But Do Stop Thinking

In an effort to help Christians gain a better awareness of consumer impact on the environment, authors Claire Foster and David Shreeve have published a 176 page book.

That's right: some corporate cheese-head somewhere down in South America has just been justified a little more in his efforts to rape the land of its trees, underpay his workers, and sell his yield at a questionable premium to the international market. Ships will cross oceans, leaking bits of nasty fuels and particulate matter; trucks will suck up petrol and burn exhaust into the air, wear their tires thin and contribute a little more to the slow degradation of the hiways; factories will process the newly arrived trees and belch a little more filth into the sky and waterways as they cut, grind, pound, bleach, and dye the pretty little papers that will eventually form a book on environmental awareness. Then the printing runs will begin, the mass distribution and all the fuels that uses, the receipts from purchasing of the book, shipping overseas...

And all for Christians, nonetheless. As if we needed a separate venue for awareness. But I suppose that's beside the point, isn't it? Or is it?

So, after all that imprinting on the environment, Christian congregations can have a little ditty that corales them into a year-long effort at reducing their carbon footprint.

“A new guide from the Church of England offers church leaders a template for a year-long programme of practical action to reduce their congregations’ carbon footprints, as energy prices head upwards.”

Good. So after a year, then what? Return to your normally scheduled, anti-Kyoto, neglectful, disillusioned, disaffected, and otherwise irresponsible consumer life? Or just change the date and repeat as necessary? Why target a year? As if a plastic-ware package of time and a trendy charge into a church-wide back-patting session can really compete with a philosophic responsibility to life as a whole!

Is there any reason why this contrary effort couldn't have been more responsible itself? Say, by e-publishing? Or would that require a separate paperback publication to bolster Christian awareness of the internet?