Net Zero comes in all sorts of sometimes quite scarily stringent versions ( Scope 1, 2, and 3) with the ambition to emit no more in terms of greenhouse gas or equivalents from our activities than we also ensure is removed, is an ambition so great that to do it any justice at all, we need to consider all aspects of our life and work. Not merely to make life hard – because life is already hard for those people and creatures already suffering from effects of the climate crisis – but to make life better, healthier, holier. If the City of Glasgow can offer wildflower meadow as part of their own campaign, what beauty can we offer? This written prayer, the adaptation or quoting of which is warmly encouraged, if offered as a step to help the campaigns be seen as a positive response of faith, rather than boring or slavish capitulation to secular targets. [Downloadable PDF below the video, and under it, the text which can simply be copied and pasted ]
A Prayer of Ambition-to place the Net-Zero campaigns of churches, and of civil society in the context of a response of faith-
Graphic: Net Zero Scotland
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[Romans 12:10
love one another with mutual affection; outdo one another in showing honour.]
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Sustaining God, Incarnate in the Earth; Wild Wind of life
may we praise you with all that we are
in the obedient reshaping of all that we have and do
for your glory, as Good News for all Creation.
Expose the pride in humility’s clothing
of sitting back as if we could do nothing
And the folly disguised as wisdom
of delay, and ‘bit by bit’
So may our work and worship join hands
and shamelessly uncover the impact of what we still need to do
whilst striving to balance and heal
the harm so unjustly distributed.
May we indeed, and with mutual encouragement
outdo one another in showing honour to the Earth
Looking not only for savings in carbon emissions ‘on paper’
but beauty, integrity and a betterment of life for people and planet
for wildlife and all the creatures to whom God also gives the Earth as habitat, as home.
Net-zero is the end of excuses and exceptions,
it brings repentance and acceptance of responsibility
for damage to Earth’s life, both past and urgently present
Dear God, who loves the Earth
reminding us in the rainbow of your Covenant
may sun and rain each day proclaim
the scope of this ambition,
the daunting height of hills we need to climb
but more, the grace on which our life is founded,
looking forward with joy and hope
to the day when we surmount that summit
and glimpse with awe, delighted, the way ahead
AMEN
(translated , means ‘Get on with it!)