Harvest Festival

 Yesterday's service was our Harvest Festival, followed by a shared lunch to raise money for Christian Aid's Harvest Appeal for the East Africa Hunger Crisis. As the final service in Creation Season it was the appropriate time to mention TakeTheJump's biggest challenge:

The suggestions they offer include:

Changing to a green energy supplier 

Changing your pension to a green investor

Using ethical and green banks 

Using your energy at home efficiently, or install energy efficiency measures (this can be expensive so not everyone is able to do so easily).

If you feel comfortable and able to, you could consider pushing for change through activism or peaceful protest. For example, write to your political representative with the change you want to see.

A good place to start with campaigning is Christian Aid's own new Loss and Damage campaign to help vulnerable communities already damaged by Climate Change despite being those who contribute least to the greenhouse gas emissions.

Several of our congregation were also in a meeting last week to build support for the Climate and Ecology Bill. This would bring in legislation to stop and try to reverse both elements of the environmental crisis while engaging a people's assembly to help ensure fair action. If you'd like to know more - do ask Jo Laynesmith.

End Clutter

The green tip for last week's service was from TakeTheJump's End Clutter suggestion - they highlight the climate and ecological impact of electronic items which are often replaced very frequently. The carbon emissions associated with the production of any electronic product are generally higher than those used in its entire lifetime eg only 13% of the Apple iPhone 11 Pro’s lifetime emissions are actually to do with its use; the other 86% are associated with its production, transport and end-of-life processing.

Electronic items should last 5-7 years so our target is not to replace them within that time. Obviously the same is true for lots of other products with potentially much longer lifecycles. According to Ethical Consumer, 8% of the world's carbon emissions come from steel production and each washing machine or fridge is responsible for 300-400 kg of carbon dioxide for its manufacture.

You can try taking portable electrical items to Reading Repair Cafe for advice on mending. Hiring, borrowing or buying secondhand are all obvious alternatives that save money too. 

Some years ago we tried a 'church borrowing book' in which people listed items they owned that they were prepared to lend to anyone in the congregation who wanted - these ranged from DVD collections to a flat by the sea - but it didn't really work because people forgot to check in there to find what might be available. It can feel awkward to ask to borrow but that is surely a consequence of problems with our culture - individualism, prizing wealth etc. Yet being prepared to borrow helps the planet and makes whoever does the lending feel good at the same time. It's part of what it means to be a community, so we shouldn't feel embarrassed to put out requests on the church Facebook page if our neighbours cannot help. My family was certainly very grateful to Laura's for lending us suitcases for our holiday this year.  

Creation Sunday

 Last Sunday's service was given a special focus on Creation and the sermon will, as usual, be available on our church website in due course. In the intercessions it was fortunately easy to lead from prayers about the late Queen and new King into prayers for Creation because of their family's well-known concern for the environment. This was marked most recently in the launch of the Queen's Green Canopy.

At the end, as we have throughout Creationtide, a notice was given using TakeTheJump's recommended actions. This week the focus was on buying fewer clothes. The UN reckon that the fashion industry is responsible for 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions – that is actually more than aviation and shipping combined. About 2.5% of the world’s farmland is given over to cotton and over 10,000 litres of water are needed to make just one pair of jeans. Synthetic materials are of course often directly made from oil, and then there are all the tonnes of chemicals involved in dyeing the clothes. Apparently British shoppers buy more clothes than any others in Europe. (Source here)

Although some clothes companies have eco-ranges, campaigners say this really doesn’t address the problem seriously. In addition, while giving clothes to charity shops is good, the supply there outstrips the demand so that 70% of donated clothing ends up with textile merchants who sell it in developing countries where the livelihoods of local clothes producers are consequently undermined. TakeTheJump suggest we try to limit our buying to three or fewer new items each year, definitely no more than eight – if everyone in the developed world did that, it would reduce the fashion industry’s emissions by 37%. Instead we can buy more secondhand clothes, which supports charity shops, do more mending, and rent for special occasions instead of buying those dresses that only come out of the wardrobe once a year. Churches don’t tend to do jumble sales any more but the Greenbelt clothes swap seemed to go well and EcoChurch are trying to encourage us to do similar small scale events.

