St Luke's Church

Kath’s Story

Peter’s Story

I wrote a summary of the book, to raise interest levels and promote the book within the congregation of my church, to help fill the information void during the October XR protests. I then sent a dozen of targeted emails to people who had influence. Let me tell you about some of those emails.

The first email was to the CEO of the corporation I was working at the time. To my delight, he accepted the prompt / challenge to read There is No Planet B. That was easy. The company has over 60,000 employees and strong links to government and big business – that’s some influence!

Encouraged by that success, my second email was to the street newspaper The Big Issue. Not only was my letter published, it took up most of the page as the ‘star letter’ and a large picture of the world and the title “The Good Book”. That was also easy.

I then started an email dialogue with our member of parliament, who promised to the read my summary of Mike’s book. I later bought and posted a copy of the book, so the MP had no excuses. They had to read it!

Another email was to a contact I had within Spring Harvest. That led to an invitation to speak at their annual conference, to offer examples of how churches could respond to the crisis. Another email success.

Spurred on by the lack of knowledge and engagement within churches, I worked with Kath to set-up Hope in Action – a network of local Christians who were keen to raise environmental awareness within their churches (and neighbouring churches). The fruits of that work can be seen on this website.

Never underestimate the power of targeted correspondence, support material and how God can use this for his purpose. We don’t all have to take to streets in order to make a difference.

Nigel’s Story

One Monday in October, Nigel sat on the road in Trafalgar Square in defence of a scaffolding tower which Extinction Rebellion members had erected, climbed and then superglued themselves to. The police moved in, and he was arrested.

The protesters were following the example of Greta Thunberg and the school strikes in asking the government to act urgently to save the planet from irreversible climate change.

Far from being one of the “crusties” dismissed by Boris Johnson, Nigel is a scientist and CEO of a company which coordinates recycling. “Frankly, I’m scared, and we do need to take these stands. In David Attenborough’s BBC documentary Climate Change – the Facts from April 2019 he says:

…the scientific evidence is that if we have not taken dramatic action within the next decade, we could face irreversible damage to the natural world and the collapse of our societies. (Societies collapse through food riots, mass migrations etc). In short, this dramatic action means moving very quickly, far faster than we are now, away from fossil fuels towards renewable energy sources.

“Extinction Rebellion follows the models of the Suffragettes and the American Civil Rights Movement led by Martin Luther King. We use peaceful civil disobedience to disrupt “business as usual” as a way of driving fundamental change. For me, that’s meant personal sacrifice, leading to my arrest. One day I hope to have grandchildren. When they ask me whether I did anything to prevent this crisis, I’ll have some sort of answer for them.”

Tess and her student strikers

As a teacher and parent, I know just how passionate children are about the environment. Once they have been informed about the climate crisis and how it is leading to the destruction of natural habitats and even societies, young people are incredibly concerned for the future of the environment and for the security and wellbeing of future generations- this is their future, after all!

Schools are doing a lot of good work in teaching children about the threat of climate change and how to live a more sustainable lifestyle, with eco-committees made up of children who give up their break-times to raise awareness amongst their fellow students. However, it is at home that parents can really teach and inspire their children how to live differently and ‘tread lightly upon the earth’ God has given us.

In September 2021, my daughters chose to take part in the school climate strikes after hearing about these from a teenager in church. They wrote their own letters to their Head teacher setting out their reasons for wanting to take part. Afterwards, they took their banners into school and spoke to their classmates about why they had chosen to take part in the climate strike.

It is very difficult for children growing up in a society where materialism and consumerism are valued so highly. However, for us as a family it is all about making small lifestyle changes and constantly looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint - there are always ways that we could improve and live a more sustainable lifestyle. We try really hard to walk and cycle rather than using the car, we recycle everything we can (we’ve recently found local outlets for recycling old pens and crisp packets), shop in charity shops for our books, and shop in local sustainable businesses such as ‘The Refill Pantry’. The girls now see it as normal to wrap up presents in re-used paper or second-hand scarves and enjoy thinking of new ways to reduce, re-use or recycle. We even made up our own acronym to make us think twice whenever we want to buy something new:

Do we really Need it? Can we Afford it? Was it Sustainably produced? Will I Always use this item? Will it Last a long time? (=NASAL!)

Long-term, it is important to help children to see that all of our actions and choices have an impact on others. By giving constant reminders when we are shopping to look out for Fairtrade items and British-grown fruit and vegetables and by talking openly about issues such as modern slavery in food production, I hope that I have given the girls an understanding that we are all part of an interlinked global society. Our children are the future, so parents, churches and schools need to give them the knowledge, tools and strength that they will need to prevent the approaching environmental catastrophe.

‘I wanted to take part in the school climate strikes to be a part of the protests and make it count. I try to help the environment in ways like trying to stop eating red meat. I put any leftover food in the food compost bin. Some people drop litter, but I take it home and recycle it. It is important to take care of our environment because this is our world. God gave it to us and it doesn’t seem right to destroy it.’ Anna, age 8

‘The environment is not temporary - it’s something that should be here forever and for everybody. God made humans to look after wildlife and to help bring balance and justice to the world, but we have not done that. That’s why we need to save our planet. In our school, we try to be really ‘eco’ and we have reduced our food waste, and we have an allotment to grow our own vegetables. We got our Green Flag Award because we have been working so hard to save the earth.’ Maddie, age 11

Philip’s Story

Since then I’ve attended many restart parties, mainly around North London but some a little further afield such as Essex, Cambridge and Bedford. The satisfaction has been far from just that of taking things apart and fixing some of them, but the delight on someone’s face when their treasured possession comes back to life is a joy to behold and the pleasure of sharing my knowledge and skills both with members of the public and pooling them with other restarters has been very rewarding. And then there’s the satisfaction of saving a few kilogrammes from landfill and stemming the CO2 emissions incurred by the manufacture of endless replacement devices.

Though my primary interest is in fixing I greatly welcomed the opportunity to join with St Luke’s Church, St Albans in organising and recruiting fixers for an electrical and electronic repair stream at their Upcycle and Repair event during SustFest 2019. The “fixometer”, a tool developed by the Restart Project, gave an estimate of 38kg of waste prevented and 200kg of CO2 emissions averted. In 2020 we were set to repeat it and run a second event in Harpenden but unfortunately the pandemic has made that impossible. Nevertheless I detect a powerful groundswell of interest in running repair events locally and look forward to helping organise them as soon as we return to normality.