Providing a platform for some essential thinking of the 'Covid Generation’ by Trevor Thorn

Monarch butterflies - a species 

that has declined by more than 90%

in less than a decade.

I’ve been wondering!

During this weekend I met, via the wonders (as they are when all goes well) of Zoom, with a local group of Iona Community Associate members for a celebration of Creationtide. This is the period of 1st September until St Francis Day on 14th October when we are encouraged to give praise for the whole of creation and think about our relationship with it. After a very simple but moving service format we broke into small groups to discuss what we might be able to do to further the absolutely critical thinking about saving the planet. Most of us were 60 plus apart from two very imaginative and dedicated 25 - 30 year olds who, a little while ago, had led an information session on climate change/ climate chaos for the young people in their church - and been warned off by their pastor as ‘some of the members of their fellowship had other views’.

I suppose that is bound to happen from time to time but poses a big question as to how those church members view the call to be stewards of the earth which is surely the implication of Genesis 2.16.

However, I don’t propose to try and argue that any further, knowing that in a group as large as ACW there will be different understandings of why the planet is warming apparently uncontrollably. But for those readers who do believe that global warming has the potential to destroy the planet, I offer an idea which emerged from the small group we participated in, in a breakout session (another marvel of Zoom).

First we noted that this agenda is now being strongly and energetically espoused by many young people. My wife and I have direct experience of this having been at a conference on the topic with an audience of average age of 65, we guessed. By the end of a demanding day, we were definitely flagging! But the arrival of a dozen or so young people from 16 - 34 coming from school or college re-energised us amazingly. These arrivals, responding to an open invitation on Facebook from the conference conveners, were superb advocates and were evidently thrilled to find themselves among a sizeable group of ‘matures’ willing to listen to them and take them seriously.

Now as writers, I guess most of us have places where we make regular contributions of articles to local or maybe wider audiences, and may therefore have an established relationship with an editor. Perhaps between you, you could find a way of inviting local young people who would, like the group mentioned above, be delighted to have a ‘platform by invitation’ to express their apprehensions about the world they are inheriting from those of us who comprise the ‘more mature’!

I think it’s worth a try: I’m definitely going to have a conversation with our parish magazine editor as our monthly ‘New Life’ goes well beyond our church members. I guess it is likely that such an invitation will run the risk of those who are concerned about climate chaos and those who don’t believe there is a problem. Even finding that out will be interesting!

I’ll keep you posted.