How eco-friendly is your church?

Carbon emissions produced by our western lifestyle are causing environmental damage and human suffering, the Diocesan Synod heard at its last meeting. Members agreed a motion urging everyone in our diocese, from individual parishioners to the Bishop of Oxford, to cut carbon emissions and make energy-saving changes at home and at church. The DOOR takes a look at ways of living a greener life, and what some parishes are already doing.

Whenever we turn on a light or a television, start up our car, or turn up the heating, we put extra carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It comes from carbon that has been locked away in the Earth’s crust for millions of years and once we let it into the atmosphere it spreads across the world in weeks.
Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are now a third higher than they were before the industrial revolution and higher than they have been for at least half a million years.
It is expected this will warm the Earth’s surface, changing climate, creating droughts and floods, melting ice and leading to increasing numbers of violent storms. Scientists predict that, within a generation, climate will change drastically, causing environmental damage and human suffering. 

Undoubtedly, poor people in undeveloped countries will suffer most, and rich consumers of the West will largely contribute to the problem.

It is a truly global problem which begins with people like us. Carbon pollution is a response to our demand. Your  long-haul holiday flight emits as much carbon into the atmosphere as when you run your car for a year. When you buy a kiwi fruit airfreighted from New Zealand, six times its weight in carbon is released into the atmosphere.
I believe carbon dioxide and climate change to be a profoundly Christian  issue.

Among the world religions, Christianity places great value on the physical world about us. God created it and declared it to be good. God loved it so much that he became incarnate within it and suffered for it.

Care for our world and all the people in it is not an optional extra for a few green-leaning Christians. It is central to the mission of the whole people of God.

Our Diocesan Synod has asked all its Boards, Committees and Deaneries to look at their carbon emissions and identify ways to reduce them by 15% by  2010, in line with the Kyoto protocol.

As Diocesan Environment Advisor I ask everyone in the Diocese to do their bit to meet this target, becoming more aware of, and responsible for, the ways in which our daily choices affect the output and result of carbon emissions.
While acknowledging the constraints with ancient buildings and that change will often mean commitment to incurring some cost, let us all look at our options for heating systems in our Churches and homes? Can we car-share to services, work  or meetings? Can we ensure new electrical items meet the highest  energy efficiency standards? Can we insulate our homes and offices properly? Is carbon-expensive air travel necessary, or could our business be done by email and holidays taken nearer home?

Let’s not go down in history as the generation who recognised the problem but refused to do anything about it!

The Revd Prof Ian James is the Diocesan Environment Advisor