Age, lack of skill, employment in certain industries, all contribute to low pay -but with what weight? The purpose of this study is to present evidence that age and skill have been underestimated and the industrial effect misconstrued as factors in low pay. We then attempt to spell out the handicaps of the low paid in labour markets, of which high rates of unemployment are the main sign.In many ways the more important problem is that of low resources -pay adjusted for family responsibilities. Earnings that are adequate for an older worker might mean poverty for a family. 2 The main reason for looking at low pay as such is that minimum wage legislation affects all the low paideven if they have few family responsibilities.Previous studies have looked at the low paid, mainly in terms of the distribution of earnings between industries. 3 Mrs Judith Marquand in a pioneering study tested for links between low pay and such industrial characteristics as high proportions of small plants, of women workers, of unskilled workers and falling demand for labour. Her study also stressed differences in bargaining power between industries.Differences in the balance of occupations and in the quality of labour contribute to inter-industry differentials. The true differential is smaller than the actual one. It reflects such factors as 'ability to pay', 'profitability' and 'capital intensity'. It is certainly there -in the short run. But neither economic theory nor evidence provides strong grounds for giving it much weight in the long run. The work done on such differentials has not been very successful. Nor can we be dogmatic about how differences in bargaining

Scholars, activists and others increasingly acknowledge that religion-whether conceived in terms of ideas, rituals or institutions-can help us cope with climate change and make sense of extreme weather events. Churches provide moral lessons in times of crisis, they spread awareness of climate change and, through community ritual, religious institutions can nurture a sense of collective responsibility. Much has been written on how contemporary faith groups have understood and acted on climate change and extreme weather events.Yet this literature is often not historically rooted and makes only superficial reference to the complex relationships between climate, extreme weather and religion in the past. Without an historical awareness we cannot understand the extent to which present-day religious discourses on the environmentfrom those articulated by "greener faith" advocates to fundamentalist skeptics-connect with how past societies understood climate and, more specifically, extreme weather events. A survey of the literature on Christian responses to extreme weather events, whether these be slow disasters (droughts) or isolated events (storms), suggests that histories that emphasize ruptures in attitudes to the natural world are problematic. Extreme weather events have long been regarded as omens and signs, and as divine judgments on sin. It is still thought that weather disturbances reflect disorders in human society. This literature survey introduces these continuities in Christian responses to extreme weather by ranging broadly across the English-speaking world from early modernity, though special attention is given to current work on Anglophone settler societies.

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