Weekly Action - 31 October 2022 - Inflation
Inflation
The world is reeling from the impacts of staggering rises in global inflation. In the UK inflation is currently over 10%. The Bank of England predicts it will rise even higher, to over 13%. Across Europe, the US and much of the rest of the world, inflation is at similar levels.
Inflation is driving up the cost of living around the world, which is hitting the very poorest, hardest. Food prices, and those of other basic essentials are rocketing. Fuel and energy prices are rising to incredible levels. Wages cannot keep up, and we are therefore seeing a new wave of strikes from workers who desperately need pay increases to help them manage the soaring cost of living.
What is driving inflation?
Galloping inflation globally is being driven by dramatic rises in the price of gas and other forms of fossil fuels. There has been a massive increase in global demand over the last couple of years as economies have opened up after Covid-19. On top of that, the war in Ukraine has driven energy prices even higher. Rapidly rising energy prices make it more expensive to produce and transport food and goods, to drive our cars, and to use heat and electricity in our homes, driving up prices everywhere.
Fifty years ago, runaway inflation also drove the infamous financial crisis of the 1970s, when the UK and many other Western countries suffered mass unemployment, strikes, energy shortages and economic misery. Then, as now, inflation was driven by dramatic increases in the price of fossil fuels, when the major Middle Eastern oil exporting countries placed embargos on Western countries which were seen to support Israel in the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Fifty years on, despite the overwhelming evidence that fossil fuels are causing global climate change, resulting in rising sea levels, more extreme storms, changing seasons, failing crops, flooding etc., and despite the progress made through international climate negotiations, the world is still overwhelmingly dependent on fossil fuels. We are all paying the price in the destruction of our natural environment and the economic impacts of fossil fuel driven inflation on everyone’s standard of living.
So what needs to happen?
In the current crisis, governments need to address both the short-term urgent need, and the long-term underlying causes. In the short-term, people desperately need help with soaring energy prices to avoid more and more of us having to make desperate choices between heating and eating this winter. In the long-term, the UK, and the whole world, needs to rapidly shift away from our dependence on polluting fossil fuels, and onto clean renewable energy like solar, wind or tidal energy, which does not cause climate change, creates jobs and is massively cheaper than fossil fuels. Scientists, activists, churches, business leaders and economists have been calling for this for decades. If governments had taken faster action years ago, we would not now be facing ecological crisis or the grim economic consequences of fossil fuel driven inflation.
The current situation is crazy. As Christians we know this isn’t the world God wants to see, and that instead he calls us to both care for those in need, and protect and care for his amazing creation. We can rapidly shift to a world run on cheap, clean, renewable energy, which cares for and supports those who are feeling the impact of economic changes. A better way of doing things is possible.
Arise’s 4 Shifts Campaign calls for a rewiring of our global economy to be green and fair, so it still creates jobs and lifts people out of poverty, but does so without wrecking the planet. As part of that campaign we need to transition as rapidly as possible to 100% clean renewable energy, whilst also supporting communities who are feeling the impact of both climate change and economic hardship right now.
Will you take action as part of Arise’s 4 Shifts Campaign this week, to address inflation and shift to a clean energy economy?
Take Action
Speak out in advocacy
Write to your MP in your own words asking them to take urgent action to:
1. Meet immediate needs in the current inflation crisis by urging the government to impose a windfall tax on the soaring profits of fossil fuel energy companies, and use it to reduce the soaring energy bills of ordinary people in society, especially the poorest.
2. Address the long-term causes of both the climate and economic crisis by urging the government to bring forward and strengthen the UK’s plans to transition out of fossil fuels, so that we shift to zero emissions and 100% clean renewable energy, and ban the use of fossil fuels by 2030. Implement this in every sector (energy, transport, buildings, industry etc.)
Find your MP, and their contact details here
Pray
Pray for all those impacted by soaring inflation, who are struggling to pay the bills, and making tough choices between heating and eating. Pray for all those impacted by extreme storms, droughts, floods, changing seasons, sea level rise and the other impacts of climate change.
Give
Give to Christian organisations like CAP or the Trussell Trust who are helping those experiencing the most direct impacts of poverty and galloping inflation in the UK, and to organisations like Christian Aid, Cafod, Tearfund or World Vision who are supporting the poorest communities impacted by climate change around the world.
Practical Action
Look out for friends, neighbours and those who are struggling economically in your church and community, who will be hardest hit by spiralling inflation, energy and food prices. How can you and your church directly support them?
Ethical Consumption
Speed the shift to a 100% clean energy economy by switching you electricity provider to a renewable energy company like Ecotricity or Good Energy.
Encourage us and others by letting us know what actions you have taken – message us at info@ariseuk.org, or via Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Find out more
It’s great to take this action as individual Christians, but even better to come together with others to pray, discuss, worship, learn, have fun and take action together. Contact Arise if you are interested in joining or starting a local Arise group in your church or area. If you are already in an Arise group, take this action to your wider church, and get them all to do it too.
Find out more about why the world needs 4 Shifts to transition to a green and fair global economy in Arise’s 4 Shifts Report, and how this forms part of God’s bigger vision for our world in the Arise Manifesto.
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