I have always loved fashion and fabrics and I like shopping! There’s something about the tactile feel of cloth and all the different designs and colours on the fabric. Somehow I cannot imagine a world without the creative input that fashion brings.

But, and there’s a big BUT coming:

What about the exploitation of workers in the fashion industry, the high pollution levels and the depletion of natural resources that all go into the production of fast fashion. Then there’s the shocking waste, approx 85% of textiles end up in landfill each year or are sent to developing countries for them to deal with. I could go on...

None of this sits right with me, and the more I read the more overwhelmed I’m feeling. I now feel guilty about shopping!!!

So how could I help with this huge problem? Buy less of course.

Then my creative brain kicked in I could:

• Remake the clothes that are now too small in my wardrobe. This is called refashioning, so creative!

• Check out the charity shops in York, some are great for evening dresses and so cheap!

• Invest in new eco fabrics garments being sold on the high street, but do your research first, a lot of them are not as good for the environment as they seem!

• Mend old clothes - this might sound boring but you could spice it up with some hand embroidery and there’s plenty of videos to help on YouTube. You could make a feature of it for example: if there are holes in your jumper, embroider a bee or flower over them.

Top tip.

Embroidery and sewing have a very calming effect, it’s good for your mental health and will give you a lovely sense of achievement when you finish your project. God is speaking to us and letting us know that we can change through simple ways by giving us tools to keep calm and letting us feel more in control to take on the bigger picture. We have a very long way to go but I feel I’ve started small, why not join me? Together we can somehow help with the bigger problems.

A prayer: Wisdom to care for the Earth.

Lord, grant us the wisdom to care for the earth and till it.

Help us to act now for the good of future generations and all your creatures.

Help us to become instruments of a new creation founded on the covenant of your love.

             - The cry of the Earth

Plastics are one of the most useful but also the most harmful aspects of modern life. We could not do without them in our homes, our cars and our industry yet at the same time they poison our seas, our rivers, our countryside and harm our wildlife. And via microplastics, the small bits that have so many uses, they are getting into the food chain too. 

Reducing plastic use is often quite difficult because of how prevalent plastics are in society, so recycling is essential. Think how many items in our homes are of plastic and the things we buy every week – milk and juice cartons, margarine containers, ready meals, sauce bottles, wrapped vegetables – you just can’t escape it! For example, Coca Cola produces 3 million tonnes of plastic packaging a year, which is about 200,000 bottles per minute.. Recycling can also take some effort, especially in York where hard plastic can only be taken to somewhere like Sainsbury’s because the Council don’t recycle it.

So what can done? Various things: lobbying the supermarkets, shopping for loose veg in the market or at a local greengrocers where feasible; buy stuff in glass bottles if possible; use the Refill facilities at Asda or shops like Tullivers or the Bishy Weigh on Bishopthorpe Road. Rethinking aspects of our life may be something the Lord is challenging us to do.

Finally I would love to start an organisation called Christians Against Plastic –anyone want to join me?!

I’m a keen gardener, and I’ve been aware for some time about the need to avoid using composts containing peat in the garden. I knew that this is because peat acts as a carbon sink, locking in large amounts of carbon, so they are a vital part of our fight against climate change. I knew too that peatlands are an invaluable habitat for flora and fauna, some found nowhere else. Created very slowly as layers of vegetation build up at 1-2mm per year, they can be destroyed in a very short time by being drained and harvested just so that I can put some compost on my garden.

So I’ve been avoiding using it as much as possible for at least the last 10 years. Thankfully that’s now a lot easier than it used to be! I confess, though, that I did this more out of a sense of duty, that it was “the right thing to do.” After all, peatlands? What picture does that conjure up in your mind? Somewhere flat, squelchy, boggy, surely not very interesting?!

That was certainly my mental picture until June this year when I visited RSPB Forsinard Flows nature reserve in the Flow Country, an area of around 1,500 square miles of peatland and wetland in Caithness and Sutherland. I was captivated by the wild, stark beauty of it and also its fragility, with notices not to step off the raised walkway in case some of its precious and rare flora and fauna was damaged by careless feet. I was stunned to discover that the Flow Country’s blanket peat bogs on their own store over 3 times the amount of carbon found in all of Britain’s woodlands put together!

Something shifted inside me as I stood there looking out at this beautiful and oh, so fragile wilderness, which could be so easily and thoughtlessly destroyed - and it's an experience that has haunted me ever since. It’s still a choice I need to make each time I buy compost or new plants for the garden. But my motivation has changed from feeling I “should” to a real desire to do whatever I can to make sure this and other peatlands are protected. Because now I have a picture in my mind of one of the beautiful places I’m trying to protect…..

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/peat

https://www.rspb.org.uk/reserves-and-events/reserves-a-z/forsinard-flows/

The consequences of climate change are, among others, intense droughts,

water scarcity, severe fires, rising sea levels, flooding, melting polar ice,

catastrophic storms and declining biodiversity.

(https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/what-is-climate-change)

Is it just me, or are you feeling overwhelmed by all this too? It seems like everywhere I turn at the moment there’s yet more information about the climate change emergency. It all feels so big and scary, and I feel almost paralysed - surely I’m too small, too insignificant to make a difference? What on earth could I possibly do?

But then I’m reminded of Jesus’ teaching about the kingdom being like a mustard seed. Once planted in the ground it grows into a tree big enough for the birds to perch in its branches. Or like a small amount of yeast affecting the rise of a large amount of flour. (Luke 13:18-21) Insignificant seeming things which somehow, in God’s economy, make a big difference. And I find this mustard seed faith taking root in my heart - perhaps I CAN do some small thing and trust that God will take it and use it.

Lord, what small thing would You have me do?

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.” Mother Teresa of Calcutta