Bishop's Stortford takes part in Ring Out for Climate Change on eve of COP26 UN Climate Change Conference
Bellringers at St Michael's Church in Bishop's Stortford will join the Ring Out for Climate Change on Saturday (Oct 30).
The Windhill team is taking part in a nationwide campaign led by Edward Gildea, a Christian Aid climate campaign organiser from Saffron Walden, who is asking churches to ring their bells at 6pm for 30 minutes as a warning of the climate emergency and to mark the start of the 26th UN Climate Change Conference (COP26), which begins on Sunday (Oct 31) in Glasgow.
St Michael's organiser Alan Padgett said: "We'll be ringing out both a welcome to those delegates from around the world as well as our warning to remind them of the urgency of the dangers we now face.
"At St Michael's we'll be ringing our ten bells for 30 minutes. During the last 10 minutes a bell will stop ringing every minute until there is only one bell left, to show that time is running out."
Mr Padgett explained: "We mostly associate church bells with the call to worship, weddings and very special national celebrations, such as the Millennium or the ending of the Second World War. But they have another historic function – to ring out warnings.
"Normally those warnings have been local: to warn of fire, floods or shipwrecks. But they were very much on standby to warn of possible invasions by Hitler, Napoleon or the Spanish Armada – times of real national crisis.
"Here in Bishop's Stortford, extreme weather events have affected relatively few of us, but we're concerned with the millions around the world who are being profoundly affected."
The bells will also ring out at St Mary's in Saffron Walden, where Mr Gildea is a worshipper.
He said: "The idea came to me while scything in St Mary's churchyard, since when, from my kitchen table, and never having rung a church bell in my life, I've sent hundreds of emails to bishops and cathedral deans up and down the UK.
"There's now a real chance that the bells of churches and chapels throughout the UK really will become the church's 'code red warning' voice for God's creation, for climate justice around the world, and sound our welcome to the delegates to Glasgow for the historic and pivotal COP26 conference."
