Politically do we want to invest in the multi-national companies that develop and produce genetically modified seeds and chemicals at the expense of the farmers?
In Senegal, where World Vision have a large supportive presence, the Government’s response to a recent widespread food crisis has been to give two thirds of the allocated $792 million budget to subsidizing the development and production of fertilizers, seeds and pesticides. The money, and therefore profit, is in the main therefore directed to foreign owned, international corporations whilst the people continue to go hungry. Farmers in Britain are giving up their farms not because their land is unproductive, or because they no longer love farming, or because there isn’t a market for food. They are giving up because it is unprofitable. Our farmers are also at the mercy of big business interests.
The second development resulting from the need to increase food production has been to increase the amount of land available for crops. Again, this sounds like a good strategy but is currently resulting in huge areas of precious rain forest being cut down, cultivated for a few years but then abandoned, as the soil is not appropriate for agriculture. The 1930’s saw Roosevelt’s New Deal encouraging farmers to cultivate the vast plains of America’s heartland. The result was the dessication of the light soils which went on to create a devastating wind blown dust cloud which killed hundreds and blighted the land.
So what can we do?
Firstly, I am uncomfortable with a generic ‘condemning of the corporations’ and an attitude of suspicion towards science and technology. The issues are complex and evidence often contradictory. I prefer to pray for wisdom for those leaders responsible for food production and discernment for scientists in their developments. We need to expand our food production efficiency but in ways that do not abuse the land or leave the farmers unsupported. We are all part of the solution and it is unhelpful to see it as ‘them and us’.
Secondly, I think that a clear moral principle should be to provide food first with profit being a secondary priority. I think that God wants us to allow the Majority to provide their own food before providing for the Minority. We should get their surplus and not their first fruits. This can only be done with a change in the attitude of western investors. We can encourage this by supporting lobbying groups such as the World Development Movement and by buying food from the Majority World at a reasonable price that allows them to live full lives, that is fairly traded products.
Thirdly, we should be fighting for smaller scale, organic, sustainable, good quality food production across the world. We should be speaking out against the craving for cheap food as this is driven by profit rather than provision. In addition the evidence is that cheap, fast food is of poorer nutritional quality and rarely respects the earth it’s grown in. I believe we should be buying more locally produced, organic food to support our farmers. This would also serve to reduce our reliance on transporting food long distances, therefore reducing our individual carbon footprints.
I think we need to return to the principles of Genesis where Adam was a good steward of the earth whilst also being a farmer and provider of food. Our faith in God should convince us that we can produce enough food for our survival without abusing the stewardship of the earth. We need to move away from the slavery of profit to patterns of sustainable farming. We need to restore the close relationship between our food and our land, between justice and provision.
Helen Fairmaner
Monday 16 March 2009
Dalit education
India’s outcaste Dalits have injustice, indignity, discrimination and been made to feel they are outcasts. Operation Mercy, the development wing of Operation Mobilisation India, has brought hope for people from the lowest caste who have been referred to as "dogs" living in the slums, and treated as inhuman as depicted in the film Slumdog Millionare
Operation Mercy's website says "Without education many of the children of the Dalit communities of India will be condemned to a life of bonded labour, begging, continual abuse and hopelessness. An English medium education opens the doors to opportunities that would have been forever denied to them. This education is based on a Christian Worldview and value system and lifts these children out of the oppressive caste inferiority mindset and gives them spiritual freedom, social equality and personal dignity."
After ten years, the first 28 students to begin and complete their studies at the schools have just graduated. Their smiling faces during a special graduation ceremony bore testimony to their transformed lives. OM is responding to the Dalits’ cries for help and now oversees 80 schools across India that are providing 14,000 Dalit children with an education.
Many of us who went to the Stand heard from Dalit Freedom Network President Dr. Joseph D’souza tell stories of those Dalits who had tragic stories but had begun to find freedom, hope and life in all its fulness. God is loving and just and the example of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit is working today is the lives of these people. Wow.
To see more or sponsor a child see http://www.daliteducation.org/
Operation Mercy's website says "Without education many of the children of the Dalit communities of India will be condemned to a life of bonded labour, begging, continual abuse and hopelessness. An English medium education opens the doors to opportunities that would have been forever denied to them. This education is based on a Christian Worldview and value system and lifts these children out of the oppressive caste inferiority mindset and gives them spiritual freedom, social equality and personal dignity."
After ten years, the first 28 students to begin and complete their studies at the schools have just graduated. Their smiling faces during a special graduation ceremony bore testimony to their transformed lives. OM is responding to the Dalits’ cries for help and now oversees 80 schools across India that are providing 14,000 Dalit children with an education.
Many of us who went to the Stand heard from Dalit Freedom Network President Dr. Joseph D’souza tell stories of those Dalits who had tragic stories but had begun to find freedom, hope and life in all its fulness. God is loving and just and the example of Jesus and the power of the Holy Spirit is working today is the lives of these people. Wow.
