Snippet
Comment
Sustainability
3 min read

Coal’s demise teaches us to be cautious about progress

Why the extinguishing of coal power should dampen attitudes to what promises to be progress.

Graham is the Director of the Centre for Cultural Witness and a former Bishop of Kensington.

A sky line shows steam rising from a power station's chimney and cooling towers.
Ratcliffe on Soar power station.
Malcolm Neal, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

Chimneys. In our 1920s house, we have two of them, rising into the sky like solid brick antennae. Look across most big cities in the UK today and virtually every house still has them. Yet most of them remain idle, monuments of a bygone age. Useful for holding the TV aerial but not much else.  

I thought of chimneys recently when driving up the M1 past Ratcliffe-on-Soar Power Station. On the last day of September this year, it was disconnected from the national grid, as the UK’s last coal-fired power station. The age of coal was over. 

Back in the day, chimneys were busy. In the Industrial Revolution of the 1700s and 1800, coal was used to light towns, power railways, and fuel steam engines. By 1850 we were mining 62 million tonnes of coal every year. Coal was the fuel of the present, driving the technology of the future. Chimneys were a sign of a bright way ahead, churning out smoke from coal-fired factories and bringing safe fires into the hearth and home on those dark wintry northern European nights. Coal was leading us into the sunny uplands of prosperity, comfort and mastery over nature. The power behind the industrial revolution, it was as crucial to the present - and the future - as the smartphone seems to us today. 

It began to dawn on us we had a problem with coal during the Great Smog of London in 1952. A period of cold weather, an unusually high number of domestic coal fires, no wind and an anticyclone which acted like a thick, stifling blanket, all of it kept the soot-filled fumes from escaping into the atmosphere. As a result, a miasma of dense, smelly fog sat for days over London, killing thousands of people. It led to the Clean Air Acts of 1956 and 1968, banning emissions of black smoke and making residents of urban areas and operators of factories convert to smokeless fuel. Margaret Thatcher’s fight with the miners in 1982, leading to the closure of many pits, was another nail in the coffin of coal.  

In October 2001, the Large Combustion Plant Directive aimed to reduce carbon emissions throughout Europe. The UK planned to end coal use by 2025, and we managed to get there a year early. On the domestic level, not many of us use coal or wood fires anymore. Since May 2023, it has been illegal to sell ordinary domestic coal in the UK. Wet wood is banned too. You can burn what’s called ‘dry wood’, with 20% moisture or less, but you can’t go into the woods and bring home random logs you find on a weekend walk any more. Wood burners remain popular, yet even they are suspect, as they produce high levels of CO2.  

Gradually we realised that there was an order and a rhythm to the natural world that we messed with at our peril. There was, as Marilynne Robinson once called a ‘Givenness’ to the world. We simply had to learn to respect that givenness, that order, and live within the limits it placed upon us. And as a result, the chimneys lie idle. 

The demise of coal - and chimneys - teaches us a lesson. Not everything that promises progress is good. Wisdom lies not in pushing forward with whatever technology or new idea offers more choice, more possibility, but knowing what will diminish us and what will give us life. 

Article
Comment
General Election 24
Morality
Politics
3 min read

The morality of defection

Why I respect 'traitors'.
A man sits in a TV interview, below him is a captions stating 'Mark Lognan. Former Conservative MP
Mark Logan explains his move.
BBC.

Defection is a dirty word. 

It evokes feelings of treachery. Betrayal. Backstabbing. 

All in all it leaves a bad taste in the mouth. 

  

Defectors always carry with them a whiff of suspicion. 

Are they genuine, or are they just opportunists? 

Who do they really work for? 

What do they get out of it? 

Have they truly renounced their old ways? 

  

There has been a lot of defecting going on in UK Politics over the last few weeks. For good or ill, a number of political parties have members who, up until recently, wore rosettes of a different colour. 

The defections have been dramatic – and public.  

Think of the recent defections from the Conservatives to Labour. Two in a fortnight. 

First Dan Poulter and then Nathalie Elphicke crossing the Commons floor with moments to spare before Prime Minister’s Questions. Then Mark Logan last week. 

Perhaps one encouraged the other. Defections and resignations in politics always seem to arrive like buses.  

And each of these defections was accompanied by a public story about why they’ve changed their minds. A testimony, if you will.  

It was these stories which drew the most fire, from both former friends and new allies. In most cases, it hasn’t taken a lot of digging to find statements made when these people had a different allegiance which call into question the truth of their supposed conversion.  

Conversion, though, is just the right word.  

And this service to a higher power is often experienced by others as a betrayal.

Christianity knows a lot about defection.  

Right at the heart of the Jesus story is a moment of betrayal.  

Judas turns Jesus over to be crucified. 

The price to betray the saviour of the world? A few silver coins. 

 

But in Christianity, defection is not always a bad thing. 

If defection is a dirty word, repentance and conversion are a positive counterpart. 

Saying Jesus is Lord in a world where Caesar is Lord is an act of subversion. 

It is a recognition that the authority of Caesar, of any government, has its limits. 

Christians are called to serve and love their communities and nations – but they only ever have a provisional allegiance to any earthly power or government.  

And this makes Christians untrustworthy.  

 

On a deep level, to be a Christian is to have defected from an allegiance to a world which values power and money to service of the God of love. 

And this service to a higher power is often experienced by others as a betrayal. 

It is little surprise then that from time to time, governments across the world have treated Christians with that same whiff of suspicion reserved for defectors.  

But in the United Kingdom, religious freedoms afford believers with the same luxuries afforded to MPs. They can defect publicly – they can tell their stories. They can encourage others to cross the floor. 

  

Can a bird change its feathers, or a leopard change its spots? 

The Christian story says yes. 

  

As the election campaign draws on and as people defect from one party or another and as people ask those questions of defectors 

Perhaps it is time to focus less on others, and instead ask those questions of yourself. 

  

Are you genuine? 

Who do you really work for? 

What do you get out of it? 

Have you truly renounced your old ways? 

  

Defection can be a good thing. 

Will you tell your story?