Ludwig is this for real? Peddling your apocalyptic visions by appealing to the deluded and the over or under imaginative. Fundies United?

"the necessity of a sustainable lifestyle that is in balance with the environment and resource base".

I suggest we use 1800 as our Base Year, before significant rises in CO2 levels in the atmosphere.

I agree we need to develop non polluting, highly efficient energy sources, but reject the tone of the Green fundy movement.

You'd do better with your time pressing governments on their failure to see gas utilised widely for short and medium gain, and why at this time govts. are doing everything they can to abdicate from their 100 year old responsibility for power production?,and why they are not pouring more money into solar, geo-thermal? etc.

If climate change is the bushfire you claim, don't waste your time with people in conversation with the burning bushes.

Well I hope you’re right Polly. But it seems as though runner is fairly and squarely lambasting the whole environmental movement kaboodle, knocking the very notion of climate change and being just totally disinterested in sustainability.

I get the feeling that he is one of those ‘god’s got it all under control’ type of Christians who feels that it is not humanity’s role to even try to sort out its own mess!

Runner, whadayareckon?

Palimpsest, I think that there is a lot of merit in appealing directly to Christians and indeed to religious people of all persuasions, to grab hold of the concept of sustainability and get stuck into addressing it.

They do afterall constitute a large and strongly principled section of our society, as opposed to a total admixture of principled and unprincipled non-religious people. They are also far less inclined to be greedy or self-centred, I would think.

So, there should be no reason why they can’t embrace the concept that our society and environment are in a pretty precarious state and that the life-support systems and the demand placed upon them simply MUST be brought into line.

Polycarp; OLO’s No.1 darn good Christian, is right onside.

With the help of people like Reverend Richard Cizik, who espouses very much the same sort of thing as I do, from a highly authoritative position within the Church, Christianity in Australia (and the US) might just see the light….and pretty soon….I dearly hope.

That would go a heck of a long way towards swaying the whole population over to appreciating the urgency of addressing genuine sustainability.

But at the moment, I think that Christianity is actually holding us all back by effectively not dealing with the big picture of balancing all things human with our environment and resource base.

Ludwig,

You ask whether it is strange that Runner and Polycarp differ in their views. I don’t see why they shouldn’t.

These ‘sustainability’ issues that you talk about involve complex and forever changing scientific evidence. Is the atmosphere warming? Are the oceans cooling? In the 1970s the prophets of doom were predicting global cooling. Now the Jeremiah’s are saying global warming (after arriving at their ‘sustainability’ conference on jet aircrafts that pumped truck loads of carbon gas into the air). Runner is sceptical of the scientists who are possibly caught on a bandwagon mentality, while Polycarp reminds us of the original Biblical mandate that mankind was supposed to act responsibly in looking after his patch.

A more interesting question could be why you think Christians should be taking the lead. Why should Jesus’ followers be the one’s out front? Why are you looking to him? Do you want to be one of his followers too?

DGay Dan

Polycarp’s and runner’s views seem to be poles apart. Surely within the Christian faith they can’t be as far apart as they apparently are?

I’ve exhorted runner to respond numerous times, but he happily posts away elsewhere on OLO and just ignores me. That serves strongly to reinforce my feeling that his views on sustainability and environmentalism are very negative and totally different to Polly’s.

I’m willing to accept that “Runner=Polycarp=Runner” as Polly puts it, if runner would just make some sort of effort to corroborate that.

“…why [do] you think Christians should be taking the lead”

I think I explained that in my opening post. It is centred on the premise that Christianity is surely supposed to have the best principles for the betterment of humanity right at the core of its being….and that a lack of effort in addressing sustainability surely sits at stark odds with this.

So as a matter of principle, Christianity, Australia’s leading religion, should be taking the lead….or at least be fully supporting the urgent push for our government and society to refocus away from the absurdity of an economic and political doctrine that is predicated on continuous expansionism and towards the sacred humanity / environment / resources balance.

“Do you want to be one of his [Jesus’] followers too?

No. I just want Jesus’ followers to live up to one of their most basic and important principles; that they strive to see that mankind acts responsibly in looking after his patch. It’s as simple as that. Currently that is not happening by a million miles. And Christianity doesn’t seem too concerned about it.