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In our house, we haven’t eaten meat this week. Instead we’ve been enjoying meals with lots more vegetables, eggs and fish. We’re not alone: vegetarianism and becoming vegan are on the rise. For some people it’s about their health, or cost, or animal welfare. According to the Committee on Climate Change’s report, published yesterday, if Britain is to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions we’re going to have to cut eating beef and lamb by 20 per cent to reduce methane gases, fossil fuel usage, land and water consumption. Such a change in our diet will have profound implications for Britain’s farmers and the countryside that so many of us love. Much of what we consider beautiful in this country, especially in the national parks of the Peak District and the Lake District, is down to agriculture. Appreciation of them should not blind us to the fact that these places are not wild, but largely man-made. So even what we cherish may have to change for the long-term survival of the planet. In recent years, Christian theology has had a rethink about how humanity relates to the world around it. Once, the Bible’s teaching that God gave man dominion over the earth was taken to mean that we should lord it over the planet, using it as we please. Now it is the idea of stewardship that is the focus of Christian thinking. Yet even what might be called stewarding the land is contentious. If we use acre upon acre for sheep farming or cattle raising, is that really good for God’s creation, planet earth, however lovely the result looks? Pope Francis in Laudato Si, his 2015 teaching document on the environment, urged people to a conversion of heart towards nature and to recognise that humanity has harmed creation through both actions and a failure to act. He writes about the need for tenderness towards the earth. It’s perhaps not a word normally associated with the human response to the world we have cultivated, fished and farmed for generations. But it is a reminder of the protection it needs and how precious it is. Francis’ comment about tenderness reminded me of the visions of Julian of Norwich, the medieval mystic who wrote about how God showed her the fragile world as if a little hazelnut lying in the palm of her hand. “I was astonished”, she wrote, “that it managed to survive. It was so small that I thought it might disintegrate”. Julian heard an answer: “It lives on because God loves it”. Now, though, when if it’s to continue to live on, it needs humanity to love it too.