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British Bishops: Cut the carbon, not the romance - this Valentine’s Day

The Bishop of Liverpool and Vice President of Tearfund, James Jones and the Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, have joined with development agency Tearfund in calling for a cut in personal carbon use for each of the 40 days of Lent, reports Michael Ireland, chief correspondent, ASSIST News Service .

Tearfund, Britian's leading relief and development agency, and the Bishops have launched the fast because of the urgent need to reduce carbon emissions, and to protect poor communities around the world who are already suffering from the ravages of climate change. The Carbon Fast is a forty-day journey through Lent, towards a lighter carbon footprint, with a simple energy saving action per day.

Charity worker Ben Clowney, 26, from Reading, Berkshire, will be ditching the extortionately priced table at his local restaurant to do something more �?al fresco’ with his Valentine date tomorrow. Ben, otherwise known as �?Low Carbon Man’ will be wooing his lady low carbon style.

Planning the perfect romantic, yet carbon free Valentine’s dinner date, Ben will be cooking up a storm with the food from local farmers markets (not collected by car of course), and eating by the light of his wind up lantern.

Next to his tent, pitched in his car parking space at Teddington-based aid agency Tearfund, where Ben works. Living in a tent for the week (February 8-14), without heat, electricity, hot water or his car, Ben has travelled everywhere by foot, bike and even canoe as he attempts to reduce his carbon emissions by 95 percent.

Ben campaigns on climate change as part of his job at Tearfund, and his �?Low Carbon Man’ challenge is to draw attention to Tearfund’s Carbon Fast -- a forty-day journey through Lent, with a simple energy saving action per day (such as snubbing plastic bags or leaving the dishwasher a day off).

Ben has taken his carbon fast to the extreme but his romantic tendencies haven’t suffered! "I have been living like this to try and cut my emissions as much as possible and that includes Valentines Day," says Ben.

"It is the perfect opportunity to have a really special date and go back to basics, made even better in the knowledge that it is as low carbon as possible," he adds.

And that doesn’t mean scrimping on quality either. Ben’s girlfriend Ari Dejonge, from Wimbledon, seems suitably impressed with all the effort that Ben has gone to for their romantic evening. "I’ve never had dinner in the car park before…but I think dinner by a wind up lamp might be just as romantic as candles," says Ari.

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[02/14/2008]

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