Christian Aid Cut the Carbon march in Leeds Photo: Christian Aid/Graham Lindley
As the 80th day of the Cut the Carbon march draws near, the motley crew of marchers have been feeling a mixture of emotions. Joyous excitement at the prospect of reaching London for the final mile and rally tomorrow, 2nd October, sadness about the prospect of hanging our boots up and saying goodbye to one another and some feeling between relief and disbelief that we really have really walked more than1, 000 miles around the UK.
I think it is fair to say that we are all looking forward to returning to friends, family, job and life in which the query 'how are your feet?" is asked with slightly less frequency. Yet perhaps the biggest question for me is the nagging feeling that after all these days I have still not found a comprehensive answer to the question: how can a carbon cut of at least 80% by 2050 be achieved?
The other evening a man asked us what our vision of life in this country 40 years into the future is: will we all be generating our own electricity; growing our own food; driving super duper, efficient electric vehicles? Flummoxed for a moment, I began by saying that it is important that everyone has the opportunity to contribute to creating a collective vision, and feels involved in the effort of moving to a lower carbon society, whatever their occupation and skills. There may be many possible ways of reaching it. But there is no getting away from the pressing need for us to stop taking more than our fair share of the earth's resources by wasting less and consuming fewer material things in the first place.
We also need a whole lot of hope and positive energy to overcome the feeling of powerlessness that we often feel when confronted with such a massive global crisis. This can be infectious. When communities start working together to become more sustainable, others who come into contact with them are insipred to take more action themselves. When one industrialised country gets serious about cutting the carbon through investment in renewable energy and passing legislation making emissions reporting mandatory, it would not only become cheaper and easier for people to shrink their carbon footprint, it would also encourage other wealthy nations to do the same. Now is a critical time due to the coming UN Conference in Bali.
It is very easy to become despondent when faced with so much scepticism and ignorance about tackling climate change, and the past couple of months marching have revealed to me that there is still plenty around. But the other day in a moment of despair, we arrived at a church for an afternoon break, and as has happened all through our journey, were greeted by bells, smiles and a fantastic array of teas and cakes.
Someone commented after my last blog that there was no place for faith communities in the climate change debate. I thoroughly disgree. With the passion, care and committment to justice that most of these groups have, I've learnt that their place in the movement to a greener world is absolutley indispensable.
