|
SRT Home Page What is the SRT Project? Site Map & Subject Index What's New? Highlights Current Talking Point SRT Publications SRT Newsletter SRT Information Sheets SRT Topical Papers Press Room Contact SRT Send a comment Guest Book SRT Trust & Associates Links European Christian Environmental Network Eco-Congregation |
|
At 1345 hours on Thursday 7 July SRT Director Donald Bruce, on behalf of the Church of Scotland, joined local MSPs Roseanna Cunningham (SNP) and Mark Ruskill (Green) and representatives of Oxfam, the Scottish Trade Union Council and Friends of the Earth in a silent act of witness on climate change to the G8 summit at the gates of the Gleneagles Hotel. Together we in the G8 represent 13 per cent of the world's population yet we produce 45 per cent of its greenhouse gas emissions.
Originally planned as a moment to ring bells as a climate alarm call, the group held silence instead, both in respect for those killed, injured, shocked and bereaved by the bombs in London that morning, but also as a sign of solidarity with the poor of the world who will suffer an unfair burden of impact of climate change, and whose lives stand threatened on a very large scale by our Northern profligacy.
Many churches in Scotland marked the occasion with a brief service using a climate liturgy written for the occasion. On our part, we are taking this issue seriously in addressing our lifestyles and activities through programmes such as Eco-Congregation, involving 80 Scottish churches. But there are also things only governments can do, and hence the joint call to the G8 Summit. Unless bold and urgent action is initiated to address climate change, the implications are enormous and planet-wide. Some predict that hundreds of millions could become refugees and perhaps hundreds of thousands could die by 2050.
In its scale and inexorability, climate change is one the greatest problem facing humankind this century. In one of a series of imaginative events put on by the local churches in Auchterarder near Gleneagles during G8 week, SRT presented the evidence both scienficially and theologically, why Christians should respond. The Anglican Archbishop of Tanzania followed on by telling graphically how Mount Kilimanjairo has lost its snow cover and how drought now afflicts his people far more often and unpredictably, with far-reaching damage to livelihoods.
With joy and resolve, we in SRT and many thousands of Christians marched in Edinburgh on Saturday July 2 for 'Making Poverty History', but that goal will remain a dream if we do not tackle what is increasingly becoming one of its root causes. We cannot take care of poverty unless we also take care of God's creation.
For more ...
Download SRT's latest information sheet on climate change
Download a Scottish liturgy for the bell ringing (pdf, 118kb)
This page has been produced by the Society Religion and Technology Project of the Church of Scotland. For more about our work on other issues, see our Other SRT Project pages, our SRT Publications List, or our On-line SRT Newsletter.
We'd also welcome any comments you may have. We don't claim to have said the last word!
If you want to send us a comment or obtain further information or receive our latest Newsletter,
email us at :
mailto:srtp@srtp.org.uk
or send an ordinary letter or fax to :
Dr.Donald M.Bruce,Return to Contents
Return to Further Information
SRT Home Page
SRT Contents Page
SRT Website Map
