Cathedrals join climate change battle

Many of England’s churches have already taken up the climate challenge with initiatives including the Church of England’s booklet of green tips entitled ‘How many light bulbs does it take to change a Christian?’ and an initiative giving out energy saving light bulbs and loo flush reducers to the congregation at Portsmouth Cathedral.

Historic church and cathedral buildings are particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change but can also play an important role in curbing carbon emissions, environment minister Ian Pearson said.

“While a wind-turbine on St Paul’s might raise a few eyebrows, I’d love to see solar panels on church halls, biomass boilers in church schools, and maybe in future we should be thinking about how, by using microgeneneration, cathedrals can help produce energy as well as use it,” he told delegates at the Cathedrals and Climate Change conference in Lambeth Palace this week.

The Bishop of London, Dr Richard Chartres said: “The Archbishop of Canterbury has several times pointed out that we have no right to appeal to our contemporaries on this issue if we have failed to put our own house in order.

“There is spiritual work and there is scrutiny of our own life together in our use of the gifts of creation. We can all as individuals play our part and the Church is well placed in the local community to build change in this area.”

Goska Romanowicz