Church bells in Ireland to sound the alarm on global warming

|PIC1|Cathedrals and parish churches in Ireland will ring their bells at 2pm this Saturday to mark the Global Day of Action on Climate Change.

The Ecological & Environmental Panel of the Church in Society Committee is calling on Church of Ireland parishes to ring the alarm as their contribution to an international day of protest that coincides with the Bali talks on climate change.

The aim of the action is to draw the issue to the attention of local politicians and call on them to do more about it.

The bells of churches around Ireland will ring out at 2 o'clock to signal that the world must warm by no more than two degrees centigrade if mankind is to continue to live here with any level of comfort and safety.

Rev David Humphries, Chairman of the Ecological and Environmental Panel urges parishes to show their support by ringing their bells and by attending the public events organised in Dublin and Belfast.

He says: "Global warming isn't just an international issue, it's something we should be engaged with at the national and local level too.

"We want to draw the attention of our politicians to this issue. But we also want parishes to become involved.

"Every member of the Church of Ireland has a part to play in ensuring the sustainability of our environment."

The directions for the bell ringing are included in the latest edition of 'Greening the Church', which may be found on the Church of Ireland website at: www.ireland.anglican.org/cmsfiles/pdf/news/Commtte/eco_dec2007.pdf