News from the The Big One – climate action in London
Apologies that my Rector’s message wasn’t available yesterday. I was in London taking part with tens of thousands of people from all walks of life and different groups in The Big One – a huge climate action protest. Friday was the first day of four days of this peaceful demonstration. We are calling on the Government and large corporations for more action to be taken more quickly on preventing the climate and environment emergency we are facing; and especially pivoting away urgently from fossil fuels instead of continuing to invest in more mining and drilling.
The group from All Saints Church comprised Reverend Hannah Higginson our Associate Priest, Lorraine my wife, Peter Barrett one of our PCC members, and myself. We also linked up with Reverend Laura Wheatley-Downs, Vicar of Crowthorne and one of her parishioners. I know others would have liked to have attended but were unable. We took part in the Christian/churches’ section of the day, starting with a service in St John’s Church Waterloo, “No Faith in Fossil Fuels”. One of the speakers at the service was Archbishop Lord John Sentamu, former Archbishop of York, who is now the Chair of Christian Aid. He called out continued development of oil and gas fields as an offense against humanity.
After the service we proceeded to Parliament passing the HQ of Shell. We were shocked that Archbishop Sentamu was not granted access to Shell’s reception to present a letter calling on the company to halt new fossil fuel extraction. He left the letter outside the doorway.
Our Bishops of Oxford and Reading led the procession from Waterloo to Parliament alongside John Sentamu. (See photo)
The day was colourful and and encouraging. There were so many different organisations holding their own events and processions through central London.
