THE WORLD is using 125 per cent of its renewable resources, the inaugural
meeting of the Anglican Communion Environmental Network heard last week.
The meeting was in Canberra, Australia — a city experiencing serious
effects of global climate change. The Bishop of Canberra & Goulburn, the Rt
Revd George Browning, who hosted the event, said that the area was in the grip
of a drought unbroken for five years.
Professor Ian Lowe, who chairs the Australian Conservation Foundation, told
delegates from 20 of the Communion’s 38 provinces that the political mindset of
the developed world must change.
David Shreeve, of the Conservation Foundation in the UK, said: “When Tony
Blair stands up and says what we’re doing environmentally, he speaks for a tiny
island. The Archbishop of Canterbury could stand up and say, ‘We’ve got 75
million people trying to do something about it.’”
Bishop Browning said on Wednesday: “There is reasonable hope that we will
now be able at least to ‘punch our weight’, and significantly influence the
world community in what is a core matter of faith and morality for all who are
followers of Jesus Christ.”
Assembly meeting. Climate change is also on the agenda of
the Fifth Assembly of the European Christian Environmental Network (ECEN),
which began a six-day meeting yesterday in Basel, Switzerland. Under the theme
“The Churches’ Contribution to a Sustainable Europe”, groups of lay people,
theologians, scientists, and MEPs from the Greek Orthodox, Protestant and Roman
Catholic Churches are examining issues concerned with sustaining the ecological
base of human life.
www.anglicancommunion.org