Spring arrives in the UK somewhat early...

In the last week of January I picked up a bumble bee that had flown into the kitchen because we had the doors and windows open and a friend of ours found two Ladybirds on his window ledge... this is the UK in January, mid-winter!

Despite wintry blizzards across northern England and the Midlands, January was much warmer than normal. The Met Office said this January's UK average temperature was 5.3degrees Celsius (41.54 Fahrenheit) -- almost 2 degrees warmer than the 30-year January average of 3.4 Celsius (38.12F).

Just before Christmas, nest-building rooks were hard at work in the southwest, Oxfordshire and Surrey. Frogspawn was spotted on Christmas Eve in Penzance, Cornwall and tadpoles a month later in neighbouring Devon. Our farmer friend could not put his horse out to graze in December because the new growth of grass was too rich and now, in our garden, Les and Lucy the two ringed doves that have 'adopted' us, have been eyeing each other up with an interest not usually seen until late March!

"Our notion of what spring means and what happens in spring is changing. Nature is beginning to respond to a warmer climate, and We believe global warming is the biggest potential threat to native woodland," said Dr Kate Lewthwaite, the Woodland Trust's Nature Calendar Manager. As if to confirm this changed notion as I walked out of Church last week, a member of the congregation sniffed the air and said "I do love spring, it's my favourite time of year."

Mankind's effect on creation through Global Warming, (I much prefer the more accurate description 'Climate Chaos') is as real as mankinds effect by Genetic Modification on God's gift of the "Seed bearing plants" given to us in Genesis 1:29.

Throughout the world the seasons of the year have been turned into a chaotic jumble, but God's creation depends on the order that is evident throughout Genesis. For example in spring the length of the days govern the time when the Swallows arrive in the UK from Africa, but when they arrive, the insects they need to feed on have already flown and are into their breeding cycle as their life cycles are governed by the warmer days, so resulting in less Swallows and more insects. It seems that in the UK we no longer have 'seasons,' we just have 'weather'.

We are told in Genesis that we are to "Rule" over creation, but Jesus showed us through His example how we should realise that duty of rulership and that example has been largely ignored.

Humans now rival nature's forces.

Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist who first proposed the term Anthropocene four years ago, wrote "Scientists are beginning to accept that Earth has entered a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene, so named because humans have come to rival nature in their impact on the global environment. The EuroScience forum in Stockholm heard on Thursday that climate change was the most obvious of a complex range of man-made effects that is rapidly changing the physics, chemistry and biology of the planet."

Now we hear again from another set of scientists whose research backs Crutzen’s thesis. The study conducted by Jan Zalasiewicz and Mark Williams of the University of Leicester and colleagues at the Geological Society of London shows evidence of disruptions to the planet’s carbon cycles, sediment patterns, and animal and plant populations because of human economies and population growth. Among the major changes heralding this two-century-old man-made epoch: Vastly altered sediment erosion and deposition patterns. Major disturbances to the carbon cycle and global temperature. Wholesale changes in biology, from altered flowering times to new migration patterns. Acidification of the ocean, which threatens tiny marine life that forms the bottom of the food chain.

Mankind was created to tend the garden, to serve the earth and so we have to start recreating our human way of life, our human economies, with the goal in mind of restoring as quickly as possible our humble place within the balance of God's creation before Hildegarde of Bingham's prophecy on this blog's heading becomes reality.

How little time God's creation may have...

Palestinians walk amongst greenhouses damaged on Thursday January 31st in a snowstorm in the West Bank city of Hebron.

Agricultural problems caused by global warming in the next two decades could be most damaging in southern Africa, India and Pakistan, according to researchers who urge action now to avert a wave of hunger.

Many scientists have predicted that climate change could harm agriculture in many places, fueling hunger and malnutrition. These researchers examined climate predictions and the types of crops grown in various developing regions to assess which ones would be hit hardest by 2030.

Writing on Thursday in the journal 'Science', the researchers said the nations of southern Africa -- Angola, Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe -- could lose about 30 percent of their main crop of maize.

