Anglican Samizdat

According to the Anglican Journal, we haven’t been doing enough to look after the insect population – or, as I expect it will soon be called, the Insect Community.

Since there 900,000 varieties of insect representing 80 percent of the world’s species and around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 individual insects currently roaming the planet, it seems to me that they are managing quite well without our help.

In fact, there are too many insects by far; insectophobia be damned, it’s time stock up on Raid and indulge in a little insect cleansing.

The Anglican Communion’s fifth mark of mission urges us to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth and all its forms. This is an issue that greatly concerns Dr. Stephen Scharper, an associate professor in the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Environment, department of the study of religion and department of anthropology.

In his promotion of planetary stewardship, the Connecticut-born expert in ecological theology often goes back to U.S. marine biologist Rachel Carson and her landmark 1962 book, Silent Spring. “This was a turning point in the environmental movement,” he says. Carson challenged the modern world’s domineering approach to nature and humankind’s need to control everything in it, especially insects, with increasingly potent chemicals.

‘This was a question of worldview as much as a question of science and data,” says Scharper. “What Carson helped people see was that this world view was at odds with the growing ecological understanding of integration and webs of relationships…” In other words, we must respect even with the creepers and crawlers of the earth.

[…]

Scharper, however, sees Carson’s wakeup call as an invitation to the Christian imagination and community to embrace this worldview of integration with creation and a refusal to adopt a view of control and capitalistic exploitation. “The invitation is to reflect on a larger Christian worldview that embraces creation in a radical relationship,” he says.

Pontificate on oil pipelines:

From here:

Six Anglican bishops from across British Columbia and Yukon came together on Good Friday in a call for the environ-mental review hearings on the proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to remain fair and free from political pressure.

“There’s some concern that the decision’s already been made and that the review process is just a rubber stamp,” said Bishop Michael Ingham, of the Diocese of New West-minster. “I think what we’re trying to do is call upon the panel itself to resist pressure – political pressure, industry pressure – and to come to a fair, balanced and thorough set of recommendations.”

Ingham signed the statement, which he said was prompted by bishops being inundated with concern for the process from members of their dioceses.

Rather than build a pipeline in Canada, I am quite sure that the six bishops would prefer oil revenues continue to flow to Middle Eastern countries who subjugate women, hang homosexuals and persecute Christians – much less environmental damage.

Rowan Williams and sundry lesser clerics have decided that Ash Wednesday is really all about condemning consumerism and fossil fuels. Let’s hope the ashes they use are not the product of a carbon spewing conflagration.

From here:

Rt Hon Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury; Rt Rev Richard Chartres, Bishop of London; Most Rev Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales; Cardinal Keith O’Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh and leaders of the Methodist, Baptist and URC churches are among those signing Operation Noah’s Ash Wednesday Declaration.

[....]

“Traditionally, Christians commit themselves to repentance and renewed faith in Jesus Christ on Ash Wednesday,” said David Atkinson, Assistant Bishop in the Diocese of Southwark. “We must live out that faith in relation to our damaging consumer economy, over-dependence on fossil fuels and the devastation we, as a species, are inflicting on God’s world. We believe that responsible care for God’s creation is foundational to the Gospel and central to the Church’s mission.”

Henry Juszkiewicz, Chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar responds to the raid by armed federal agents looking for illegal wood.

The whole thing is well worth watching as the lunacy escalates:

From here:

Federal agents swooped in on Gibson Guitar Wednesday, raiding factories and offices in Memphis and Nashville, seizing several pallets of wood, electronic files and guitars. The Feds are keeping mum, but in a statement yesterday Gibson’s chairman and CEO, Henry Juszkiewicz, defended his company’s manufacturing policies, accusing the Justice Department of bullying the company. “The wood the government seized Wednesday is from a Forest Stewardship Council certified supplier,” he said, suggesting the Feds are using the aggressive enforcement of overly broad laws to make the company cry uncle.

