Letter from Rev Peter: 

I have learnt a lot on the occasions from the small farmers and small producers who have spoken over the years that the services for them have taken place.  Global Gross Domestic Product is 10 times bigger than it was when in the 1950s, and that increase has brought prosperity to billions of people.  But the global economy has also become incredibly divisive, with this vast share of wealth now going to a fraction of the global 1% of the population.  Not only is it divisive, but it has also become incredibly degenerative, rapidly destabilising our delicately balanced planet on which all of our lives depend.  Politicians know this, and so they offer new destinations for growth.  You can have green growth, inclusive growth, smart resilient balanced growth, in fact, choose any future you want, so long as you choose growth, yet infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible.  

In 2023, Earth Overshoot Day fell on August the 2nd.  Eart Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has exhausted nature's resources for the year.  For the rest of the year we are maintaining our ecological deficit be drawing down on next years 

Personally, I think it's time to choose a higher ambition, a far bigger one because humanity's 21st-century challenge is clear.  To meet the needs of all people within the means of this extraordinary unique living planet, so that we and the rest of nature can flourish, progress is not going to be measured with money, a healthy economy should be designed to thrive, rather than to go for the impossibility of endless growth.  

Rev Peter