A harvest of green themes

I wonder if it’s something to do with October being the month churches celebrate Harvest which seems to have prompted Oxfordshire to write to the papers about its pet environmental projects or concerns.

Maybe the lead came from on high – that’s the Lord Mayor, rather than the Lord – when The Oxford Times told us that the ‘mayoral car saga took a green turn’?  Following extensive debate about whether the city’s highest representative should be seen in a flagship (flagcar?) top of the range BMW, supporting one of the city’s larger employers, or a Japanese model powered by a mix of electricity and petrol, he opted for the latter.

Meanwhile in Bicester, grass roots action couldn’t be more aptly named, since the digest of local newspaper stories for the town – thisisoxfordshire.co.uk – reported that volunteers had given time, talents (and not a few Spring flowering bulbs) to smarten up the campus of Bicester Community College. A larger-scale project is under way in the south-east of the county, where, says the Henley Standard, outdoor enthusiasts are being sought to reinstate the chalk downland of Watlington Hill and its wildlife by clearing ‘an invasion of dogwood’.

Set against all this positive news was the Didcot Herald’s investigation into specially labelled domestic green waste apparently being sent to landfill sites instead of being recycled. The head of public amenities said that the District Council had a great record on recycling, ‘but so far this aspect has defeated us’.

How I can empathise with the despair revealed in this comment! It’s taken me years to be more measured in my despondency about my role in the stewardship of Creation. Now although I try to do my bit (and a bit on top of that, too), I no longer believe that occasionally collecting schoolchildren by car makes me a one-woman environment wrecker; I may be guilty of sloth (or of having inadequately dressed the offspring) but that’s a different issue….  Many manufacturers and local authorities give us easy and economical environment-friendly options, so that there is hardly anyone who cannot make an immediate difference to our world by adjusting slightly the way they go about their lives. 

Weighing up those changes that fit in with our lifestyle – and then acting on them – entails effort in an already overcrowded schedule. But isn’t it the obligation of Christians to go that extra mile –  preferably a biofuelled mile, at that?

Liz Roberts was formerly a community action broadcaster with BBC Oxford 95.2FM