Ruth Valerio, of A Rocha UK, speaking on consumerism at St Mary's Beaconsfield on Wed evening June 24th. 

 Dr. Ruth Valerio, Churches and Theology Director of A Rocha UK (one of our mission partners) and author of’ L is for Lifestyle’, will be speaking on 'Consumerism' at St Mary’s Beaconsfield on Wednesday 24th June, 8pm. This is part of their summer lecture series. Tickets are £5 (and include refreshments) and can be purchased on arrival at the church. For more details email office@stmarysbeaconsfield.org.uk or ring the Parish Office at 01494 676690

Ruth is Churches and Theology Director for A Rocha UK, http://arocha.org.uk  and she runs A Rocha's Living Lightly initiative. http://arocha.org.uk/our-activities/living-lightly   She is also a Director of Cred Jewellery, the world’s first fairtrade jewellery company.

Ruth has a theology degree from Cambridge and an MA from the London School of Theology, and has recently completed doctoral studies at Kings College London, looking at simplicity and consumerism.

She has written extensively on justice, environment and lifestyle issues, as well as writing Bible study guides for Scripture Union and CWR.

 Concerned to ‘practice what she preaches’, she has an allotment, runs a food cooperative and a pig-keeping social enterprise with friends. She is also very involved with Transition Chichester and runs the Chichester Garden Share scheme. She  writes a regular column in Families First magazine, as well as writing for magazines such as Christianity and Third Way.

She lives with her husband and two daughters in Chichester, where she is part of Revelation Church, leading a cell group and preaching regularly.

Care for God's Creation by considering what you eat

You might not realise it, but what you choose to eat can damage the planet. The processes involved in moving our food from where it’s grown to our plates, packaging and preparing it all take enormous amounts of energy. And it's not news that the amount of meat and fish we eat is also damaging our planet - and our health.

The good news is that it is possible to eat a diet that's good for the planet. Eating more sustainably is a great way to feel better and care for God's creation too. But what is a sustainable diet?

- Eating more plant based foods

- Eating less and better meat and fish

- Eating more fresh food and less highly processed food

- Wasting less food

- Eating locally and seasonally

Where can I start?

One good place to start might be to try to eat less meat and fish – and it’s a great time to do just that because Friends of the Earth is running Meat Free May. There are lots of easy and tasty meat-free recipes, free tips and advice on the Friends of the Earth website that will help you: www.foe.co.uk/page/meat-free-may. You don’t have to sign up to go completely meat-free: just substituting some of the meat and fish you usually eat with something that’s grown more sustainably will help.

Why eat less meat?

The problem is not meat-eating per se but the scale on which we practise it. To keep up with demand livestock production has become highly intensive. Its dependence on oil-based fertilisers, chemicals and imported feed mean that it carries a particularly large carbon footprint.

Here are some facts:

In the last 50 years worldwide production of meat has quadrupled.

Livestock production is worse for the planet than trains or cars, causing between 14.5% and 21.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, whereas transport accounts for around 13%.

70% of the deforestation of the Amazon has been caused by the livestock industry.

Over 70% of the world’s fish stocks are over or fully exploited.

Resources needed to create animal protein are enormous: it takes 54 calories of fuel energy to create one calorie of beef energy and each kilo of beef will additionally need 10 kilos of feed and 100,000 litres of water to produce.

75% of agricultural land in the EU is used for livestock production.

A vegetarian in the UK requires less than half the area of land to grow their food than someone following a conventional diet.

A shift to low-meat diets in the UK could prevent 45,000 early deaths each year.

Another interesting website: https://www.foe.co.uk/sites/default/files/downloads/flexitarianism-environmentally-friendly-diet-47222.pdf

Fairtrade fortnight:Choose products that change lives

Fairtrade fortnight: Choose products that change lives

From 23 FEBRUARY – 8 MARCH thousands of events have been held across the UK to remind us to purchase fairly traded products wherever possible. 70% of the world’s food is produced by 500 million smallholder farmers yet many of them remain trapped in chronic poverty while shoppers enjoy the fruits of their labour. The Fairtrade system ensures farmers across the developing world receive a fair price for their work, as well as an additional Fairtrade Premium, used by farmers and workers to invest in their communities. The community then decides what the premium is spet on, whether that’s building a new school or hospital, or investing in better environmental business practices.

The UK is one of the world’s leading Fairtrade markets, with more products and more awareness of Fairtrade than anywhere else. Almost one in three bananas sold in the UK is Fairtrade. Fairtrade sales in the UK 2012 were £1.57bn. We have one of the most powerful networks of Fairtrade campaigners in the world, raising awareness about Fairtrade values in local communities and driving positive change for more than 1.5 million farmers, and their families, in developing countries. St James Church is a fair-trade church: we use Fairtrade coffee and tea at all our events. Emerging evidence through impact assessments has found that Fairtrade certification makes a significant difference to farmers’, workers’ and families’ lives. The benefits are economic, environmental and social.

There is an enormous range of Fairtrade products available, including clothing, jewellery, toys, homeware and gifts as well as groceries and household items so it is possible to make a large percentage of our shopping ethical. There are links for certain products from the Fairtrade website, but the largest range is available from Traidcraft plc, which is a trading company entirely dedicated to fair trade in that it applies fair trade principles across its full range of products. You can shop online: http://www.traidcraftshop.co.uk and also access their website from the Fairtrade website.

For more information on the range of products, see the Fairtrade website. http://www.fairtrade.org.uk (the range now includes fairly traded gold: say ‘I do’ with an ethically mined gold ring!)

If your local shop doesn’t offer Fairtrade products you can order leaflets explaining Fairtrade and giving them to the manager, while politely asking them to stock Fairtrade. And when they do, support them by telling others and buying fairtrade products.

New Year, New Calculator

Did you make any New Year's resolutions this year? If you're still mulling it over, here's an idea - why not decide to offset your annual car mileage with Climate Stewards? The average annual mileage in the UK is 7,900 miles. If you'd like to see what that looks like in terms of CO2, head on over to the climate stewards site www.climatestewards.org and have a go with their brand new carbon calculator. They have rebuilt the calculator to add more options and to give you access to the latest Defra carbon factors

More and more organisations are realising that offsetting has a role to play in compensating for their impact on our planet. Many organisations have worked hard to reduce their carbon footprint, but some carbon emissions are inevitable if they are to do their jobs. Two UK partners, Tearfund and Wootton George Consulting, explain why they choose to offset with Climate Stewards:

"Tearfund is passionately committed to action on climate change, which hits the very poorest communities around the world in the countries where we work hardest and first. We help these communities to adapt to their changing climate, but also advocate for much more radical political action globally to tackle climate change. We seek to reduce our flights as much as we possibly can, but as an international development agency we will always have to make some flights. For those flights that are unavoidable we offset with Climate Stewards. We are pleased to work in partnership with Climate Stewards in this way and support their excellent work." Paul Cook, Advocacy Director.

Wooton George Consulting: "We are very aware that all business activity has an impact on the environment and, while we try to minimise this - for example by using public transport as much as possible - we also wanted to do something positive. In this regard our support for Climate Stewards helps us to do this. Not only does it help us offset out carbon impact, but it means we are helping a community in Africa. It's great to know that for every piece of work we do in the UK, a tree is being planted and maintained by local people in Ghana." Simon George, Director.