A Historian looks at Climate Change

 

 

(The inspiration for much of this sermon comes from “Europe in Crisis 1598-1648” by Geoffrey Parker)

 

Now may the words of my mouth and the thoughts of all our hearts be now and always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.

 

The month of September is Creationtide, which we always celebrate here. So the Ministry Team has decided that three of the St John’s Green Ginger Group, will preach during the month. Eleanor Harris at Evensong next week, Andrew Wright at Eucharist on the 26^th, and myself now. Incidentally, one of the things we are doing in anticipation of COP26, the United Nations Climate Change Summit, is mounting a social media campaign. So please on Facebook do follow Earth Be Glad, and read our Earth Be Glad blog, which has had several new articles in the last month.

When you are preaching you get sent the readings in advance. What an overwhelming set of texts I have been given. One could write a book about every verse. However, I can take comfort from the first verse of the first reading: “The Lord has given me the tongue of a teacher, that I may know how to sustain the weary with a word.” So the line I am going to take is “A history teacher looks at climate change.”

The Seventeenth Century was unusually troubled, all across the world, even for the bad old days. The Thirty Years War devastated the German lands, as armies campaigned across Europe bringing disease, death, rape and murder. The population of Germany fell from about 21 million to about 13 million. There were revolts and rebellions all across the world – Sri Lanka, China, Mexico, Moscow – the list goes on. The witch craze, which seems so crazy and savage to us, reached its peak. The series of dreadful civil wars in the British Isles had a catastrophic impact on Scotland, on Ireland and on England for twenty years.

Michael Lynch, in his history of Scotland describes the human cost on Scotland of the wars as “incalculable” so I had better not try. But he does say that in 1645 perhaps one of every five town dwellers in Scotland died of plague, the most severe outbreak for two centuries.  As Verse 2 of today’s psalm said: “The cords of death entangled me; the grip of the grave took hold of me; I came to grief and sorrow.”

Where does Climate change come into this? Well, in 1756 the French thinker Voltaire, looking back on the troubled century, wrote: “The three things that exercise a constant influence over the minds of men [are] government, religion, and climate.”

Looking all across the world now, 2021, there are many pretty bad governments, just as there were in the seventeenth century, who seem to put selfish power and wealth ahead of the common good.

We can also see all too clearly how the influence of religion over people’s minds now can have the most dreadful consequences as it did 400 years ago.

But our theme, as COP26 approaches, is climate. The seventeenth century should warn us, if we are still in doubt about it, what an overwhelmingly serious matter it is.

Voltaire did not have the means of measuring meteorological data that we have, but observations included heavy frosts in South China that put an end to orange-growing in Kwangsi province, the dates when grapes could be harvested, the advance of Alpine glaciers, parties on the frozen Thames, and eternal snow on the Cairngorms. The observations of sun-spots carried out at the new Observatories at Paris, Greenwich and elsewhere offer more than anecdotal data. Modern tree-ring analysis tells the same story. There was a decline in solar energy. The average annual temperature of the globe fell by about one degree. Not very much? Well, it will have shortened the growing season by about three weeks, and reduced the maximum altitude at which crops will ripen by about 500 feet. About 90% of the world’s population depended for food very directly on local agriculture.  We can easily appreciate why there was a world crisis brought on by climate change.

For example, there was a dreadful famine in Scotland at the end of the seventeenth century.

“For want some die on the wayside, some drop down in the streets.”

The change in the seventeenth century was probably about one degree. The COP26 summit hopes to limit our climate change now to one and a half degrees. Let us hope they manage. You’ll find all this on their web-site; do look it up. Achieving this, and coping with it, is a supreme challenge of our time. Similar disasters to those of the seventeenth century are already happening across the world and, as Voltaire noticed, climate is part of the cause. Flood, drought, famine and multiple political consequences, many of them very bad.

Climate Change. We all know the sorts of things to do. It’s a case of doing it – whether it is cutting down on driving when we can, using buses or bicycles or simply legs. Or only using aeroplanes when we have to. Or saving energy at home by improving insulation and putting on a woolly vest instead of turning the heating on.  Or reusing and recycling at every opportunity. Or eating less red meat. There is lots of good advice out there. 

And governments must be held to account, to keep the pledges they will make at COP26 and the ones they have made already. You will have heard of the Art Exhibition that the Edinburgh Together Churches (that includes us) are holding in St Cuthbert’s at the end of October. Part of that will be a postcard writing campaign, so make sure you come to the exhibition and while you are there, write a card to one of the powerful decision-makers.

But return for a moment to the seventeenth century. What might we learn from those years of revolt, starvation, plague, war – and climate change behind them all? The figures I remember most from the seventeenth century are very different from the horrors. Henry Purcell of course. Isaac Walton, going fishing. Perhaps above all, George Herbert. Here is an extract from Walton’s life of George Herbert:

‘In another walk to Salisbury he saw a poor man with a poorer horse that was fallen under his load. They were both in distress, and needed present help. At his coming to his musical friends in Salisbury they began to wonder that Mr George Herbert, who used to be so trim and clean, came into that company so soiled and discomposed; but he told them the occasion; and when one of the company told him he had disparaged himself by so dirty an employment, his answer was, that he thought what he had done would prove music to him at midnight. He said: “Though I do not wish for the like occasion every day, I would not willingly pass one day of my life without comforting a sad soul or showing mercy. And now, let’s tune our instruments.” '

What about those readings for today? Well, they do include one of the most powerful sentences from Christ’s teaching. It is a strong message to all of us, individuals, corporations, governments, if ever we think some economic benefit – especially a selfish one – ought to get in the way of necessary action to combat climate change. You can read the verse in your service sheet, near the end of the second lesson. The version in the King James Bible, that I grew up with is:

 

“For what shall it profit a man, if he gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”

 

And now, choir, let’s tune our instruments. (There followed an anthem.)