SOUNDING TWELVE YEARS: an invitation to participate
ClimateKeys is inviting places of worship and also individual members of the public to join an effort to raise the profile of our twelve-year timeline. We want places of worship and individuals to mark the number ‘12’ to help disseminate information about the timeline.
See Press
The Church Times
Mercy International Association
PLACES OF WORSHIP will participate through creating repeating bursts of twelve sounds, thus filling public spaces with the repeated pealing of twelve church bells, the Blowing of the Shofar, the ringing of Buddhist bells and so on … Accompanying outreach by ClimateKeys will inform the public of our twelve year timeline.
Please email lola@climatekeys.com to register your interest and ask any questions.
PARITICANTS' STATEMENTS
CUMBRIA
“There is no challenge more urgent or critical than tackling climate change - the bell tolls for us.”
(The Rev. Mark Nash-Williams, Bishops' Advisor on the Environment, Newcastle Diocese, St Augustine of Canterbury, Alston)
LANCASHIRE
“We, at St John’s and St Joseph’s in Hurst Green are Sounding Twelve Years because, as Eco Church and Eco School respectively, we feel it is our responsibility to highlight the short timescale we have to address climate change, which is impacting the poor and vulnerable already and will seriously challenge up and coming generations.”
CANADA
"We are a group called Sisters of Mercy and located in Newfoundland, Canada. You have already been in contact with Anne Walsh from Australia, who is editor of Mercy enews and website lead for the Mercy International Association. Anne has been promoting the “sounding of bells” for the past few weeks through the Mercy world and we have picked up the invitation. We have circulated it to our sisters and colleagues. We hope to hear bells ringing out throughout our city of St. John’s and beyond next week – they will certainly sound in our convents!"
SOMERSET
“We, at All Saints Church, Long Ashton, are Sounding Twelve Years because we feel that the urgency of this problem needs a big statement and you can't get bigger than the Church."
WALES
"We, at St Augustine’s Parish Church, Rumney, Cardiff, are Sounding Twelve Years because as Christians we believe the world is part of God’s creation, which humankind has been given responsibility and stewardship for. We are called both to share the resources of our planet fairly and also to ensure that it is here for future generations. We need to act now to before it’s too late and we find ourselves unable to turn around the damage we are inflicting on our world.”
LONDON
"We at St Laurence in Catford, London, are Sounding Twelve Years because, as an organisation dedicated to serving the community, drawing attention to issues such as climate change, that directly affect it, is important. As Christians, we also believe in caring and taking responsibility for the natural gifts God has given us - something that will have to be done more than ever in the next twelve years to prevent catastrophe."
INDIVIDUALS will participate by forming into groups that gather in selected public spaces. Individuals bring something to bang or ring, such as a small bell or a cooking pot and a spoon. A volunteer leads the group to chant from 1 to 12, while chanters simultaneously ring the bells and beat the pots. After number 12 is reached, there is a pause in the beating and chanting, so the group has a short rest, before the leader starts it up again. This sequence continues until the group feels it needs a longer break.
Members of the group bear signs about the climate emergency and our twelve year timeline, and engage with passers-by, handing out leaflets we will supply.
Please register your interest as soon as possible to lola@climatekeys.com
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ABOUT THE CREATORS
ClimateKeys is a global initiative with a no-fly policy that has to date triggered over 60 events in 13 countries in which musicians and climate change experts collaborate to lead discussion on action on climate change. ClimateKeys is proud to support the aims of Extinction Rebellion and its mass peaceful civil action commencing on 15th April with two specially created performances; ‘Pianothon on a Pelican’ and ‘Sounding Twelve Years’.
ABOUT OUR EXISTENTIAL CRISIS
2019 is arguably our last chance to drive policy and culture change so as to achieve the ambitious targets set out in the UN’s IPCC 2018 report which describes the enormous harm that anything above a 1.5°C rise in global temperature would cause. It told us that limiting to 1.5°C may still be possible yet requires “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. The problem though: we’re not on track. Carbon emissions haven’t stopped rising and temperatures are heading towards 3°C. If we continue on our current course, future changes in climate could be dramatically abrupt and irreversible, seeing mass migrations, crop failures and unprecedented disasters. This is already putting a raft of other pressures on the ecology, with 200 species going extinct every day due to habitat loss as well as change in climate. In a 2018 study of British mammals it was found that 1 in 5 could be extinct within a decade. This is our time to alert those who do not know, to reinforce the twelve year window of opportunity, and increase ways to shift the global narrative and generate the necessary political will.
