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Emotacycle Extinction

May 27, 1973 – World Council of Churches wrings its hands

Fifty years ago, on this day, May 27, 1973, some people met for a hand-wringer of a conference. It turns out all we have is a prayer…

27 May- June 1 1973 World Council of Churches conference at Pont a Mousson (France) with title “The Technological Future of the Industrialised nations and the Quality of Life” – see Robinson, F.A. Can Man Survive. BA Record No. 22 August 1973

The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 332.4ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures. 

The context was  that various theologians had been reading the science, the ecological reports, just reading the newspaper by this stage. And it comes back to the classic dilemma; “Did the bearded sky god give us the planet to despoil, or to husband?” If the latter, we’re doing quite a bad job of it and He (it’s never She) will be quite angry with us.

What I think we can learn from this

So what is to be done? Do we have a prayer? No, we don’t. But let’s all get together and make some profound statements that will get picked up in the media. And the rest of the time we can just either worship Mammon, or stay silent while Mammon does its thing. Am I too cynical? Can you be too cynical?

What happened next

More praying. Hallelujah.

What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong?  Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..

References

Blancy, A. (1976). Economic Growth and the Quality of Life. The Ecumenical Review, 28(3), 296–307. doi:10.1111/j.1758-6623.1976.tb03214.x

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