Some commentators suggest that the new Calvinism for 2016 and beyond will be belief about, and commitment to, the tenets of climate change. Whoever believes in climate change may be saved. Whoever denies climate change will be cast into outer darkness.
Those of us who are vaguely accepting, but still inclined to take extreme predictions with a pinch of salt – there’s been a lot of climate change throughout history – may have to buck up somewhat.
Yet perhaps a more piquant aspect of this new Calvinism will be observing how many of the preachers put their precepts into action.
After the apparently triumphant conclusion of the recent Paris climate change conference, it became clear that people would soon have to start practising the beliefs they advanced in theory.
That means “lifestyle decisions”, as the jargon has it. Each day, each citizen will have to examine their conscience as how many tonnes of greenhouse gas they have released into the atmosphere. The aspiration is that the world average should be only about two tonnes a year of what they call CO2. Currently, people in the developed countries are emitting about 11 tonnes each per year.
Naughty, naughty. Smack wrist! Anyone who takes more than one aeroplane flight per year, please look suitably ashamed. (Or, otherwise, plant more trees in Kenya to offset the damage.)
Anyone who drives a 4×4 vehicle in any other terrain but rough tundra or frozen steppes needs to don sackcloth and ashes. One environmental expert says that “Vanity is related to carbon intensity”, and the 4×4 in a city street is a prime example of such vanities of vanities.
Drink mineral water imported from overseas? Are you a bad person? Moving bottled water over long distances is highly carbon-intensive.
Are you a farmer with a herd of cattle? Don’t you know that the cow is a wicked offender here? Daisy and Buttercup are releasing unconscionable amounts of methane, which contributes horribly to CO2. If you eat beef, including hamburgers, you’re just as guilty as Daisy and Buttercup – so switch your diet to vegan ASAP.
Oh yes, it’s all very fine and dandy to support environmental endeavours – Pope Francis himself has taken up the cause of saving the planet from self-destruction by pollution and habits that prompt climate change.
But as we have learned in other matters of faith and discipline, abhorring sin is one thing. Pursuing virtue in everyday life is quite another – switching off all electronic gadgets, renouncing power showers, keeping thermostats low in winter – and we can be expected to fall 77 times daily.
We know the form. We’ll feel guilty, but we’ll do many of those things we ought not to, according to climate change orthodoxy, just the same.
However, we can all make some small effort. If we can’t plant a tree, we can hug one. Does that count? The Priests – the singing trio of Northern Irish priests (Fr Martin O’Hagan, his sibling Fr Eugene O’Hagan and Fr Eugene Delargy) – have had a busy year in 2015, with 14 concerts in Ireland, England and Rome, and a tour of the United States involving 10 singing events. They’ve now had four top albums, three-and-a-half million sales, and they’ve just re-signed with Sony BMG.
Yet the trio, who are in their fifties, say they continue their singing career alongside full-time duties in their parishes (in Belfast, Ballyclare and Newtownards respectively). They’re in the globalised music business, but remain theologically conservative – no trendies they – as well as pastorally active.
If they have the time, the inclination and the opportunity, I don’t see why more priests shouldn’t have second careers, just like the Ulster tenors.
I can be a bit “Bah! Humbug!” about the excesses of Christmas festivities – but here’s one innovation that I think has brought joy and goodwill to the season: the social medium Facebook, which often reunites old friends and alleviates much loneliness.
Older people can benefit particularly from Facebook, because connections from long ago pop up on it – though we might need a younger geek to help navigate it at first. But it can certainly add to a warming Christmas spirit.
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