The synod of the Anglican church has just passed the following Resolution.
That this Synod, recognising that the global climate emergency is a crisis for God’s creation, and a fundamental injustice . . . call upon all parts of the Church of England, including parishes, BMOs [Bishop Mission Orders], education institutions, dioceses, cathedrals, and the NCIs [National Church Institutions], to work to achieve year-on-year reductions in emissions and urgently examine what would be required to reach net zero emissions by 2030 in order that a plan of action can be drawn up to achieve that target;
(Additional sections discuss the reporting process.)
The following were my initial thoughts on reading this resolution.
Congratulations #1
Congratulations to the Anglican church on providing desperately-needed leadership. One of the themes of this blog is that climate change and related issues provide an an opportunity for the church. The Anglican church has stepped up to the plate.
Congratulations #2
Congratulations to the Anglican church for leading by example. The church leaders are not saying that you — whoever “you” may be — need to take action. The leaders are saying that we need to live the life we preach.
Zero
But, and there’s always a but — the devil is to be found in his usual location. What exactly do the church leaders mean by the word “zero”? Consider the following questions that the Resolution raises.
- Do we prohibit the use of gasoline and diesel-powered automobiles to get to and from church? If so, how do we take care of those who want to come to church, but who are disabled or elderly? Do we need to sell off our church van?
- Do we prohibit the use of electricity in the church because most electrical power plants use coal or natural gas as their primary source of energy? If we do stop using electricity how are we to have meetings after dusk unless we use candles? Does such a prohibition apply to the church’s telephones and email systems? After all, they use electricity provided by fossil fuels.
- Do we stop printing church bulletins and newsletters? Computers, printers and “the cloud” are all heavy users of electricity. Moreover, the equipment itself contains large amounts of embedded energy.
- Do the churches find a new source of fresh, clean water for use in their kitchens and bathrooms give that the water and sewer utilities use fossil fuel energy for their construction, maintenance and operation.
A picture of Thomas Cranmer, one of the founders of the Anglican church, is shown at the head of this post. In his day the industrial revolution had not yet started so society made virtually no use of fossil fuels. If we are to follow the Resolution to the letter then we will need to return to the early days of the Anglican church not just spiritually, but physically. Are people ready for that? There were no flush toilets in his day. It takes (fossil fuel) energy to manufacture the chemicals that ensure our potable water is, in fact, potable, and to pump that water to where it is needed, and then to treat the sewage that we create. (Roughly 10% of a barrel of crude oil goes to make petrochemicals.)
(One response to these questions is that we could use “alternative/green energy”. Leaving aside nuclear power, which has its own environmental baggage, the sources of alternative energy usually referenced are solar panels and wind turbines, along with the massive battery banks needed for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow. But these items are not “fossil fuel free” — their manufacture, installation and operation requires the use of existing energy sources.)
Timing
The Resolution calls on church institutions to work out how to reach “zero emissions” by the year 2030. We are now in the year 2020. Given that committee meetings and task forces will all take time to reach their conclusions, this means that the church has about eight years to organize and implement what would be a truly radical program. Is such a goal realistic?
Another of the themes of this blog site is that we need to understand project management realities (the posts 40 Gigatons and The Slow Train illustrate this point). The fact that something can be done on a small scale does not mean that it can be quickly implemented on a national or international scale. Such projects take time, engineering resources, funding and political will. Above all, they require that people willingly reduce their material standard of living.
Conclusions
Once more, congratulations to the leaders of the Anglican church for providing such important and badly-needed leadership. The next step is for them to make it clear to all church members that this Resolution will require everyone to sacrifice many of the conveniences and comforts provided by industrial society.
You put the challenges most clearly. I’ve reblogged it
Reblogged this on Peddling and Scaling God and Darwin and commented:
A thought-provoking response to the Church of England’s vote for 2030 Net Zero.
I wonder if the great and good at General Synod knew they’d voted to freeze in church and switch off their water
Thanks — I took a look at your site also.
In the post I say that a central challenge/opportunity for the church is to provide leadership. After all, no one else is doing so. However, this means that our leaders need to understand the basics of thermodynamics, systems theory and large-scale project management. It’s we need a theology that is appropriate for our times. Such a theology starts with “Understand and tell the truth”. This goes way beyond not telling a lie; it means that we need to have a grasp of the extraordinarily complex technologies that we have created.