[….]

t isn’t just Gibson that is sweating. Musicians who play vintage guitars and other instruments made of environmentally protected materials are worried the authorities may be coming for them next.

If you are the lucky owner of a 1920s Martin guitar, it may well be made, in part, of Brazilian rosewood. Cross an international border with an instrument made of that now-restricted wood, and you better have correct and complete documentation proving the age of the instrument. Otherwise, you could lose it to a zealous customs agent—not to mention face fines and prosecution.

John Thomas, a law professor at Quinnipiac University and a blues and ragtime guitarist, says “there’s a lot of anxiety, and it’s well justified.” Once upon a time, he would have taken one of his vintage guitars on his travels. Now, “I don’t go out of the country with a wooden guitar.”

I have nothing to worry about because all my guitars are made out of plywood and plastic, but this chap has a vintage Martin D35 that I’m sure has Brazilian rosewood on its back and sides. He is a mate of mine called Brian Ruttan; I can supply his address to any interested federal agents.

From here:

United Nations diplomats on Wednesday will set aside pressing issues of international peace and security to devote an entire day debating the rights of “Mother Earth.”

A bloc of mostly socialist governments lead by Bolivia have put the issue on the General Assembly agenda to discuss the creation of a U.N. treaty that would grant the same rights found in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to Mother Nature.

Treaty supporters want the establishment of legal systems to maintain balance between human rights and what they perceive as the inalienable rights of other members of the Earth community — plants, animals, and terrain.

This sheds a whole new light on the sticks of asparagus whose rights I trampled by thoughtlessly ingesting them for lunch.

What, one wonders, is this really all about? Read on:

Communities and environmental activists would be given more legal power to monitor and control industries and development to ensure harmony between humans and nature. Though the United States and other Western governments are supportive of sustainable development, some see the upcoming event, “Harmony with Nature,” as political grandstanding — an attempt to blame environmental degradation and climate change on capitalism.

How unusual! A loose consortium of despot infested banana republics wants to take pot-shots at Western capitalism.

The mad hatters in the Anglican Church are playing their part too, of course.

From here:

Earth may be on the brink of a sixth mass extinction on the scale of the apocalyptic event that wiped out the dinosaurs, a study claims.

The researchers say that unless action is taken now to reverse the harmful effects of human activity on eco-systems, a full-blown mass extinction could occur within a few centuries.

Recovery from such an event, which could eradicate more than three-quarters of all life on Earth, may then take millions of years…………………………

Scientists believe humans are causing the sixth mass extinction by fragmenting habitats, introducing non-native species, spreading diseases, killing species, and changing the climate.

But Professor Barnosky said it was not too late to prevent the loss of species reach an extinction ‘tipping point’.

‘So far, only 1 per cent to 2 per cent of all species have gone extinct in the groups we can look at clearly, so by those numbers, it looks like we are not far down the road to extinction. We still have a lot of Earth’s biota to save.

‘It’s very important to devote resources and legislation toward species conservation if we don’t want to be the species whose activity caused a mass extinction.’

Obviously Professor Barnosky is not offering a scientific opinion when he says it’s “very important to devote resources and legislation toward species conservation”.  Scientifically, it’s no more important that a species lives than it dies; science merely observes what happens. A theist might lament that God’s creation is being decimated but would have confidence that God is able to look after his creation in spite of man’s determination to muck it up. Professor Barnosky is probably not a theist, so he should stick to science and keep his value judgements to himself.

From here:

The Partners in Mission and the Ecojustice of General Synod invites you to become green leaders in the Church through the renewal of spirit, community, and creation, and by taking practical steps to green your church building.

This means that ACoC parishes will be installing low-flow toilets resulting in a physical stink to match the spiritual one. It’s called Ecojustice.

San Francisco’s big push for low-flow toilets has turned into a multimillion-dollar plumbing stink.

Skimping on toilet water has resulted in more sludge backing up inside the sewer pipes, said Tyrone Jue, spokesman for the city Public Utilities Commission. That has created a rotten-egg stench near AT&T Park and elsewhere, especially during the dry summer months.