DESPITE the fact that we are basically carbon based life forms our planet isn't made mainly of carbon, though linked with oxygen the small amount there is ensures that the temperature is just about right for plants and us animals to live somewhere on it.

Whatever the origin, divine creation, random chance or just the passage of time, it's important that the atmospheric chemical balance isn't distorted in any way, and that's just what has happened with the influence that one selfish specie is having on the climate.

Centuries ago we were ignorant of the role played by CO2 from burning fossil fuels, but while we have now understood the science for almost two hundred years we still disappointingly continue with our indulgent, selfish behaviour. However there are signs that some have recognised the problem.

Driven by the need to heat old, underused church buildings, and the duty to respect what they see as the environmental creation, both the Anglican and Roman Catholic Christian churches throughout Europe, as well as all the mosques in Morocco, have spoken out about the need to reduce CO2 emissions. The route will be the installation of renewable energy systems, that is solar, wind, ground heat sources, and insulation.

There's now almost an eleventh commandment about reducing carbon dioxide, but they will need to be more successful in promoting it than they have been with many of the original ten as we humans are very keen to put our own immediate needs before those of the wider community.

Pope Frances seems to have kicked off the debate by describing the planet as a polluted wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth. In the UK alone 2,000 Catholic churches have switched to green energy suppliers as have the Salvation Army and many Quaker meeting houses. The Anglican bishops are also now committed to divestment from fossil fuels and the pressure is mounting.

By 2019 over 600 Moroccan mosques will have LED lighting, solar thermal water heating and electricity from solar panels, with 100 mosques already equipped by the end of this year. Morocco usefully has the largest wind farm in Africa and an enormous solar power storage plant in the Sahara. While most of the capital is from a committed government, a third is from the German companies that make the technology, and now have their feet well and truly in the door.

Closer to home Baildon Methodist Church has just completed ten years as an environmental leader, with its solar panels, space heating systems, and under floor insulation. It should not be a surprise, then, that the number of solar panels in the Baildon area is impressive – currently 1,445, and growing.