The Stop Climate Chaos coalition meet tomorrow to present and hear suggestions on Climate Change campaigning in 2011.

How are we going to make it zoom, people ?

From some of my project work with faith groups, I had this suggestion to make :-

Alliance with Ethical Investment groups

“Put your money where your mouth is”

Following on from the Church of England selling its shares in Vedanta :-

http://www.minesandcommunities.org/article.php?a=9871

it was hoped that the Church of England investment portfolio would continue to be “cleaned up”. But there appears to be a long way to travel.

The Anglican Communion worldwide includes environmental protection as its “Fifth Mark of Mission”, and the Church of England is part of the international interfaith “seven year plans” :-

http://www.anglican.ca/search/faq/037.htm
http://www.cofe.anglican.org/news/pr10009.html

but the Church Commissioners report in the last year has confirmed that the Church of England still holds shares in companies such as BP, responsible for ecological devastation of the Gulf of Mexico :-

http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/12234

Groups such as the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, the Ecumenical Council for Corporate Responsibility and National Ethical Investment Week are all active in encouraging communities to put their money where their mouth is – and the faith communities have a very large amount to play with :-

http://www.arcworld.org/about_ARC.htm
http://www.eccr.org.uk/AboutUs
http://www.neiw.org/about

With the launch of the Green Investment Bank – even though severely under-capitalised – there is a chance to tie up the questions to the answers.

If every consumer choice were a green choice, there would be no environmental problem. The only way to reach that point is for every contract, every stock and share, every procurement order, every transport vehicle, every energy source and every material resource to be green.

The choices that companies make in the business they conduct is based on the premise that people want what they sell so much they are prepared to invest directly in them as well as buy their products.

There are several levers for change here. Investment, such as pension funds, if moved in bulk, can have a de-securitisation effect on unsustainable business models. Not so much a “boycott” as a “landslide” of change.

The faith communities have already proved that they can change international commerce with the Fair Trade movement. Now it’s time for the Green Investment movement.

http://www.youtube.com/cop15

There is an unelected, shadowy organisation in the United Kingdom; a cultish community of thousands, and their minions, that plots to dictate the leadership of the whole world, starting with the minds of the central Government.

You’ll see them at work in the run-up to the General Election, possibly suspicious figures masquerading as angels of light in brightly coloured costumes and carrying jokey banners; meddling in democracy at every level – leafletting, holding meetings, putting posters in their front windows and holding consciousness-raising green-fests in their local Town Halls.

These people will propagandise the nation, wearing stickers and tee-shirts in an eerily ominous pink. They will wangle their way into live broadcast television shows, issue Press Releases, force candidates for Parliament to commit themselves to seemingly impossible, unreasonable pledges; on record, too.

Their campaign bus will tour the marginal wards, where floating voters still waver; their children, hypnotised by fervour will sing strangely beguiling songs in school assemblies. This conspiracy will enter into what could be construed as an underworld pact with political activists of every hue, embracing business people and Climate Camp hippies alike.

These people are quite possibly frightening; they will colonise your communities, thrust themselves onto your favourite radio shows, throw down the gauntlet to sceptics, and cause immeasurable disturbance to the proper process of voting by doing one solitary thing : raising the question of Climate Change.

They will ask you to write electronic mails, you know, e-mails (or emails) to your Member of Parliament and local party political networks; they will invite you to mass meetings, to media events, to scratch letters, to give your views on your websites, to bring up the subject of Climate Change at your local branch meetings, in your workplace, at your children’s schools.

They will sneak the Climate Change question into Local Authority Council debates, into local newspapers, into viral advertising campaigns. They will ask us all to pledge to do something for their campaign. They will market positive visions of a nauseatingly-squeaky-clean green new world.

Climate Change must be the number one voting issue of this General Election. It’s too important to get strangled by the unhealthy Economy and the budget-stressed public services.

What we need to do to fulfil the demands of the Climate Change Act is too critical to be left to the wiles of mandarin policy-writers.

Climate Change is me and you : it is our future and our destiny to live in a Climate Changed world, to adapt to the changes and to prevent further disaster.

Within our lifetimes, Global Warming will haunt Europe, bringing damages we cannot compensate for, on the land, at sea and in the weather.

This is not a trite environmental cause : this is not about saving Polar Bears – it’s about saving humanity. Our politicians need to know our demands, and they need to represent us. Stop Climate Chaos are campaigning for that very outcome.

When a Parliamentary Candidate of any Party comes knocking on your door, hold up your pink speech bubble and Ask the Climate Question : what are you going to do about Climate Change ?

http://www.stopclimatechaos.org/

Ask the Climate Question.