Travelling light

In last week's service the 'green tip' from TaketheJump was to opt for greener travel - that meant taking two of TaketheJump's themes - one on avoiding cars and the other on avoiding planes. We chose to combine them because we're aware that many people don't fly at all - 70% of all flights in the UK are made by just 15% of the population.

Flights account for 2% of all greenhouse gas emissions but they're a very energy intensive way to travel and they're increasing rapidly. Some campaigns ask us not to fly at all, but TaketheJump recommend only one short haul return flight every three years and a minimum of eight years between long haul flights. As it happens there was a great talk at Greenbelt this year on the topic by Helen Coffey, travel editor for The Independent who gave up flying in 2020 - an experience she records in her new book: Zero Altitude. It turns out that UK citizens fly abroad more than anyone else and the number of flights worldwide increased 300% between 1990 and 2021. Her top advice is to make the journey part of the holiday, to recognise that flying takes up most of a day anyway with all of the queuing and waiting; and that psychologically travelling at a pace where you are more conscious of the journey is better for you. A sleeper train may be more expensive than a flight, but it is also an adventure that feels a little bit Agatha Christie with less peril.

A quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions come from transport, apparently, with two thirds of this coming from road travel. Living in Reading, it's not all that difficult to avoid using a car most of the time - we gave ours away about twelve years ago. This has been made much easier by generous friends in the congregation lending us their cars now and again (notably for Greenbelt!). For occasional short trips the commonwheels car club is great. 

It's worth being prepared to spend some money on making cycling feel safer and dryer with the right clothing - it feels easier to make that purchase if you bear in mind how little the cost is in comparison with servicing a car. |It took me several years to work up the courage to cycle at night - finally inspired by a fellow PCC member. It turned out to be far less stressful than I thought, in fact, sometimes cycling in the quiet on a still night can be intensely beautiful, even in Reading!

Although train travel can be expensive, booking in advance can make a ridiculously large difference and there are some excellent discount cards too - it was worth buying a 'Twogotogether' for me and my eldest just for one return journey to York which we weren't able to book very far in advance. The Network card covers a huge area of the south so I use it most of the time. 

Taking the Jump in Creationtide

 

As usual we are marking Creation Tide through September and the first weekend in October. We've decided to encourage the actions suggested by takethejump.org in the notices each week, not least because many of them also involve actions that save money as well as carbon emissions and it feels more optimistic to be taking actions that will positively make the world fairer than just because the cost of living crisis is forcing us into them! For this week I mentioned the value of a plant based diet since the UN reckon that livestock accounts for 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions. This is hard to believe until you realise that, of the total mass of mammals on this planet, 60% is livestock, 36% humans and only 4% wild animals.  The JUMP's suggestions and justifications are here. Elsewhere I've seen a suggestion of the equivalent of three chicken breasts a week as a maximum appropriate.

Of course meat and dairy aren't the only high emissions foods - chocolate can be awful if rainforests have been cut down to grow the cocoa, which is why it's essential to look for the Rainforest Alliance or Fairtrade symbols. Deciding what is appropriate is made more complicated by the fact that the same products grown in different ways can have different impacts. I've always been encouraged to read that beef from cattle that graze in organic pasture land is better than that from crowded sheds. Unfortunately George Monbiot has observed that some 26% of land is grazed in this way and that if this land was allowed to grow wild it would actually be very much better both for the climate and biodiversity - not everyone has been persuaded, as these comments show. All in all it seems beef ought still to be a very rare luxury.

Luckily being vegetarian or vegan has never been easier with an amazing array of alternatives available in supermarkets so it's a great deal easier to do it healthily. Some of the alternatives aren't always that much cheaper than the meat of course, but with the right recipe books it can be very economical - my favourite vegetarian recipe book is one I've had since I was a student: Cheap and Easy by Rose Elliot.

Last Sunday I was also able to recruit a good team to start looking after the courtyard garden and added some more plants which have been wonderfully well-watered by the rains at last in the days since.

