Our Lord has granted us one of the most precious blessings in war. Our enemies are ignorant. They are clever—they have brains, as all human beings do. But imagine a rickety fence against a cannon: that’s our contemporary journalist against Chesterton. Imagine a squirt gun against a battering ram: that’s our contemporary educator against Pope Benedict.

The history of persecution is a history of attempts to cheat nature, to make water run uphill, to twist a rope of sand.

The first motion, on combating climate change, anticipates the global summit that is due to take place in Paris in December. It urges governments to “agree long-term pathways to a low-carbon future” and endorses the World Bank’s call for the ending of fossil-fuel subsidies. It also looks inward, requesting the development of new “eco-theological resources” and encouraging parishes and dioceses to encourage a fast for climate change on the first day of each month.

The second motion, on investments, says that “urgent action to reduce the consumption of fossil fuels” is required... It welcomes the recent disinvestment by the Church’s national investment bodies (NIBs) from oil sands and thermal coal and urges them to “engage ROBUSTLY with companies and policy-makers on the need to act to support the transition to a low-carbon economy”.

For some, the threat of disinvestment did not go far enough. The Revd Hugh Lee wished to amend the motion to threaten disinvestment from oil companies within three years “unless they have committed to ceasing oil exploration and reducing production consistently with limiting the global temperature rise to two degrees celcius”.

Clive Scowen described the threat of disinvestment as “rather peculiar”. He argued that oil companies “like nothing better than be shot of troublesome activist shareholders. It will not leave the boards of BP and Shell quaking in their boots but singing in their bars.”

Labels: Carbon Cult, Emersonian justice

¶ 1:56 AM