To see more or sponsor a child see http://www.daliteducation.org/
Friday 13 March 2009
The Rise Up Prayer
By Joel Edwards, International Director of Micah Challenge
Father, we stand before you in prayer as the global economic crisis casts a shadow over the peoples of the earth. We have been reminded that in a world as closely connected as ours, each of our actions affects the whole. We are sorry when we have failed to act beyond our narrow interests. Help us to live as a community and care for others, especially the vulnerable and the poor amongst us.
As the G20 meet, we ask for wisdom for the leaders of the world. Where nations have pushed their agendas on others; bring partnership and love. Where people have lived their lives disconnected from their brothers and sisters in other countries; bring solidarity and compassion. Where efforts for good have been frustrated; bring breakthrough. May we see the dawning of a new world, with your values at its heart: a world of justice, mercy and humility.
Lord, we thank you for the promises which governments have already made in the Millennium Development Goals because we know their power to lift millions of people out of poverty. May that same spirit of global partnership be evident at the G20, may the poor not be forgotten in the midst of crisis.
Father, help us to rise up. For who will raise a voice and reach out a hand to conform this world more to your plan, if not us your people? As your Church worldwide we rise up in prayer, in speaking out and in demonstrating your way of life that out of the ruins of this current crisis might rise up a hope for a better world.
In Jesus name, Amen
http://www.micahchallenge.org.uk/takefive/09Mar_takefive.htm#prayer
Tuesday 10 March 2009
Fair Trade for Cadbury's Dairy Milk
Nigel King has posted about Cadbury's and Fairtrade, see his blog http://all-about-what.blogspot.com
"One of the best pieces of news I have heard in a long while is the decision by Cadbury to turn their brand leader into a Fair Trade product from Autumn 2009. Apart from the fact that it is my favourite chocolate, and so I will not have to feel guilty about enjoying it, it is also one of the most popular brands of confectionery in the UK and this new turn of events will bring enormous benefits to the Ghanaian farming communities that produce the cocoa that goes into the product.
Cadbury's was, of course, begun by a Quaker family, and people of this particular religious persuasion are well known for their social concern and action (and chocolate: Fry's, Rowntree's and Cadbury's were all originally founded by Quaker families noted for their philanthropy). In particular, Cadbury's developed Bournville (now a district of Birmingham) for its workers, providing them with good-quality housing as well as good working conditions. This clear action on behalf of the world's poor in modern times is a welcome restatement of those old values.
Cadbury's has even decided to absorb the costs of going fair trade and will not be passing on the cost to the consumer. Whilst I am pleased that my favourite treat will not cost me anymore, I am more pleased for the indication that it seems, for Cadbury's, people are more important than profits.
I would like to see more companies doing this kind of thing, and doing it not just because the public applies pressure for it but because it is right. Too long the wealthy West has exploited the Third World. We cannot morally continue to grow rich and feed off the fat of the land whilst keeping the people who farm it in poverty. If they have something we want we should be willing to pay for it.
So, Cadbury's, in the words of the old TV advert, 'Award yourself the CDM.' Well done! Keep up the good work.
For more information, simply google 'Cadbury Fair Trade'."
"One of the best pieces of news I have heard in a long while is the decision by Cadbury to turn their brand leader into a Fair Trade product from Autumn 2009. Apart from the fact that it is my favourite chocolate, and so I will not have to feel guilty about enjoying it, it is also one of the most popular brands of confectionery in the UK and this new turn of events will bring enormous benefits to the Ghanaian farming communities that produce the cocoa that goes into the product.
Cadbury's was, of course, begun by a Quaker family, and people of this particular religious persuasion are well known for their social concern and action (and chocolate: Fry's, Rowntree's and Cadbury's were all originally founded by Quaker families noted for their philanthropy). In particular, Cadbury's developed Bournville (now a district of Birmingham) for its workers, providing them with good-quality housing as well as good working conditions. This clear action on behalf of the world's poor in modern times is a welcome restatement of those old values.
Cadbury's has even decided to absorb the costs of going fair trade and will not be passing on the cost to the consumer. Whilst I am pleased that my favourite treat will not cost me anymore, I am more pleased for the indication that it seems, for Cadbury's, people are more important than profits.
I would like to see more companies doing this kind of thing, and doing it not just because the public applies pressure for it but because it is right. Too long the wealthy West has exploited the Third World. We cannot morally continue to grow rich and feed off the fat of the land whilst keeping the people who farm it in poverty. If they have something we want we should be willing to pay for it.
So, Cadbury's, in the words of the old TV advert, 'Award yourself the CDM.' Well done! Keep up the good work.
For more information, simply google 'Cadbury Fair Trade'."
Friday 6 March 2009
Lifestyle change
Brennan Manning wrote that 'the greatest cause of atheism is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him with their lifestyle.'
How does learning about God's heart for the poor, healing on the streets and doing lifegroup come together? Am I just picking up the latest new thing or doing what God wants. I don't want to become an eco-pharisee or spout off about things I have just heard about but haven't made any changes in my lifestyle. People seem to be looking for authenticity and reality in this post-modern age and this is what challenges their ideas and beliefs. It is easy to project an image of doing good, but the challenge I'm finding is much more difficult is being good. Jesus' words in Matthew 5 :48 "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" seem unrealistic, when you know me like I do!! Thankfully it isn't about just doing lots of things to get Brownie points with God, instead Micah 6:8 "And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God". I need lots of grace to do that.
