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Barnes in Commonthe magazine of Churches Together in Barnes
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Letter to the Editors of BiCThe July/August edition of BiC contained several interesting articles on the environment. It is a weakness of BiC that it tends to "go overboard" on one viewpoint to the exclusion of others and this issue is no exception. Everybody seems to follow the accepted Al Gore orthodoxy without question. Admittedly, Roger Hutchings refers to "a few scientists who say [Planet Earth] isn't in trouble." But there are two other respectable minority scientific schools that surely deserve a hearing. One says that global warming is real enough but is due to solar not human activity. The other accepts that there is some warming and that humanity is contributing but argues that Mr Gore has exaggerated the scale of the threat. Certainly both schools have shown that he has ignored some inconvenient truths, e.g. that while ice is melting in parts of Antarctica and Greenland, it is growing in others (I don't know who is right but am sure the Gorists are some way short of conclusively proving their case). It is also noticeable that motoring and its large adverse effect on the environment scarcely features in the articles, although there are two very brief references. I wonder if the writers' dependence on the car leads to a subconscious desire to avoid the subject. I was intrigued by the article "Nothing is Wasted." I would very much like to know why church-going is so much more common in America than in other Western countries. This point is (understandably) not dealt with by Rosie Findlater but it would perhaps be a good subject for a future article. Anyway it is refreshing to read in BiC that "the Americans are doing something right" (unless this is a misprint!). In saying all this I am conscious of not being on the same wavelength as the people who produce BiC. But my long connection with the magazine (mainly before it became interdenominational) has left me with a strong interest in it, and I feel, like Caliban, that 'I must eat my dinner'. Kind regards, |
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