Fast Carbon for Lent

I have been looking for something to "give up" for Lent. I settled on carbon fasting which is a campaign sponsored by Tearfund. 

Climate change can mean our neighbours go hungry because of drought, or lose their homes because of floods. Faced with that reality, there are many things we can do, acting as part of the global church's response, to change the way our lives impact poor communities.

Fast and pray with Tearfund this Lent to cut your carbon use and help protect poor people from climate change.

To participate in the Carbon Fast for Lent

• Downlaod daily actions here via PDF
• Subscribe to the daily action RSS feed 

Or at the risk of self-promotion, I will be sending out daily Twitter messages to remind us of daily actions at around noon each day.

• Follow me at @timbednar on Twitter
• Or you can find all my Tweets by searching Twitter for #Lent timbednar
• Or you can do a general search on Twitter for #Lent to see what others are doing

By Tim Bednar, founder of Turtle Interactive
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Comments

[David McReynolds]

Totally believe that we should do no harm, but that we should love as our testimony of Christ. It is, however, terribly arrogant to believe that we can cause or affect climate change. We are buying into a lie if we believe that we have caused and thus, can restore changes to the climate. Sorry, I am not confronting you and don't wish to start a negative discussion here. I am just disappointed to see this here. You have such a great forum here.

[timbednar]

What I'm not understanding from your comment...is even if climate change is a "myth" (as you contend) where is the moral, ethical or theological problem with fasting carbon for Lent.

I'm not sure what you are objecting to...

...decreasing my carbon footprint is a worse morally neutral and at best a Kingdom act

...taking on my contribution to climate change as part of Lent is at worst "trendy" and at best a Kingdom act

...considering others before myself is at worst asceticism at best its following Christ's example

I'm not seeing the moral hazard? Anyone?

[David McReynolds]

I guess what prompted my comment was the idea that the carbon fasting would affect a change in the poor, poverty stricken areas that are part of the Tearfund program. I did not want to challenge your fast, that is not for me to say. I did want to challenge the premise that your fast could potentially make a difference in the climate of a third-world country. I am all for a raised awareness of the conditions of life that many people live in. I was just concerned with the method. If the end results are lives changed because of the love of Christ, go for it.

I also want to be sure that you know my comment about the arrogance of the whole climate change movement was not directed at you. I was speaking of the arrogance of the movement and it's leadership.

[timbednar]

So you don't agree that...the incremental changes by an individual can impact the climate thus the fast no measurable impact on the poor or poverty stricken. Thus its entire premise is faulty.

But it may however produce personal transformation?

I believe all fasts suffer from the same logic.

An individual fasting a meal or two does not really feed the poor or address poverty, but it does create spiritual change that may lead to individual acts of justice.

So I think your logic may be applied to fasting writ large, so I'm not seeing your point.

It seems like you the carbon fast got conflated with a a political agenda which was not my intent.

In full disclosure, I am in fact am a liberal democrat, but I do not think this fast had a political agenda.