Mike Wood said last weekend that it is not so much that we believe in Jesus (even the demons do that), but that we become practitioners, we act out what we believe. Mike Frost (http://www.eauk.org/slipstream/resources/mike-frost-next-generation-church.cfm) challenged me in a series of talks called "Future Church" that we think we know about Jesus, but don't often look at the way he lived and treated people as a template for our own life.
I hate to say this, but what I know I need is balance, between doing and being, believing and behaving, the macro and the micro levels, loving and living it out, rather than just thinking and talking.
How I live reflects whom I believe in. My prayer is that I reflect more of what Jesus is like each day
How does learning about God's heart for the poor, healing on the streets and doing lifegroup come together? Am I just picking up the latest new thing or doing what God wants. I don't want to become an eco-pharisee or spout off about things I have just heard about but haven't made any changes in my lifestyle. People seem to be looking for authenticity and reality in this post-modern age and this is what challenges their ideas and beliefs. It is easy to project an image of doing good, but the challenge I'm finding is much more difficult is being good. Jesus' words in Matthew 5 :48 "Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect" seem unrealistic, when you know me like I do!! Thankfully it isn't about just doing lots of things to get Brownie points with God, instead Micah 6:8 "And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God". I need lots of grace to do that.
Mike Wood said last weekend that it is not so much that we believe in Jesus (even the demons do that), but that we become practitioners, we act out what we believe. Mike Frost (http://www.eauk.org/slipstream/resources/mike-frost-next-generation-church.cfm) challenged me in a series of talks called "Future Church" that we think we know about Jesus, but don't often look at the way he lived and treated people as a template for our own life.
I hate to say this, but what I know I need is balance, between doing and being, believing and behaving, the macro and the micro levels, loving and living it out, rather than just thinking and talking.
How I live reflects whom I believe in. My prayer is that I reflect more of what Jesus is like each day
Thursday 5 March 2009
Cadbury's Dairy Milk will be Fairtrade
Good news for chocoholics, now that Cadbury's has bowed to pressure to buy Fairtrade cocoa and use it in Dairy milk, but is it just a cynical move or will it bring real benefits?
Stop the Traffik praised Cadbury for the decision, which comes two years into its Chocolate Campaign to see chocolate manufacturers to use only ethically produced cocoa. The coalition's founder, Steve Chalke, is calling on other chocolate manufacturers to follow Cadbury's example.
"This is a very significant step in our campaign. We congratulate Cadburys on their commitment to justice and now look to their policy being adopted across their entire product range as well as to their lead being followed by other manufacturers.
"But the Stop the Traffik Chocolate Campaign marches on. We now call on Mars and other manufacturers to follow Cadbury’s lead and abandon their reliance on the use of cocoa produced through trafficked and exploitative forms of child labour," he said.
Question:"Can Cadburys guarantee that Dairy Milk will remain Fair Trade even if the price of cocoa in the world markets falls? It appears that Cadburys has become Fair Trade simply because, due to a shortfall in cocoa bean supplies, it is already paying more than the Fair Trade threshold set by certifying bodies. It is in effect just changing its packaging and creating a PR opportunity out of difficult market conditions."
Barbara from the Fairtrade Foundation writes “Hi. We're really excited here about this fantastic news for the cocoa growers. Cocoa prices are higher at the moment, but despite this, through the Fairtrade deal Cadbury have committed to paying an extra Fairtrade premium of $150 per tonne to the farmers' groups on top of the market price. This premium is for the farmers' organisations to invest in building better, stronger communities - and they choose themselves what these projects should be.
Secondly, our Fairtrade rules state that companies must continue to pay at least the Fairtrade minimum price and the premium, even if the market falls below this level. So any company that wants to use the FAIRTRADE Mark has to do that. The companies are independently audited by us in order to make sure the farmers continue to benefit, and we're a not-for-profit charity answerable in turn to the likes of Oxfam, Christian Aid, and representatives of Fairtrade producer groups too.”
Wednesday 4 March 2009
2.5 billion people without proper toilet facilities
I have been thinking what 2.5 billion people looks like, and stuggled to get my head round it. If there's 250000 people in Newcastle that's 10000 cities the size of Newcastle or 50000 St James' Park capacity. Sometime numbers are just mindblowing and meaningless, until we see the face of some of those people. Sons and daughters, aunts and uncles, friends and neighbours, work colleagues. There's no other way to put it, IT IS WRONG! How can I be so blase, when day by day I have sufficient and so may are without. Its not to say that I as a Western christian have everything to give and that those in subsaharan Africa, for example, have nothing to give to me. Far from it, friends who have been to Chad tell me that in one of the poorest countries in the world with a hand to mouth existence, there is real faith and above all real joy. How can that be? Becuase they don't take things for granted. father forgive me for taking things for granted, make me grateful for what I have and generous with my resources
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