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Good morning Guess who uttered these prophetic words: We should “be worried about the effect of constantly burning coal and oil because that can create a band of carbon dioxide round the earth which could itself have very damaging ecological effects.” Margaret Thatcher. Way back in 1979. Over 30 years ago and with an eye to future generations she was prophesying the consequences of global warming. She was one of the first world leaders to get the science of carbon in the atmosphere. She spoke these words at her first G7 summit in Tokyo and used them to advocate the development of nuclear energy. Well, a lot of energy has flowed through the wires since then and Japan has had its own issues with nuclear power. Germany has started to scale down its nuclear industry and although the French company EDF is poised to invest in Britain France is also scaling back its dependency on nuclear. Energy is making the news. Arguments rage over prices and profits. Experts vie over the virtues and vices of renewable, fossil and nuclear The truth is that there is no source of fuel that is environmentally neutral. Everything has an impact. Recently I went to Swaffham to climb to the top of the wind turbine and asked about how much carbon was used to build it. I’ve also been to Sellafield and asked questions about the burying of waste locally and the effects on land and sea. Nothing is neutral. There’s a harvest to every seed that is planted. Everybody I met sensed a responsibility for future generations. The challenge is how do we heat ourselves without overheating the earth and our grandchildren. This is what is called – wait for it – “intergenerational justice”, taking into today’s equations the rights of future generations. Mind you, there are some who say you can’t talk about the rights of those who don’t yet exist. How can there be a moral equivalence between those alive now and the non-existent? It’s a serious philosophical point. But faith opens up different possibilities. God is timeless and in our future as well as our present. And I find something curiously hopeful about these debates over energy. It shows us grappling with a future way beyond our own lifespan of three score years and ten. It has us thinking of a future as yet unseen and unknown. One that we ourselves are trying to shape. It’s through these debates about energy that we lift our sights to an horizon beyond which lies a world of which we can but dream and plan.