Dear Editor,
How to respond to David Robertson’s ‘Letter from Australia’? (en August 2022)
Firstly, why does a gospel worker use the language of young people being ‘spoon-fed green doctrines’ as a complaint? Friends and I have poured our hearts into ‘spoon-feeding Bible doctrines’ to toddlers. We shared stories, and taught them that ‘God always keeps His promises’. Surely, whether teaching is helpful or harmful depends not on the maturity of the students, but on whether it is true?
Climate change is true, and speeding up (https://www.ipcc.ch/reports/). The poor will suffer the most. Yes, we must mitigate the awful effects of rising energy and commodity prices, but not at the cost of worse disasters in future.
God always keeps His promises. He prepares us for woe, distress and persecution – but promises that whoever stands firm to the end will be saved (Matt. 24:13). Don’t be afraid of shutting down coal plants. Mitigate climate change wherever we can, and prepare, practically and spiritually. Let’s be grateful if we live peaceful and quiet lives now, and trust God with wherever He takes us next.
Yours sincerely,
Anna Bickerstaffe Cambridge
Dear Editor,
The recent short piece by Simon Marsh (‘To fly or not to fly’ August en) raises an important question, but I feel fails to make the now-desperately important case for serious action on the climate and ecological crises.
A ‘wartime’ analogy with ‘Is your journey necessary?’ is hardly strong enough: simply, ‘Do not fly’ if you care for creation. If you disagree, provide serious, compelling reasons why the journey is necessary and why it must be by air.
Air travel is far worse than any other transport mode as regards its emissions and climate damage. Air-travel industry publicity about technological improvements and ‘net-zero-carbon’ flying are future aspirations and, frankly, smokescreens.
Mass-market cheap air travel, around Europe and further afield, hugely underprices its true impact on the environment and attracts thousands if not millions of unnecessary journeys every year. If the real cost of the damage to creation were priced in, most would not fly; but our market economics drives us in an opposite, ungodly, direction.
As believers, we should guard and protect the world in which we are placed by our Creator and Lord, as per Genesis 1 and 2 (and much more Scripture!). Flying does the opposite.
Yours sincerely,
Colin McCulloch Sheffield
