A Network of Earthkeeping Christian Communities in South Africa

NECCSA Update: August 2008

A monthly newsletter on Church and Environment in South Africa

 

1. CHURCHES MUST LEAD THE WAY ON REDUCING CARBON EMISSIONS

The iconic image of a floodlit Canterbury Cathedral would be a thing of the past if the Revd Ian James had his way.

 

The Revd Professor Ian James is the environment advisor in the Diocese of  Oxford, and lectures in the Schools of Mathematics, Meteorology and Physics at the University of Reading, and he talked in a self select session at the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion in the United Kingdom on the science of climate change. In his darker moments, he says is very pessimistic about the political and social will to avoid catastrophic climate change, and he would like to see the church leading the way by reducing conspicuous consumption such as floodlit churches. 

"I would like to see us taking a lead in our churches, and being very serious about auditing our carbon emissions," he said. "Certainly such public displays as floodlit churches [are] the worst possible witness we could make to a world using too much energy."

Revd James talked about his disappointment with the British government in policy development on curbing carbon emissions that probably sounds familiar to many around the developed world.

"We were at a point where it seemed the government had finally got the message and was implementing policies to reduce emissions, and suddenly oil prices shot up, and suddenly the government caved in over taxes on petrol."

Climate sceptics add to the lack of action, he said, capitalising on the complexity of climate change research that necessarily produced a variety of predictions.

 

(Extract from article written by Jane Still.)

 

2. ENVIRONMENT AND CLIMATE CHANGE

"…we have been brought together in the small space of this planet, charged with treating its resources responsibly and sharing them justly. And our calling, therefore, is to make that further step to a `covenant of faith' that will promise to our fellow human beings the generosity God has shown us; that will honour the absolute and non-negotiable dignities of all and strengthen us to resist any policy or strategy that implies that what is good and just for me is not good and just for all my human neighbours."

(Extract from the Archbishop of Canterbury Concluding Presidential Address to the Lambeth Conference 2008 in the United Kingdom.)

 

3. BISHOPS HAVE 'NO OPTION' ON CLIMATE CHANGE

 

The church will have to provide the necessary moral argument on tackling climate change, where the arguments of politics and economics have failed, the chair of the Anglican Communion Environment Network (ACEN) said.

 

At a press conference at the Lambeth Conference of the Anglican Communion in the United Kingdom, Bishop of the Diocese of Canberra Goulburn George Browning said that bishops have "no option" but to take up the cause of the environment, "Not because of what the world says, but because it is inherent in our faith".

 

Caring for the whole of God's environment, Bishop Browning said, was "theologically our core business".

"If we are going to make significant progress internationally it will have to come from some moral persuasion – the arguments of economics and politics will not deliver. This is not something that is being heavily driven by any government in the world."

He criticised the political response that financial pressure on people was cited as a reason that they "couldn't afford" to take steps environmentally. "This is so short sighted," Bishop Browning said. "We need to maximise the choices that are available now, and the price we will pay if we don't is so much greater."

 

(By Lambeth Daily staff reporter)

 

4. SOUTH AFRICAN GOVERNMENT'S CABINET AIMS TO LIMIT GLOBAL WARMING TO 2ºC

 

The South African Cabinet has approved an ambitious vision, strategic direction and framework for climate policy. As a developing country, South Africa is stepping up to make a fair and meaningful contribution to solving the challenge of global climate change.

 

For the first time, the South African government has sent a clear signal that its emissions need to peak at the latest by 2020-25, then plateau (level off) for about decade, and decline before mid-century. Its action is guided by the aim of limiting temperature increase to 2ºC. This is unprecedented for a developing country and demonstrates bold leadership. [It is also fully consistent with the findings of the IPCC.]
 

It will be critical for our country to respond by showing leadership and taking on our responsibility. South Africa has left no doubt that it is looking to all developed countries to commit to credible mid-term targets.

In the case of the US, it expects binding national caps to be brought into the multi-lateral negotiations. Only by all agreeing to their respective responsibilities will it be possible to agree a long-term goal, which the planet so urgently needs.
 

The SA government as a whole has indicated that it seeks long-term change, making a major transition from an energy-intensive to a low-carbon economy. Policymakers understand that the country's new competitive advantage will lie in becoming world leaders in climate-friendly technology. Climate change mitigation is seen as a pro-growth, pro-job and pro-development strategy of the future.  

 

The country (SA) clearly understands the first mover advantage in the emerging carbon-constrained global economy.  Re-orientating their domestic strategy in a global economy where carbon-intensity increasingly defines competitive advantage is something that the US misread over the past decade.  

 

The huge opportunities are seen by South Africa to lie not only in the future, but very much in immediate action. Domestic targets will be set for energy efficiency, renewable energy and in the transport sector, to name some. At the national level,
there is a clear move to mandatory domestic action to achieve better results than through voluntary agreements alone. The plan clearly combines the use of government-led regulation and the use of economic instruments.  A government commitment to an escalating price on carbon has been sent to Treasury to consider implementation options.
 

South Africa has signalled that it is serious about negotiating on climate change. All developed countries, including the United States will need to send a signal at least as strong.  

