The issue of the environment is never far from the news, locally or globally. Oxford suffered more flooding last winter, as did the region. In fact, for the first time in my life I preached at church with wet feet, soaked cycling down the Abingdon Road.

Nature can always surprise us, and we are apparently slow too to remember that flood defences are vital and need regional investment, even during the non-flooding years.

It was something of a surprise to hear David Liddington, Minister for Europe, on April 7 at the Commons Scottish Affairs Committee say that £200 million of EU structural funding designated for English regions had been diverted to Scotland – apparently the English regions did not need it.

Globally, the whole question of ecology is now crucially important in all dimensions of life. Economically, the UN has announced that humanity must stop generating energy by fossil fuels, and the EU says generation must end in 40 years, when ‘renewables’ must provide all energy.

Wind power is the fashionable choice, although its capacity to produce the levels of power needed for the UK is questioned, and indeed some predict power cuts as old power stations are phased out – the fire at Didcot showed how vulnerable we are.

Whether the planners and politicians have got it right, time will tell. But the environment is of course a major spiritual concern. The leader of the world’s Eastern Orthodox Churches, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomeus, who lives under quasi house arrest conditions in Istanbul, has become known as the ‘Green Patriarch’ for his teaching on Christian responsibility to be a good steward of the planet.

He issued the Venice Declaration in 2002, well worth reading on the website, reminding us that creation is a gift and that we as humans are gifted with abilities to look after the natural order and not destroy it. Our attitude has become utilitarian and exploitative, he says, and we need to return to a wisdom that acknowledges and respects the order of nature. No Christian could disagree.

Industrialisation has been pursued in the past with reckless abandon as to its effects on the environment. Destruction of whole species has occurred by this and by the scale of some farming methods.

On the other hand we as humans are called to explore the energies of the created order, for example, discovering electricity and penicillin have been immensely good developments – we don’t want to call for humans to go back to living in caves. It is all a matter of proportion and wisdom.

Nuclear power, if implemented for peaceful energy and not war, is another wonder buried in the created order by the creator for us to harness, but only with absolute care.

And in cultural history the other extreme is sacrificing of human life to the gods of nature. The politicians need to be careful of not sacrificing us to an ideology in cutting down power with reckless abandon and leaving us with no electricity.

Global warming is said to be largely caused by human consumption, but we hear nothing now of population control as a response to the problem, whereas it was a hot topic in the 1970s and 80s. Is it now politically incorrect to issue a challenge to cut population increase because of cultural and religious offence being caused?

And we hear little of the impact of the motor car on warming: some topics are ‘off limits’. We do indeed need wisdom and honesty in this whole area, as Patriarch Bartholomeus reminds us.