Well, here I am in Milano (well, Triuggio, strictly speaking, just outside Milano) at the conference of the European Christian Environment Network (ECEN). We're staying in a lovely large villa in beautiful surroundings, although, I have to confess that we haven't seen much of the surroundings, as we've been ensconsed in high brow meetings all day.
We've heard up to the minute feed back from the vice-Chair of the IPCC, who assured us that climate change is really as bad as they say it is, and the prospects are bleak. We've heard from a radical architect from Torino who talked at length about the way that architecture could contribute to making space work better as mitigation against future climate changes. And we had a panel of theologians talking about how the church can make a particular contribution to the climate change work in our communities.
I'm assured that the practical content of the conference will be coming, because it has all felt rather theoretical so far. Mind you, the travel here didn't feel theoretical... it took me 37 hours on the train and coach from leaving home at 0630 on Tuesday to arriving here at the conference at 2000 on the Wednesday. It doesn't inspire you with confidence about travelling on the coach across Europe. However, I was reassured that the folks who came on the train from the UK had a bit of a problem as they had to contend with the French train drivers strike, which didn't affect us on the coach! So, swings and roundabouts. And the coach was much cheaper...
