by John Battle, Commission Chair
The World Cup, whose ubiquitous batting coverage was unavoidable was one of the biggest events for the gambling industry. Betting was a main beneficiary. We in the UK are increasingly a society of gamblers. The UK gambling industry is one of the UK's most profitable industries and BET365 is one of the worlds most profitable companies. National lottery tickets, scratch cards,gift cards for online gambling, are all sold every day in our supermarkets and corner shops. UK adults spend roughly £6 million to £8 million every day on scratch cards alone. The UK public spend between £2-3 billion a year on National Lottery scratch cards, and further £1.3 billion on online 'Instant Win' games as mobile phone based gambling is taking over.
We are increasingly a nation of gamblers, risking our money on uncertain outcomes in the hope of a boost of a short term quick win. It is not just the sugar rush of expectation that is undermining our rational sensibilities but perhaps, more importantly, the wiping out of addressing the realities of the present and any purposeful action to really shape the future that is doing the damage.
As forest fires rage in Europe and closer to home in Britain and devastating floods hit Afghanistan and Bangladesh this last month, the tragic irony is that campaigns to undermine climate emergency efforts to restrain adding more overall greenhouse gases to the atmosphere are rampant, not least promoted by financially vested interests, including the most profitable oil and gas companies.
The concerted efforts to restrain are now often referred to as "net zero" measures. "Net Zero" does not mean producing "zero emissions now" but rather taking action to reduce emissions as much as possible such as by using renewable energies, improving energy efficiency planting and restoring forest peat and wetlands and also including reducing waste and recycling.
Universally, scientists agree that to halt further long-term warming, global carbon dioxide emissions need to reach zero. Many countries, including the UK , have set legally binding policy targets to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 which is the UK target.
In our era of fiercely binary and reductionist politics "net zero" has become a touchstone for opposition. Some claim "net zero" to be the new "Brexit", dismissing its purpose and aims and even the scientific consensus on the evidence of a climate emergency, despite the increasing daily news reports of worldwide extreme climatic events.
Meanwhile the "merchants of doubt" (usually invested financial interests) distort public media perceptions and encourage that gambler's dismissive shrug of "it may never happen to me and my family" and often even those sensing a real need to change course fall in with the pressure simply to lay the blame and responsibility on the individual alone calling upon them to reduce their emissions, reduce the use of fuel guzzling transport, and increase energy efficiency and recycling measures.
In other words it suits the powerful vested interests to encourage the individual to take the blame, shifting the responsibility for pollution on to consumers and society as a whole. Little wonder that it is then easy to wonder "why bother?" doing our little bit here, when China, India, Nigeria ,and America carry on emitting dangerous gases.
Even those individual gestures, having been blamed, are drowned out in a prophecy of the gambler's despair.
On the 10th World day of prayer for creation last September, Pope LeoXIV insisted that climate change is both "a scientific reality and a moral responsibility". Building on the anniversary of Pope Francis's great encyclical "Laudato Si", Pope Leo stressed how "environmental degradation disproportionately harms the poor and vulnerable".
The American writer Gabriel Winslow-Yost refers to climate change as a "crime" in which we are all implicated;
"Our car rides and plane trips, coffees and burgers, heating and cooling and clothing are paid for in blood contributing every moment to the suffering and destruction global warming brings".
- Gabriel Winslow-Yost
As Pope Francis insisted in "Laudato Si" we have to hold joined together "care for the Earth and care for the poor in our common home". Pope Leo now stresses that climate change is "an issue of justice as well as environmental protection", declaring that
"environmental justice can no longer be regarded as an abstract concept or a distant goal. It is an urgent need that involves much more than simply protecting the environment and it is part of the churches mission to promote human dignity peace and care for creation".
- Pope Leo
In " Laudato Si", Pope Francis makes the challenge very personal in his detailed appeal for us to each undertake a deeply spiritual "ecological conversion" and now Pope Leo invites us to step back from the gambler's betting shrug and to join together to tackle "the injustice social economic and human"; urging us all to now "sow the seeds of justice".