Climate Hero - calculating our emissions

Some months ago, members of the green team recommended using the Climate Hero website to calculate our carbon footprint. I have to confess, I never got round to it myself - until today, when it popped up on Twitter and I thought I really ought to take a look. I'd assumed it would want our energy bills etc, but it didn't. In some ways it was annoyingly vague, especially when it came to flights - there was no option for once every few years at any point. But it also asked questions I wasn't expecting and what was really useful was the feedback at the end which gave figures indicating the impact different changes could make. It promised to send a summary to my email address, which it did, but this really was brief so I wish I'd taken a few notes on that feedback. I suppose that's an incentive to do it again in a few months! It's probably not a very precise tool for really calculating your carbon footprint, but it is a very useful tool for flagging up actions you can take to make that footprint lower, whatever it might be. And it really does only take five minutes.

Registering the Climate Emergency

Six months on from our first Climate Sunday service on 6 September 2020, we held another one in Lent - 7 March 2021 - and this time we read together a statement recognising the Climate Emergency and commiting ourselves to act accordingly. We included three reflections in the service - the first inviting people to think about why the climate and ecological emergency matters to them; the second outlining recent actions we've done as a church, including investing in Reading Hydro and donations to the World Land Trust as well as practical carbon reductions and parliamentary lobbying. The third was a call to action by the congregation - it's in the new page "Climate Sunday reflection" on this blog.

Following encouragement at a seminar from the Climate Emergency Toolkit, I've just registered that acknowledgement for inclusion on their map. We've also signed up more locally with the Reading CAN pledge. to join with the town's commitment to reach net zero by 2030.

What are we doing about it ourselves? Most recently - we're trying to make it as easy as possible for everyone in the congregation and parish to change to a green electricity tariff, using the resources of the Fair Energy Campaign.; we've checked on the environmental credentials of all our investments and ensured they're as green as can be; and we've applied for a faculty for the cavity wall insulation.

On the church's behalf, Rosemary has been attending monthly meetings with Make COP26 Count, reporting back on the heartbreaking news of climate impact around the world.  Our top campaigning priority at the moment is the CEE Bill - Christian Climate Action are running seminars to help churches understand and support this, starting this Saturday.

Energy Audit

 

We have now received the report back from the Diocesan Energy Audit that was carried out on 12 October. It is hugely useful and positive. It includes 17 practical suggestions for actions with details of the estimated costs, carbon savings and eventual financial savings as well as whether they would require a faculty.

The next step is for the PCC to work out which they want to prioritise and how to take this forward.

Climate Emergency

This blog has been silent since the Lockdown began but there's been quite a bit going on in our electronically connected world. Just days before the order came to stay at home, four of us from St John's were on the team leading worship for the Diocesan Synod ahead of their debate on a motion to declare a climate emergency and commit to becoming carbon neutral by 2035. Along with scripture readings we included Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem "God's Grandeur" and a quote widely attributed to Gus Speth (in fact slightly paraphrased from a report by someone who attended his talk at a retreat), and the songs "God of the Poor" and "I the Lord of Sea and Sky". The motion passed and you can read more here.

In May Rosemary spent a long time working on the Climate Stewards' 360 degree carbon calculator. Because much of our heating and electricity is from Ecotricity this significantly reduces our total, although we are aware that cutting our energy use is still needed. Our annual total came in at 16.32 tonnes.

We've also managed to find two churches to partner with us for the diocese's energy audit, as soon as it is practical to carry that out - this should help us find ways of directly cutting our energy use.

Many of us lobbied our MPs by Zoom on 30 June as part of the Climate Coalition's: The Time is Now campaign. 14,000 others across the country joined us.

Very recently several of the congregation have supported Christian Climate Action at the Extinction Rebellion September Uprising with Dr Rowan Williams, Bishop Olivia and others

Citizens UK

Jessica Maddocks of Citizens UK has been exploring the possibility of a Reading branch of this community activism organisation. Several of our congregation have been on her list of interviewees so far and apparently a desire for political action on climate change is a particularly high priority in Reading.

Last night I joined a Citizens UK delegates' meeting (along with Jessica and members of the University of Reading's sustainability team) in a skype link to the Milton Keynes Citizens UK meeting. We were considering priorities in lobbying during the Police and Crime Commissioner election. The proposals under discussion included asking for a commitment from the Thames Valley police to set an ambitious target for the force to be carbon neutral; building stronger links between schools and police with named police contacts for every school; and a commitment that all those employed by the force (including contractors) should be paid a real living wage. Oxford diocese were also represented through a remote link and many community groups at Milton Keynes were in the room.

