Bishop of Stafford, Gordon Mursell

A bishop is in hot water for claiming people who do not care about climate change are as bad as a notorious rapist who imprisoned his daughter for 24 years.

The Bishop of Stafford, Gordon Mursell, said that by failing to face up to the truth about global warming, we were denying our children a future - just like Josef Fritzl who fathered seven of his daughter Elizabeth’s children while she was locked in a cellar.

His shocking claims were made in a letter distributed in parish magazines throughout the Diocese of Lichfield, in which Bishop Mursell wrote: "Josef Fritzl represents merely the most extreme form of a very common philosophy of life: I will do what makes me happy, and if that causes others to suffer, hard luck.

"In fact you could argue that, by our refusal to face the truth about climate change, we are as guilty as he is - we are in effect locking our children and grandchildren into a world with no future and throwing away the key.

"We are right to be disgusted at these crimes. But mere disgust is too convenient. There are lessons for all of us to learn."

Mr Mursell struggled to clarify his comments when interviewed on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme saying: "I don’t wish to shock people unnecessarily and I am in no way trying to imply that people who ignore climate change are child abusers - of course not.

"I am simply trying to use an analogy to get people to wake up to the consequences of what we are failing to do, because if we don’t there won’t be a future for our children either.

"The problem with climate change is - as I heard Prince Charles arguing very eloquently a couple of weeks ago - that it is terribly hard to get people to see the seriousness of it, because the consequences are not faced just by the person failing to take action now.

"Fritzl is a revolting person and it is hard to imagine a more monstrous crime.

"I think we have to try to find ways to get people to see the consequences of our failure to act on climate change. If we don’t face those, all I am saying is we are destroying the future of our children just as he did.

"Could you not argue that if there is no future for our children and grandchildren, we will have been guilty of committing the most appalling crimes as well?"