Late last year Christine and I (pictured at the top outside the bishop's palace) were very fortunate in being able to join an Oxford diocese link visit to Vaxjo in Sweden where the theme of the exchange was the environment. We stayed in a church-run college and visited a variety of sites in our three days, including the biogas plant pictured in the middle (part owned by the church because they own a farm whose cows produce some of the manure) and the rapeseed oil powered crematorium (lowest picture). We also learnt about some of the problems with using rapeseed oil at a church whose boiler had ceased functioning but which was part of a deanery where they are rolling out a very high tech plan for long distance controlling not only the heating and dehumidfying but opening and closing up the building and even ringing the bells. After we got to England I gave a presentation on our experiences after church one day and the text for that is now attached as a page to this blog.
I promised to put a link to their bishops' letter on the environment - that is here.