Despite some technological hitches with our sound link, it was an invigorating and interesting experience of democracy in action. Hopefully some of us will make it in person to the next event.

Carbon Neutral by 2030?

At last week's PCC we were discussing the deanery synod's recent motion on reducing carbon emissions to net zero. Here is the related announcement from the General Synod in the Church of England's environment bulletin from 12 February:

"Today, General Synod passed a motion recognising the climate emergency, calling on all parts of the Church to reduce their emissions year-on-year, aiming for a target of net zero by 2030 at the latest, and requiring progress to be regularly reviewed.

Members voted in favour of this revised date, encouraging all parts of the Church of England to take action and ramp-up efforts to reduce emissions

Read about it here. 

To reach Synod’s target of 2030 we will each need to hear this as an urgent call to action.  Please raise this landmark decision within your church, school, and diocese." 

Christians Together on Climate - the event

Over 60 people turned up on a rainy evening to St Laurence's church for Reading Area Green Christians' event to help empower churches to act on climate change. Highlights included our school striker, Francesca, who inspired everyone with her story and her commitment; University of Reading doctoral researcher Lydia Messling whose workshop on finding the right words to communicate about climate change clearly taught people a lot; and a final act of worship/lament before we took our ideas home to act on. 

We were especially grateful to those who came with information stalls - notably https://readingenergy.coop/ who are still looking for public buildings with high daytime usage to put solar panels on as well as offering opportunities for green investment; and https://readingcan.org.uk/ whose strategic plan for Reading's response to climate change will be out for consultation early next year. 

One of the key reasons for holding the event was to advertise the energy audits available to churches - Oxford diocese are providing financial incentives for CofE churches doing this, but the company will work with any churches - more information here: https://www.oxford.anglican.org/mission-ministry/environment/resources/church-energy-audits/

There's more information/resources on the extra blog page here for Christians Together on Climate, including some of the information sheet I produced to report back on the event at the Diocesan Synod last week. For just five days you can also still catch Paul Coia interviewing me on BBC Radio Berkshire's Faith programme the Sunday before the event!

Harvest

Harvest was a long time ago now, but I forgot to put up these pictures at the time - the EcoGroup took over the service, choosing liturgy and songs to celebrate Creation, using homemade bread, an additional offertory prayer over the water, and collecting  produce for Readifood food bank. Mark's sermon drew on the readings, Joel 2:21-7 and Matthew 6:25-33, suggesting that harvest festivals matter today as a response to urbanisation, social isolation and the desire to slow down and reconnect with the natural world, acquring additional meaning now in our environmental crisis, highlighted by the IPCC's latest stark report. He invited us to understand Jesus's instruction 'Do not worry' as something very different from 'Do not care' - it means not allowing anxiety to consume us to the point of paralysis but instead to live hopefully and act accordingly. He concluded by inviting us to introduce new traditions to our harvest involving reducing our energy and meat consumption.

Big Shift Campaign

On April 1st about 20 members of Reading churches (many from St John's) gathered in town to hand in requests to the big banks to divest from fossil fuels. (I was organising a birthday party so didn't make it, but this is the photo Rosemary put up on facebook). Next day in church we were all encouraged to sign letters to the banks on the same theme.

Europe's Greenest City

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.

INF meal at Candlemas

After today's excellent Candlemas Worship Together we had a delicious vegetarian meal. Following the Food Matters meeting, I was determined not to end up buying a pudding from the Co-op on the way to church but I think I'll need to practice the Chocolate and Pear Tatin I made (Green & Black's Ultimate Chocolate Recipe Book) to improve the appearance (although it tasted much as one would hope with that much Divine chocolate in it). The money raised from the meal will be given to INF and so Ali (back from Nepal but returning shortly) showed us a very moving film about their work after the meal.
Less positively from a green perspective, it was again really warm in church today and the figures for the end of year confirm that our gas use (school and church combined) has actually gone up signficantly this year.