kensington unitarians

For example, "We are standing on a windswept hilltop in Derbyshire at sunset looking down at the moorlands spreading out below us. You can see for miles. The air is sweet and fresh and blowing gently in our hair. There are huge granite boulders all around us, like building blocks knocked aside by a giant. It feels so good to be alive." Where would you choose as your favourite spot?

[We created a ceremony] to celebrate the Summer Solstice. I had never created a ceremony with a group in quite this way before - with no forward planning, involving everybody, weaving the different elements we suggested into a flowing experience. It was moving, beautiful and fun to celebrate the turning of the year together. Someone said at the end, "I never thought I'd be doing something like this in a church!" That reminded me how lucky we are to have our building and our community, both of which allow us such flexibility in how we express what is important to us in life.

Rev. Sarah Tinker

Summer Solstice Celebration

It was such a treat for me to be able to spend this lovely celebration with other like-minded people. I always celebrate but not always with others so it was extra special this year. If I do the celebration it's usually me who plans and runs it so it was really nice to plan it with other people. We all have such great ideas it could have gone on for a lot longer!!

The table looked lovely both at the beginning and at the end of the evening...so nice to have things... chocolate!!, cherries (big fat ones), nuts, and apricotsà to share to eat as well as to give us spiritual nurture. The candles were especially good to light us into the next phase of our year.

Jo Ridgers

Your Carbon Footprint:
Facts and Figures, Hints and Tips

Every digital set-top box in the country uses about 16 watts of electricity. Each box consumes about 140kWh a year, at a cost today of about £14. Does anybody protest? No - the price is low enough for nobody to be worried. But a single Sky box puts 60kg of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere a year, more than the total emissions of somebody living in one of the poorest countries in the world.

Almost 5 billion aluminium drinks cans a year are not re-cycled in the UK, at a total carbon dioxide cost of about 0.75 million tonnes.

The average insulation levels of UK homes have been slowly improving; but this benefit has been balanced by an equal and opposite increase in the average temperature inside the home. In 1970 winter temperatures in British homes averaged 13 degrees Celsius. The figure rose and is now 19 degrees Celsius. As we get more prosperous, we may insulate our homes better; but then we take all the benefit in the form of more heat, not lower bills or reduced emissions.

It has been calculated that by releasing methane as they break down, biodegradable bags contribute as much or more to global warming as conventional plastic bags. The answer is to re-use the bags that we have.

Where does our food come from? It comes increasingly from afar. For example, all European Heinz sauces come from a single factory in Holland. Air freight is growing at over 5 per cent a year. The cost in greater carbon dioxide is hidden and disregarded.

The modern economy seems to require ever-greater centralization of services, increasing our need to travel. Doctors are being grouped into larger practices, post offices are centralized on a few high-street sites and shops are moving to the edges of towns. The important consequence is that people are less and less able to do without a car. The average distance travelled by bus has fallen by 20 per cent since the mid 1980's and the slow decline appears to be continuing.

It has been estimated that food packaging in the UK contributes 10 million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. 9.3 million tonnes of food packaging are buried in landfill sites every year. In addition, British supermarkets use far more energy than the European average because the proportion of chilled and frozen food we buy is higher.

Conventional economics struggles with any suggestion that restricting consumption could be a good thing. Putting a price on biodiversity, for example is tricky. Does it matter if our great grandchildren live in a world with no polar bears, for example? After all, our generation doesn't miss the dodo very much.

The fact that tens of millions of Bangladeshis are going to have to move in the next 50 years is clearly a bad thing. However, economics has yet to devise a good mechanism for compensating these individuals by taxing today those people in the West who are causing the sea levels to rise by their unconstrained consumption of fossil fuels. Bangladesh has carbon dioxide emission levels of about 0.25 tonnes per head - only 2 per cent of the UK figure - so it cannot itself be blamed.

Experience shows that people start to feel bad about unethical social practices when the take-up rate of ethical practices rises to 40 per cent. In order for this to happen two things must happen. First, the practices or items must become fashionable: newspapers must write glowingly about the celebrities following these practices and the benefits they feel. Second, the first few 'early adopters' of the practices must recommend them to their friends.

One of the greatest struggles will be trying to persuade people not to fly as regularly. The idea of avoiding winter holidays in the sun, which are such an effective badge of membership of the high-earning professional classes, is not going to be easy to sell. However, we can certainly hope that the rich will buy carbon offsets to make good part of the damage from air travel. The medieval elite were prepared to buy indulgences from the Pope's agents for their peccadilloes, and carbon offsets can fill a similar niche.

Information supplied by Caroline Blair