The anniversary of the death of William Willberforce occurred at the end of last month. He was a deeply religious Member of Parliament and social reformer who changed people’s attitude to injustice and was very influential in the abolition of the slave trade, and eventually slavery itself in the British Empire. Along with other like minded people he worked tirelessly to make the world a better place.

 

For Wilberforce and his Christian friends, the great vision of change was not a question of hard work or prayer, but hard work and prayer.  Any worthwhile endeavour – whether fighting injustice, mending a relationship, writing a book or piece of music, requires vision and determination, but the dream will only be fulfilled by hours, perhaps years, or hard work and attention to detail.

 

We should all be concerned about our world today, we should be willing to change and work together to make it a better place for future generations. To make a difference, industry and airline companies need to change, but we need to change our way of shopping and lifestyle. Perhaps we are resistant to change, especially when it causes inconvenience or leads to a fall in our standard of living.

 

Like it or not it seems that we shall all have to change our ways, the climate itself will see to that. The question is, are we willing too make the necessary voluntary changes needed to save our planet, especially as these may be very radical? It’s a mind-bending thought that the choices we make every day when we get up in the morning, such as turning on the heating, making the tea, washing, eating breakfast, travelling to school or work, can influence and change the global climate.

 

Our own lovely county of Norfolk is changing; it can be predicted with absolute certainty that over the next few decades, there will be a huge amount of change both along the coastline and inland. The controversy about just how big an impact climate change will have on our lives will run and run – although there are now very few people who would have you believe that there won’t be any impact at all.

 

The Church of England’s “Shrinking the Footprint” national campaign addresses the issue of climate change and is asking for a measured reduction in energy consumption. Archbishop Rowan Williams tells us “Good ecology is not an optional extra, but a matter of justice. So, do you think you need to change?