Rowan Williams shows us the way to become fully human:

People should use the climate change crisis as an opportunity to become human again, setting aside the addictive and self-destructive behaviour that has damaged their souls, the Archbishop of Canterbury said today.

Dr Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England and leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, told an audience at Southwark Cathedral that people had allowed themselves to become “addicted to fantasies about prosperity and growth, dreams of wealth without risk and profit without cost”.

The consequences of such a lifestyle meant the human soul was “one of the foremost casualties of environmental degradation”.

Small changes, such as setting up carbon reduction action groups, would help them reconnect with the world in addition to repairing some of the damage to the planet, because it was too much to expect the state to provide all the solutions.

It’s such a relief to realise that when Jesus said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery,  coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” – Mark 7:20ff, he got it all wrong. It’s taken 2000 years for a bearded Welsh Archbishop to get to the root of things: what defiles us comes from the outside and it’s all tied in with carbon.

I’m going to turn the lights out, set fire to a scented candle and form a carbon reduction action group – phooey to suppressing all that theft, murder and adultery stuff – this is much easier. I’m reconnecting with the world; I feel more human already.