Hamartiology: Notes on the Greening of Sin and Carbon Offsetting

Image: Ron Barrett

The New York Times (2007)

I.

Sin - a concept crucial to Christianity - was defined by Augustine as a transgression against God's eternal law, be it by word, deed, or desire.  

Today, however, when everyone is environmentally aware and more concerned about global warming than seeking spiritual salvation, sin seems to involve a transgression against Nature or a defilement of the Earth (sometimes personified as the Greek goddess Gaia).

In other words, we no longer condemn people for missing the moral mark, but eagerly judge individuals, corporations, and governments for failing to hit targets to reduce their carbon emissions or recycle plastic waste ...   

II.

Because no one really wants to be punished for their sins, the Catholic Church came up with the clever idea of an indulgence - which is a kind of get out jail free card that allows for the remission of sins or, at the very least, mitigates the temporal punishment that one might otherwise have expected to receive for wrongdoing.   

By the late Middle Ages, indulgences were hugely popular but abuse of the system was widespread; a problem which the Church recognised, but seemed either unable or unwilling to address. Chaucer famously mocks the idea of holy relics and the unrestricted sale of indulgences in The Pardoner's Tale and, later, Protestant reformers were relentless in their attacks on what they regarded as a sign of worldly corruption. The only thing that indulgences guaranteed, said Luther, was an increase in profit and in sin.  

Finally, in response, the Church did take action: in 1562 the Council of Trent suppressed the office of pardoners and reserved the publication of indulgences to bishops only. Shortly afterwards, Pope Pius V cancelled all issuing of indulgences involving fees or other financial transactions.

But now, however, in this age of green sin, they're back in the form of carbon offsets ...


III. 

A carbon offset is a sleight of hand in which an emission of greenhouse gases made in one place is offset by a reduction in emissions made elsewhere, thereby guaranteeing the blissful state of carbon neutrality.

There are two markets for these carbon offsets: a compliance market, in which large companies and institutions buy them up in bulk in order to comply with international regulations and agreed caps; and, secondly, a much smaller scale voluntary market in which individuals as well as companies purchase carbon offsets so as to mitgate their own greenhouse gas emisssions from things like transport (particularly air travel).  

Carbon offset vendors - i.e., the new pardoners - will happily meet all your needs; even providing other services should you require them, such as measuring your very own carbon footprint.

I'm not the first critic to liken these carbon offsets to indulgences; i.e., a way for the rich and powerful to pay for absolution rather than changing their extravagant lifestyles or harmful business practices. Indeed, several environmental organisations have expressed concern that carbon offsetting is merely a convenient way to virtue signal on the one hand whilst continuing to pollute and consume on the other.   

Think Harry and Meghan, for example, whose sins are bright scarlet, even if they paint themselves as green as green can be ...

On Comic Relief and the Figure of the Great White Saviour (with Reference to the Case of Stacey Dooley Vs David Lammy)

Look what I'm holding!

I.

Labour MP David Lammy isn't often right.

But he's fully justified in his recent criticisms of Comic Relief: Stacey Dooley and friends do perpetuate "unhelpful stereotypes" about Africa and the peoples thereof and they do irritate and embarrass many of us as they play the role of Great White Saviour for the cameras amidst a sea of smiling black faces. 

No one questions the good intentions of those celebrities who participate in charitable projects such as Red Nose Day (although, in some cases, we could and probably should do just that).

But such projects can inadvertently descend into poverty porn and I agree with Lammy that Comic Relief has helped ingrain negative images of Africa into the popular imagination by blurring the fifty-four separate nations that make up the continent into "a single reservoir of poverty, grief and suffering", thereby reinforcing the Band Aid view of Africa as a place where nothing ever grows.


II.

Miss Dooley, MBE, is an English TV presenter, journalist, documentary filmmaker, and all-dancing media personality who has made a career out of the shit that goes on in the developing world. So you'd think she might know better than to ask, naively, whether the objection Lammy raises has anything to do with her being white.

For the blindingly obvious answer is that, yes, of course it does - but it's also an issue to do with wealth, fame, class, power and privilege, which is why it's equally offensive when Meghan Markle turns up on the scene to distribute her empowering bananas, for example [click here].    

No one is denying that Africa has problems and faces some huge challenges. But there's a lot of positive things happening there too and Comic Relief "should be helping to establish an image of African people as equals to be respected rather than helpless victims to be pitied".

More than this, it should also challenge its audience "not just to feel guilty, but angry" about the West's political and economic complicity in the war, poverty, and corruption that has plagued the continent in the postcolonial period.

In sum: whilst the fundraising (and international aid) is important and worthwhile, "the Red Nose Day formula is tired and patronising to Africans" and non-Africans alike.  

See: David Lammy, 'Africa deserves better from Comic Relief', in The Guardian (24 March 2017): click here to read online.

See also the excellent article on this topic by Afua Hirsch, 'Ed Sheeran means well but this poverty porn has to stop', The Guardian (5 December 2017): click here.

Let Them Eat Bananas

Image credit: Dan Murrell / New Statesman (20 May 2018)

I.

Let them eat cake is the standard (slightly inaccurate) English translation of the French phrase Qu'ils mangent de la brioche.

A phrase, according to Rousseau, spoken by a great princess upon learning that the peasants had no bread and thereby displaying either her callous contempt of the people, or her inability to comprehend the grinding, desperate reality of poverty.

Commonly attributed to Marie Antoinette, there's no record of her having said it. And so it could just as easily have come from the lips of some other overly-privileged royal cunt; Maria Theresa of Spain, for example, or, indeed, the retired Hollywood actress-cum-Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle ... 
 

II.

I don't know why the latter decided to pay an impromptu visit to the One25 charity in Bristol last Friday - an organisation that helps women who used to be called prostitutes, but who have now been rebranded as sex workers - nor, indeed, do I know why she would drag poor Prince Harry along with her.  

One assumes the royal couple went along to meet volunteers and demonstrate their support by helping to assemble parcels of food, warm clothing and condoms for the women on the streets; something which is not quite pandering, but is arguably enabling a lifestyle of vice and (unofficially) giving the royal seal of approval to such.    

And the fact that Meghan - entirely off her own bat - decided to inscribe the bananas that were being handed out with inspirational messages only lends weight to this argument. But it is also peculiarly offensive to tell vulnerable women leading dangerous, often desperate but otherwise depressingly ordinary lives, that they are strong and special. 

American schoolchildren might find such patronising bullshit empowering, but surely the whores of England aren't such snowflakes as to be taken in by this ...? Indeed, one might hope that the next time the lovely Meghan decides to slum it in a red light district they tell her exactly what she can do with her bananas.

Note: for those interested in seeing filmed footage of the Duchess personally signing pieces of fruit, click here.