Guardian: UK Churches Latest Victims of ‘Climate Change’

“Climate change” threatens the future of UK’s historic churches, endangering roofs, towers, and spires, according to the National Churches Trust.

“The intensity of extreme weather patterns, including heavier rainfalls and storms, is putting church gutters and drains under strain, and systems designed in the past cannot cope,” said Claire Walker, the chief executive of the trust.

“Looking to the future, the impact of climate change could have a serious impact on the UK’s historic churches,” Walker said. “Higher levels of rainfall in the UK, such as the 20% increase seen in Scotland since the 1960s, with more cycles of wetting and drying, will cause damage to timber and stonework. Stronger winds and more frequent storms will threaten roofs, towers and spires.”

“Climate change is also making the UK ever more vulnerable to invasive pests. The biggest danger for church buildings would be from termites, which are now widespread in France, with infestations being found close to the Channel coast.”

Ms. Walker does not explain how climate change—rather than severe weather and the passing of years—is doing such damage to church structures, nor how climate change is empowering termites to become more menacing as the world allegedly grows warmer thanks to CO2 emissions.

The Guardian newspaper, a major proponent of global warming, notes that the National Churches Trust saw a 26 percent one-year increase in applications for grants for “urgent repairs, maintenance and development projects in 2017,” further evidence that climate change is wreaking havoc on the world.

In 2017, a total of 480 churches and chapels in the UK requested financial assistance from the trust, which bestowed 230 grants worth £1.7m—“an increase of £300,000 compared with 2016.”

Ms. Walker said that many churches have reached a “tipping point” due to the combined impact of climate change, cuts to Heritage Lottery Fund grants, and the end of the government-funded roof repair scheme for listed places of worship.

Climate change has become the convenient whipping boy of all the ills in the world, from racism to immigration, and now to church destruction.

While the mainstream media earnestly sells this story, the public demand for fantasy tales may at some point turn to non-fiction.

Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter Follow @tdwilliamsrome