Being Green in the Crunch?
Being Green in the Crunch?
With most of us watching the pennies and dire predictions of further economic woes for the foreseeable future, do we really have anything spare to give to others?
Well, the answer for a Christian has to be ‘Yes’. God calls us to be generous with what we have – outrageously generous, not thinking of ourselves but of others before ourselves. This is the perfect time to re-assess our budgets and spending habits, and to begin to consider how we can share with others that which God has blessed us with. Below are just two ways in which you can use your spending power to bless others:
Buy Fairtrade – a few more pence spent by you, a chance to eat properly, drink clean water, have access to healthcare and educate children for someone else – hard to argue against. ‘Just Craft’ in town stocks Fairtrade gifts, food and household items – like 100% recycled loo roll and kitchen towel from Traidcraft, so the profits go towards helping to fund their work. Other ‘must haves’ for the Firbank household include dates, honey, tea and coffee – go and investigate their range and spend more there and less at the huge-profit-making supermarkets (who don’t need your cash). Buy organic – counter-intuitive as we think organic equals expensive, but actually buying direct rather than from supermarkets (who have been known to inflate prices artificially on organics) means the cost is not prohibitive for most households, and the benefits to your health, the environment, and local farmers are huge. With the unstable cost of oil (necessary to make fertilizers and pesticides and for transport), and with the weak pound increasing the cost of imports, local and/or organic becomes increasingly cost-effective. Try visiting Trevaskis Farm’s shop near Hayle, or Riverford will deliver a huge variety of organic produce to your door – call 0845 6002311 or Google ‘Riverford’.
And it’s not just organic food – organic clothing is increasingly widely available (watch out for Mike sporting some Fairtrade organic clergy shirts over the next few weeks!). Why bother? Well, apart from the fact that Fairtrade is often also organic, and organic farmers get a better price and conditions even if not to full Fairtrade standards, did you know that cotton production consumes almost 11% of the pesticides used globally? Without adequate protection the farmers and their families in places like India suffer a range of harmful effects to their health from the air, water and contaminated food crops, and, often unable to earn a living wage, many thousands of farmers in India have committed suicide. And all that’s before the benefits to our own health by not wearing pesticides! The craze for cheap, disposable fashion has a price – but it has not been one paid by us. The time to re-consider how we clothe ourselves and our families has come, and it is now. How many more scandals about Tesco sweat-shop clothing and Primark cheap-labour do we need? Make the change. Look for organic or Fairtrade labels in M&S, glance through one of the catalogues in Just Craft, or check out ‘People Tree’ on the web (www.peopletree.co.uk) Yes, you will probably be able to afford to buy less, but it will be better quality, last longer, and you won’t throw out as much – all good things. Oh, and you will feel good about your choice every time you put on your organic clothing – I do about my People Tree vests! To make up the difference you can always go on a charity-shopping spree!
Change is daunting, and all this can seem too daunting to even try, but even small changes can have big impacts, so try resolving to change one thing first – like buying tea bags from Just Craft – do it until it becomes a habit, then add another new thing. If everyone at our church just made one change a month, for example shopping for local food, we would have a massive impact on the local economy (helping to ease the effects of the ‘credit crunch’ here), the environment, and the world – so give it a go!