Agricultural losses also could be significant in the South Asia region encompassing India, Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka, with a drop-off of at least 5 percent in many regional staples, including millet, maize and rice, the researchers said.

"We still have time to avoid these impacts, but we don't have much time," said David Lobell of the Program on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University in California. He added "It's certainly our hope not to scare people, but to show them that there is some basis for focusing efforts and trying to get things done in a relatively speedy time frame."

The researchers projected how global warming would affect agriculture in 12 developing regions worldwide, looking at local climate projections and at the sensitivity of key local crops to warming temperatures and rainfall changes. They determined that average temperatures in most of the regions could rise by 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit (1 degree C) by 2030.

"We were surprised by how much and how soon these regions could suffer if we don't adapt," Marshall Burke, another Stanford scientist involved in the study, said in a statement.

So what's Ecological Overshoot?

It's a a simple concept. If in one year we cut down trees faster than they can grow, fish the rivers, seas and oceans of fish stock faster then they can be replenished and generate more waste than the earth can absorb in the same year, then we have overshot that years target.

In 1987 ecological Overshoot was at the end of December, in 2007 it was at the beginning of October so at the moment we are using up the Earth's resources 30% faster than the Earth can possibly regenerate. Forget about nuclear power or biodiesel being the answer to our problems, the Earth resources are being liquidated and we are selling the family silver in order to pay for our standard of living.

Like the debt crisis we see today in the sub prime market and credit card problems, one day the bankruptcy of God's creation will surely follow.

Holocaust Memorial Day

Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) is commemorated on 27th January each year. This marks the anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.

HMD aims to commemorate, to educate and to prompt action in the UK. HMD commemorates the lives of those lost in the Holocaust; as a result of Nazi persecution and in more recent genocides. It educates about the Holocaust and it lessons for the present day. It prompts action in the UK highlighting the continuing dangers of racism, anti-semitism and all forms of discrimination.

The tragedies of Cambodia, Bosnia, Rwanda and Darfur teaches that the international community, and each of us as citizens, has not truly understood the lessons of the Holocaust. There are surely times when it is possible for environmentalists, in their understandable environmental concerns, to overlook the fact that protecting God's creation means protecting the highest order of His creation, the human being.

Ultimately the aim of HMD is to motivate people individually and collectively, to ensure that the horrendous crimes, racism and victimisation committed not only in the Holocaust, but also in more recent genocides, are neither forgotten nor repeated, whether in Europe or elsewhere in the world.

A Christian's Concern...

"The Christian's concern should never only be for the Church and for God's future kingdom, but also for natural life and the world. Our concern should include good government, equal opportunity, justice, values that ennoble the human person, as well as concerns for our environment and the world's resources. These concerns are not secular. Rather they are deeply spiritual, for without a sustainable world and cultural values based on freedom and justice, the message of God's love revealed in Jesus Christ would fall into a vacuum".

Dietrich Bonhoeffer - Ethics

Peak Oil - Imposed by Nature

This is something that will effect us all, and sooner than we think. This film, produced by Amund Prestegard and recommended by Dr. Colin Campbell, 'Peak Oil - Imposed by Nature' is an excellent 4 minute introduction to the causes and consequences of the terminal decline of global oil production as we reach the global Peak, which is now. This is a preview of that documentary. In the documentary retired world experienced geologist Dr. Colin Campbell, founder of ASPO, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil, explains the aspects of oil discovery, the production increase and the subsequent decline on a local as well as on a world scale. Peak oil is a fact that the majority wish to ignore, it will not go away and there are no quick fixes but the sooner we grasp that fact and act on it then the better are our chances and the better are the chances for the poor, the exploited and the hungry.

The "servant" of the ground...

... despite the popular translation in Genesis C2v15 being 'till' [the earth] the usual meaning of the Hebrew word used here is serve [the earth.] In this way we reflect the position of Jesus, God in human form, who had dominion over us and yet came to serve us. God the creator is the soverign over creation, our environment. His creation, our environment exists to reveal Himself to us and to damage the environment is to damage creation and so prevent it from carrying out the reason for its existence.