EATING for £1 a day may seem like a drop in the ocean when faced
with a warning that "the earth's life-support systems are now being
stretched to breaking point", but the new message from Tearfund is
that it will be changes made by "ordinary heroes" that will change
the world.
A new report from Tearfund, The Restorative Economy:
Completing our unfinished millennium jubilee, warns that
economic growth is threatening global estability: "Many of us are
using far more than our fair share of water, land, energy, and
other resources, sometimes pricing poor people out of the
market."
It argues that, at present, "too much inertia carries us along
our current path." What is needed, the charity says, is a movement
of "ordinary heroes", creating a "restorative economy" that will
involve sacrifice.
Suggested changes include consuming less, giving more - "giving
away all income above the level that we actually need" - and using
renewable energy.
The report was launched a fortnight ago by the Bishop of London,
the Rt Revd Richard Chartres. "We live in a century of mingled
promise and peril," he said. "The decisions we take now, and the
way we live now, will have an impact on our children, and on
generations to come - for good or ill. The scars visible on the
earth are the accumulating signs of a world in crisis - conflict,
corruption, climate change. Yet, with these crises, we have made
the mistake of concentrating only on short-term issues."
"It's been a good opportunity to do life slightly differently,"
one mother, Kate Sopwith, said last Friday. Her children, aged
five, eight, and 11, have also learned about people around the
world through a booklet, 40 Days 40 Bites: A family guide to
pray for the world (CF4K, 2014). She feels that this is
"opening their horizons. . . making a link between a small
sacrifice, and the impact it is having."