 

(Report by Harald Winkler, Associate Professor at the Energy Research Centre, UCT. He was the team leader for the technical work underpinning the long-term mitigation scenarios (LTMS), a  SA cabinet initiated Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism research-based process involving stakeholders. He comments in his personal capacity.)

 

5. GOD IS ECO-CENTRIC

 

Traditionally our Christian theology has been anthropocentric – that is, being human centred, giving the impression that God is concerned only about us humans and our salvation.  We need to discover that God is Ecocentric. In other words, God is concerned about all of creation and we must realize that we are part of creation.

 

Consider just a few passages from the Bible – "God so loved the World" that well known passage from John.  It says "the world", not just us humans. At the end of the creation story in Genesis we read "God saw all that he had made, and it was very good."  All of it was very good, not just you and me.  And of course remember the opening words of the Bible In the beginning, God created..

 

Now I don't want to depress you, but God's creation, our home, is in a very sorry state.  The position is serious, far more serious than other issues that the media focus on. The good news is that we can all – each one of us – do something about it. It depends on our attitude and our lifestyle. 

 

There are many seemingly insignificant ways we can help. It is all a matter of changing our outlook. 

We have to have a radical change in our economic system so that our economics take into account the poor and the natural environment.  For that we need principles.  It is not good enough to say "Oh, we can make a profit out of this."  We have to establish just and equitable ecological economics if we want peace.   God provides for our needs, not our greed.  It is iniquitous that 20% of the world's population controls 85% of its wealth, while others, as I know from Cape Town, are without clean water and sanitation. 

 

It can be done.  Britain abolished the slave trade. South Africa abolished apartheid before a holocaust or conflagration. Will the rich and the powerful of the world seek justice for all – people and environment - before we have total environmental collapse or become a fortress planet?

 

But we can't do this in our own power.  We heard in last Sunday's reading that "We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time."  (Romans 8:22). In the face of the huge challenges facing us, we must acknowledge our weakness, and then – as we heard in Romans today – the Spirit helps us.

 

(An extract of Anglican Bishop Geoff Davies's sermon delivered at the Anglican Communion Lambeth Conference Environment Weekend on July 27, 2008 in the United Kingdom.)

 

6. AFRICAN CENTRE FOR BIOSAFETY PETITIONS AGAINST GM POTATOES

 

South Africa's Agriculture and Research Council (ARC) has announced their intention to apply to the SA government for permission to make Genetically Modified (GM) potatoes commercially available. The African Centre for Biosafety is calling on consumers and importers of potatoes to sign a petition that opposes the marketing and growing of GMO potatoes and implores the SA GMO council to reject the application outright, on the following grounds:

 

Health Concerns

There is no consumer confidence in the long-term safety of GM potatoes and they pose no benefit to the consumer. Problems with Bt genes that have been commercialised in the past have included immune reactions, impacts on organ weight and function and allergic reactions.

 

Additionally, the use of antibiotic resistant marker genes poses an unacceptable risk to the health of Africans. There is a possibility that the use of these genes could diminish the efficacy of antibiotics such as Kanamycin, a drug that is listed in the WHO Essential Medicines Library as a drug reserved for treating multi-drug resistant tuberculosis.

There is no reason for consumers to take the risk of eating a novel food for the sake of storage requirements for farmers.

 

Force-feeding fellow Africans with dangerous food

ARC's GM potato work is funded by USAID, which is well known for their tactics to push US corporate interests in GM in Africa. They are up front about their goal to "integrate GM into local food systems" through their Agricultural Biotechnology Support Project (ABSP). Ninety percent of South Africa export potato crop goes to its neighbours in SADC, where many have imposed bans or biosafety restrictions on GM food. ARC's GM potatoes will force feed fellow Africans with food that they have neither asked for nor have a say in.

 

GM Potatoes won't help African farmers

GM potatoes are located within the "Green Revolution" package for Africa that proffers technical and economic solutions for African agriculture. These solutions, designed by transnational agribusiness, create dependence on hi-tech, capital-intensive technology that is inappropriate for small-scale farmers. Public research money would be better used on enhancing more appropriate agricultural systems that ensure local food security, adaptability to changing climates and local control over resources.

African farmers face the loss of their markets and control over their farming systems if South Africa paves the way for the introduction of GM potatoes onto the continent.

 

Biosafety Concerns

The developers claim that GM potatoes are better for our health & the environment because they reduce pesticide spraying, but this is not true. GM potatoes are engineered with an inbuilt pesticide to control the tuber moth, which is most destructive during storage. The pesticide is now inside the plant and farmers will still use a toxic cocktail of chemicals to combat all the other 99 pests, as well as viral, fungal & bacterial diseases, and weeds that plague potato farming in South Africa.

Furthermore because the Bt toxin is expressed 24 hours a day, it accumulates in the environment and throughout the food chain. The tuber moth will quickly develop resistance to the toxin, so this is a short-term and short-sighted solution to this problem.

Go to their website for more information on the petition: http://www.biosafetyafrica.net/

 

Notes:

Distributed by EM Conradie 29/08/2008