godbothering: 2015

On the one hand, it's good to know that your meat has been able to
hang out on a big paddock,
munch on oranges, play with the dogs,
and walk your kids to the bus stop.
On the other hand - sob - poor Kev. Rest in pieces

Many of us spend money making our dogs and cats lives more pleasant[1]. We feed them good food. We pay vets to keep them healthy and happy, to the tune of $2.5 billion a year. Pets cost us $6 billion a year overall. That’s about $2500/year for the average dog. A cat is cheaper at $1700/annum. Half of us buy them special treats for Christmas and their birthdays.

And good on us for not being neglectful pet owners! We accept that it costs more to keep a pet happy and healthy. I’m guessing, but I’d say you could keep a dog alive, but miserable, for about $500/year, and a cat for about the same (minimal, basic food; locked in a cage; basic worming but euthanasia for any that get really sick).

So we’re paying about $2000/year to keep a dog happy and healthy, and $1200 for a cat.

How many of us are willing to spend extra money keeping the other animals in our lives happy and healthy? You know, the ones we eat?

If McDonalds are right, none of their customers are. That’s why they don’t use free range chickens or pigs[2].

If we shop at the “Big Two” we can get chicken breast for $12/kg. If our conscience is slightly twinged it will cost us $13/kg for the “RSPCA approved” kind, which is a far cry from free range[3]. Fully free range, chickens, who are presumably fairly happy until the brutal production line slaughter, are @16/kg.[4]

So if we ate a kilo of chicken breast a week, it would cost $200 more to make the chooks relatively happy: able to roam outside, dust bathe, eat grass and forage. We have free range chickens, they are full of personality, adventure. They complain and pace relentlessly if we have to keep them locked in for a day or two.

Have you seen those pictures of miserable chooks in battery layer cages? They cost us $2.79 a dozen versus $6.35. If we eat half a dozen eggs a week, that’s $185 extra to let the chickens who are making our eggs have an actual life until they get ground up for pet food.

If the effect of watching Babe has worn off for us - and who doesn’t love bacon – a miserable pig is $15/kg, compared to $22/kg for its free range counterpart.

A kilo of happy pig a week would set us all back $350 per year.

So two kilos of happy meat and a dozen happy eggs a week would set us back about $700. Quite a lot, but a lot less than keeping a dog, or even a cat happy.

Jesus called us to do for others as we would have done for us if our positions were reversed. Most of us readily get that this applies to our pets. We wouldn’t let them suffer, or stick them in a tiny cage for their whole life just because it’s cheaper and easier. How do we so easily skimp on the other animals in our lives, who arguably give us even more?

If you’ve forgotten what animal suffering looks like in Australia, or would like to get your church thinking about it, here's a short reminder, in the context of a prayer of confession which points to a more hopeful future...

[1] http://www.ava.com.au/news/media-centre/hot-topics-5

[2] https://yourquestions.mcdonalds.com.au/questions/6015

[3] http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/farmers-attack-coles-marketing-scheme-backed-by-the-rspca-to-deliver-healthier-chickens-to-consumers/story-fnihsrf2-1226800132011

[4] From store web sites, prices accurate at time of writing

Keoni Cabral, flickr

“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:16ff

Christian responses to climate change should be framed around the wealthy, like Australia, laying down its life for our brothers and sisters in poor countries. Laying down our lives, or lifestyles, so that our brothers and sisters in future generations do not inherit a baking planet of “debris, desolation and filth.” Laying down our lifestyles so that this planet, God’s garden, has a chance to provide for the whole Earth family.

Christians must resist the political cowardice, expressed by Canada’s prime minister, who declared that, “there was no chance of any country acting for the planet if it involved costs to its economy.”[2] Discipleship without carrying the cross is not discipleship.

Indeed, reducing our emissions is not about charity to brothers and sisters in need, it is about justice. Alongside John, we need to hear Zacchaeus (Luke 19), who made his fortune through unjust means, and as part of his conversion sought to make restoration. The poorer nations are that way largely because of the legacy of colonisation, in which nations like ours took all the resources they could extract, moved their economies from self-sufficiency to growing even more crops for the west, and now continue to make far more off interest on loans required to fix the mess then we return in our shrinking foreign aid. Even such “aid” is only given when it is deemed to be in our own interest[3].

John speaks of actions and truth. The latest emissions reduction commitment by the government obscures the truth by shifting the bottom line. No longer speaking of reductions compared to 1990, or even 2000, they commit to a reduction compared to 2005 levels. This, of course, means that the reduction quoted is less than it appears in comparison to other commitments against 2000 levels.

The government’s Climate Change Authority called for a 40-60% reduction by 2025 compared to 2000. The government has committed a mere 28% by 2030 against 2005 levels. Even the climate change authority was only calling for us to lead from the side, matching other comparable countries, not showing cross carrying leadership for the poor of the world, future generations, and all God’s other creatures.

Their target reflects scientific truth modified by political realities, but the government has aimed far lower even than this compromise, despite the authority’s stinging criticism[4], perhaps because the current prime minister believes that climate change, “is not the only or even the most important problem the world faces.”^{^[5]}

Uniting Justice has called for reductions commensurate with the Climate Change Authority, with a thirty five year transition to full renewable energy. Can we Christians go further and call for bold sacrificial responses, even if they seem politically impossible? “Beyond Zero Emissions” is adamant that their fully costed transition plan could get Australia to 100% renewables in just a decade[6]. It is technically possible, just not politically palatable to a prime minister committed to protecting the coal industry[7], which he sees as the foundation of our prosperity for the foreseeable future[8].

More truth. The Government’s target will send us into climate catastrophe, but even the CCA/Uniting Justice targets will not avoid climate change. They might keep global warming to 2^oC, but this is not “safe.” We are already seeing the effect of climate change at 1^oC warming. Two degrees of warming only gives humanity a reasonable chance of avoiding dangerous, even catastrophic, climate change.[9] Is that the best we want to aim for? Is that the legacy we wish for the poor and future generations? A 50/50 chance of avoiding catastrophe? Is this doing for others what we would want done for us?

Can we call on our government, especially with its high proportion of Christians, to give our nation the courage to embrace sacrificial love of neighbour, giving them not a 50% chance of catastrophe, but an excellent chance of abundant life on a fecund garden planet?

What to do? Changing light-bulbs won’t cut it. Phone. Write. Talk. Preach. To our leaders, newspapers, blogs, congregations. If we call for sacrificial justice perhaps the Government will at least move to match its own Climate Change Authority’s recommendation.

Put up a “4^oC is not welcome here” banner at church. Carry it to a rally in the lead up to the UN climate talks in Paris[10]. This “COP21” meeting must set us on a path to the reconciliation and renewal of the whole creation.

What else? Cancel your overseas holiday and go to the COP21 rallys in France instead, or better still stay home and give the money to 350.org, or BZE.org, or Uniting Justice or Uniting World[11]. Sell your spare car or holiday house and do the same. Call on the 1% of the world who controls half our wealth to do a Zacchaeus.

The whole Earth family is in need. Let us respond not just in words and speech but also actions and truth, thus confirming that the love of God is in us.