So we do need to connect somehow with people on the moral issue to say no there is intrinsic value in our earth; there are environmental limits to what we can do in our economies.
How will you be guiding the Christians of your Church? Thanks to aviation, we can work in London and Edinburgh on the same day. How should the individual Christian balance what is desirable or practical on a day-to-day basis with what is good for the environment?
I think the first thing is to become informed, to put the problem of global warming to people, to put the facts to them and the facts then determine the moral argument. It's the responsibility of each of us to act. I think that's the first thing.
How do we act? Well, we, I think, have to act in two ways. We have to act voluntarily in terms of our own lifestyles, to really seriously think about our own lifestyles. Not just tweaking them here and there, not just doing more recycling, but to really thoroughly examine the way in which we are using the earth's resources in our own lives and our own households and there are mechanisms like the carbon calculator that help you to evaluate this.
But secondly I think it's important for us to act politically. And if we are taking voluntary responses in our own lifestyles then that gives us quite some credibility when we come to our MP and say look I'm taking this action, what action are you taking to address this major problem of climate change.
That's necessary because voluntary responses alone won't solve the climate change problem.
Would you agree with Dudley Coates who said that he doesn't think the churches are doing enough to focus in on this issue? Would you agree with that?
I think the churches are not doing enough, I think the society in general is not doing enough. We all need to do more. There is a campaign building within the churches under Operation Noah. Operation Noah is the UK churches' campaign on climate change. And there is huge interest in this campaign and in other initiatives within the churches which are addressing environmental problems.
For example, we are looking to mobilise people to come to the Stop Climate Chaos demonstration in Trafalgar Square on the 4 November where we hope to have a mass demonstration there which will demonstrate very clearly and obviously the strength of feeling there is about cutting carbon and the inadequacy of current policies.
Are you satisfied with what the government has done on this so far?
I am very pleased with the way the government has raised the issue at the international level. I think Tony Blair to make it a focus of the G8 in 2005 was an excellent initiative. Sadly I think that the action which the government could take domestically has fallen behind that. And there is certainly a lot more that the government could already have done and must do in the future.
The government will respond saying 'Well, we are looking for society to give us the cues'. I think society's given them the cues. They will certainly be hearing that more in the coming years. We need more creative thinking and some creative policies from our government, from our MPs, to really tackle this problem bravely and seriously.
The difficulty is of course that the payback, the impact, won't take place within any parliamentary session or even within the scope of a term of a government or prime minister, so to tackle this problem as rapidly as we need to tackle it we need to be thinking long term.
