The Moderator of the United Church of Canada has written this lament on the dismal failure of the climate conference. It cheered me up immensely:
An open letter to all Canadians from the Moderator of The United Church of Canada.
This letter was born in Copenhagen where, heartbroken, I watched the international climate talks fall apart.
Heartbroken because it was clear to me, as it was to many of you, that the talks in Copenhagen needed to succeed, that it is no longer safe for us to go on as we have before.
I believe this is a unique time in humanity’s fretful reign on Earth, a rare moment that will have historic significance.
And yet the Copenhagen talks failed. We have no plan to reduce deadly emissions of carbon dioxide. Emissions that are a symptom of our broken relationship with the web of life.
I don’t remember ever having a relationship with the web of life let alone breaking it; still, if I do discover it, I’ll be sure to emit copiously all over it to ensure that we become disentangled at its earliest convenience.
Just a small point, but the Moderator’s “humanity’s fretful reign on Earth” seems to me rather to echo the secularist/”Humanist” idea of humanity being an accidental product of nature, one inhabitant among many, etc., rather than the authentic Judeo/Christian idea that the world/earth was made specifically for man’s habitation, as the creator wanted companions, who needed a place to live. I would agree with him that we don’t have the right to trash the place, but equally, that we, not it, is what matters, because God has said so. No, I don’t want a “relationship” with the “web of life” (whatever that is) either.