Sermon: Global Warming

I'd like, if I may, in a somewhat unorthodox way, to begin with a quote.

It's not from the bible, and you may or may not guess who the speaker is, or even what the context might be;  I'll save that for later!

Here is the text:

"I want to talk to you about our common responsibilities in the face of a common danger.

"The dimensions of its threat have loomed large on the horizon for many years.

"Whatever our hopes may be for the future - for reducing this threat or living with it - there is no escaping either the gravity or the totality of the challenge it offers to our survival and to our security - a challenge that confronts us in unaccustomed ways, and in every sphere of human activity....

"No war has been declared, and however fierce the struggle may be, it may never be declared in the traditional fashion. Our way of life is under attack;  yet, as I say, no war has been declared, no borders have been crossed by marching troops, no missiles have been fired.

"If you are awaiting a finding of 'clear and present danger', then I can only say that the danger has never been more clear, and its presence has never been more imminent.

"Addressing this danger requires a change in outlook, a change in tactics, a change in missions - by the government, by the people, by every businessman or labour leader, and by every newspaper and media outlet.....

"These are times that should appeal to our sense of sacrifice and self-discipline.

"They call out to every citizen to weigh his rights and comforts against his obligations to the common good."

That was John Fitzgerald Kennedy, in April 1961, talking about the nature of the threat represented by Russia;  a year before the Cuban Missile crisis.

Some of you may be comforted into seeing this as evidence of the type of threat that fails to manifest itself.

In my judgment you'd be wrong, for two reasons.

Firstly, if you're anything like as old as me you're likely to have vivid memories of those thirteen days in May 1962 when the world seemed literally to 'stand still'.

Culminating in the night my wife and I pulled our tiny daughter's cot up tight to our bed, not knowing if there was to be a tomorrow, and unable to bear the thought of any one of us somehow surviving without the others.

Of course there was a ‘next morning' and we all breathed again;  but only because two statesman omitted to do anything insanely stupid.

It would have required an act of great foolishness to turn us all, certainly we living in targeted London, into ash.

But if you were to re-consider that speech as describing what I believe to be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced - that's to say, the challenge of what we've come to rather lamely call, ‘climate change'; then it takes on an altogether different resonance.  

Unlike that earlier crisis, all that's needed to make a reality of the horrifying consequences of climate change, is for our leaders to do nothing at Copenhagen two weeks from now.

Please, I beg you, think about this - how much more likely is it that the world's statesman fail to find an answer to the developing crisis of global warming, than it was for just two men, with everything to lose, to withdraw their fingers from the button of guaranteed mutual self destruction?

I know which I believe to be the greater danger in the long term!

In every sense, what lies ahead will involve an unprecedented degree of collective responsibility; that sense of individual "sacrifice and self-discipline" of which President Kennedy spoke so eloquently.

In other words, we need to develop an entirely new understanding of the consequences of each and every one of our actions. 

The Bible is very clear regarding our obligations as stewards of the earth:

Here's an example of that injunction from Leviticus - Chapter 25, verses 23 and 24:

"The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine, and you are but aliens and my tenants.

Throughout the country that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land."

I'm convinced climate change dwarfs our present economic woes in its likely impact on both our personal and our professional lives, and most certainly those of our children or, in my case, my grandchildren.

The response to climate change, particularly among the young, is likely to shape any number of fundamental aspects of behaviour;  and in ways that are certain to affect everyone here this afternoon. 

My own position is that, at the very minimum, we've no serious alternative but to re-think our lifestyles, and find ways to reduce our individual consumption of energy.

To embrace what we might begin to call ‘sustainable consumption.' 

As the biologist Mahlon Hoagland once put it, "too much of a good thing, is not a good thing."

But then most of our mothers had taught us exactly the same thing before we'd even gone to Sunday school!  

In essence my proposed response to these challenges is pretty simple.

At every stage of my career, whether as a film producer, or in my more recent work in Public Policy, the outcome has always been determined by the quality, the commitment and the aspirations of the people I've been working with - these are the people who, at their best, have been the ‘drivers' of any successes I've achieved; and at their worst have left an indelible mark on my many failures.

I'll put it another way:  if you commodify people, by treating them solely as ‘consumers', they tend to behave in ways that will almost certainly disappoint you.

However, explain what needs to change, and exactly why, and as often as not they will surprise, and sometimes even amaze you. 

Needless to say, the media have a vital role to play in this. Newspapers, television, magazines - all have to take some element of responsibility for promoting a serious response to the multitude of likely impacts of climate change.

In fact, I continue to be amazed by those elements of the media - and even some prominent politicians - who insist that there still needs to be what they term ‘a balanced debate' over whether or not man has contributed to climate change;  or at the wilder extremes, whether it's happening at all!  

