March 29, 8:30-9:30 was Earth Hour; we were all supposed to turn our lights out. To the great disappointment of the Diocese of Toronto’s bishop, most of the lights stayed on. He used his conveniently operational computer, phone or tablet, running on fossil fuel produced electricity, to tweet his anguish:
As environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg is only too happy to point out, Earth Hour is worse than an empty gesture encouraged by gullible clerics who can find nothing better to believe in; it does the opposite of what it purports to achieve.
As the United Kingdom’s National Grid operators have found, a small decline in electricity consumption does not translate into less energy being pumped into the grid, and therefore will not reduce emissions. Moreover, during Earth Hour, any significant drop in electricity demand will entail a reduction in CO2 emissions during the hour, but it will be offset by the surge from firing up coal or gas stations to restore electricity supplies afterward.
And the cozy candles that many participants will light, which seem so natural and environmentally friendly, are still fossil fuels—and almost 100 times less efficient than incandescent light bulbs. Using one candle for each switched-off bulb cancels out even the theoretical CO2 reduction; using two candles means that you emit more CO2.
Creation care. Caring for God’s creation in light of imargo dei, living out our role as stewards. I am a member of ANiC and I am direly surprised to learn that the conservative side of the Anglican Church in Canada is rather opposed to any form of responsible stewardship of God’s created earth for fear of being aligned with secular environmentalism (or so it seems, so far from these comments). Does anyone hold a more biblical position within ANiC? Any hands raised out there for an understanding of the Noahic covenant as found in Genesis?
As a died in the wool conservative, I am a good recycler.
What I am not is a worshiper of trendy social media pap that seeks to remove God from creation and substitute “creation care” for the Apostles’ creed.
Apologies for the typo (dyed). I am moribund, not dead.
I know what the Noahic covenant is but I am curious what you perceive it to be. Also we must remember “They deliberately ignore the fact that the heavens existed of old and earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God; through these the world that then existed was destroyed, deluged with water. The present heavens and earth have been reserved by the same word for fire, kept for the day of judgment and of destruction of the godless” this does not nullify our stewardship of Gods creation but puts it into perspective
ps. its “imago dei”
I would submit that whenever I have heard anything within by own ACoC Parish about anything environmental (such as Earth hour) God is virtually always left out. It comes across rather strongly that God has been replaced by Mother Nature. And I think that is the issue that many of us have.
Also, the Priest at my local ACoC Parish has said that you do not need to be a Christian in order to get into Heaven, but only need to try to live your life in accordance with the teachings of Jesus. But to me this is completely opposite to Article XII and XIII.
Jeremy,
You subscribe to the Hollywood interpretation, it seems:
Well I’m glad there is some sense of biblical stewardship present within ANiC. I agree that where caring for Creation is put above the Creator, there is a problem. This may be the case with many ACoC’ers and other mainline Protestants who’ve taken the Gospel to mean more to do with social justice than heart-change. But, let’s be careful here not to assume motives and disparage those caring for God’s Creation, as we’ve been designated, if that is indeed what they are doing.
When The Light of The World is turned on again at St. James’,
then will the already darkened City turn out its lights.