Thursday, February 14, 2013

Call for carbon fast this Lent

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRNfF9wgwdd-VS8nLSTVkBEnc0Ip4fms2gIMZo93UXQYKvremc6The Archbishop of Southern Africa is inviting Anglicans around the world to cut their carbon footprint this Lent.

Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, who chairs the Anglican Communion Environmental Network, is asking them to think about the impact their lifestyle has on the climate and the wider world in turn.

Instead of sacrificing traditional items like chocolate or alcohol, the carbon fast asks people to “give up” or cut back on a part of their lifestyle, such as driving their car less or eating less meat.

Over the forty days of Lent, the carbon fast challenges Anglicans to carry out specific actions highlighting important environmental issues and showing participants how they can make a positive impact on creation.

"Lent is a time of repentance and fasting, of turning away from all that is counter to God’s will and purposes for his world and all who live in it,” he said.

"This year, I invite Anglicans to focus their Lenten ‘acts of love and sacrifice’ on our contribution to climate change, and on those most impacted by it."

The area overseen by Archbishop Makgoba includes countries increasingly vulnerable to climate change. 

The dioceses of Lebombo and Niassa in Mozambique have recently experienced widespread flooding that displaced 150,000 people.