Yes of course there will continue to be legitimate disagreement about the scale and urgency of the problem; as well as the most appropriate and effective response to it.

But to read much of the news coverage, not to mention many influential columnists, you simply wouldn't know that there's a 99% scientific consensus on this issue - in some cases you're even lead to believe that the whole idea of ‘man-made climate change' has been put about by a bunch of self-promoting scientists in flapping white lab coats! 

On the broader issue of achieving sustainability, every instinct is likely to be in favour of ‘ducking the bullet' through the imposition of global rules and regulations - but in reality of course we can't.    

We're at present failing to sufficiently influence the behaviour of our own society - let alone the whole planet.

More importantly - what possible moral mandate could ever give us the right to stop a poor Brazilian or Congolese peasant from torching his or her corner of the rain forest to grow beans and squash, when our own lifestyles continue to be infinitely more damaging.  

Ten seconds' thought tells you we have no moral right; and if the situations in Zimbabwe and Darfur are anything to go by, we have remarkably little ability to impose any kind of civilized behaviour on anyone!

No, the only tools we're left with are the very basic ingredients of social democracy - persuasion, through rational debate; leading to a freely arrived-at consensus - and that can only happen through education - and a full understanding of the nature of our shared nightmare - should we do nothing! 

And it's in this battle for hearts and minds that people like yourselves really come into their own.

What's certain is that, over the next few years, we're going to need every exceptional person, and every single scrap of talent we can find if we're to meet and see off what I sincerely believe to be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced. 

One of the many privileges of Chairing the Joint Committee on Climate Change Bill was being allowed to take evidence from experts from all over the world;  not only has it been a compelling experience in its own right, but it's taught me to take very seriously Albert Einstein's injunction that:  

"It's no good trying to solve problems with the same sort of thinking that caused them."

Each of us has to decide to get honest - not a little bit honest; not honest abroad but dishonest at home; not honest in willing the ends but dishonest in providing the means;  no, we have to be entirely honest in facing up to the need for a serious change in the way we live - and in what we regard as seriously important. 

And we're entitled to expect exactly the same degree of honesty from those who seek to lead us - and to make vital decisions on our behalf. 

The Archbishop of Canterbury got this exactly right in a Lecture he delivered in Cardiff earlier this year:

He said: "Most fundamentally: we need to move away from a model of economics which assumes that it is essentially about the mechanics of generating money...environmental cost has to be factored into economic calculations as a genuine cost in opportunity, resource and durability - and thus a cost in terms of doing justice to future generations."

He went on to say:

"There needs to be a robust rebuttal of any idea that environmental concerns are somehow a side issue, or even a luxury in a time of severe economic pressure; these questions are inseparably connected."

For all of us, the wholly unacceptable alternative is to shut our eyes and continue to protest either innocence or ignorance of the real cost of what most of us, myself included, sincerely thought to be the inevitable but acceptable price of ‘progress' - throughout the whole of the 20^th century. 

Please believe me, as we grapple with the fall-out from this present ‘credit crunch';  what we now know to have been the result of twenty five years of financial folly will be as nothing compared to the whirlwind we are likely to reap from two hundred years of environmental folly.

Should we be foolish enough to settle for the ‘do nothing' option - then our children and our children's children are likely to be asked to pay a truly crippling price;  a price that will make a mockery of the comforts and pleasures that most of us were brought up with, and which today we tend to take for granted.

In fact the generations who follow us will have every justification were they to curse us for having been knowingly irresponsible in jeopardizing their future happiness.

I'll actually go a little further;  should we fail to act on the all too obvious warning signs, should we fail to get to grips with this impending crisis, there'll be no need to ask ‘for whom the bell tolls';  it will be tolling for every man, woman and child on this, once beautiful, planet. 

And this time around we will have only ourselves to blame.

If I may, I'll finish with something I picked up in the New York Times a few months ago.

It's a short quote from the book The Great Gatsby, in which the narrator Nick Carraway assesses the brutal world of the principal characters, Tom and Daisy Buchanan.

He says,

"They smashed up things and people, and then retreated back into their money, or their vast carelessness ... and let other people clean up the mess they made".

To me this brilliantly describes our present situation with regard to the financial crisis we've unquestionably brought upon ourselves.

I can only say again; how much more serious will it be if, one day, this describes the way in which the actions of my, of our present generation have succeeded in effectively ‘smashing up' this planet!

It's not going to be easy to navigate our way through the very many challenges that lie ahead; and any ‘sunlit uplands' certainly won't be reached overnight.

But with a new found sense of personal responsibility; and a more genuine level of commitment to one another; I sincerely believe that there remains enough good in this world to allow us to achieve at least some kind of a ‘sustainable' future.