Oxford Diocesan Environment Group

Yesterday I attended the last meeting of ODEG which is now becoming the Earthing Faith Network. Matt Freer reported that the new Earthing Faith website is now up and running and has been much visited. The diocesan website has also been revamped. While the latter carries all the official documentation the Earthing Faith website also has a blog and other resources, including information for churches on installing wood fuel and biomass boilers, pv panels and heat pumps.

Matt reported that Oxford has been chosen, along with Newcastle, as a pilot diocese for using s-measure software to help churches to measure their energy use/carbon emissions and thereby reduce them. Hopefully at least 100 churches will get involved since for this year of the pilot project the software is free for us to use. The scheme is linked to local weather stations so can take account of colder weather in its reporting. It is also open to church schools.

In plans for forthcoming Earthing Faith meeting we discussed community growing schemes, local food etc, as possible themes, hence the chicken picture.

The Government has just announced a comprehensive review of the Feed-in tariffs (FITs) scheme, which makes proposals that would affect any Solar PV installations from early December. The headline change is that a new tariff would be introduced for schemes up to 4kW in size of 21.0p/kWh – down from the current 43.3p/kWh. This will have a major effect on the Solar Schools scheme and the projects supported by Reading Climate Change Partnership which aimed to use the revenue from the Feed in Tariff to help tackle fuel poverty, climate change mitigation and adaptation. A lot of time and money has been committed to these projects on the understanding that the FiT would remain constant until next April.

The Church of England has launched a petition asking the government to continue the previous rate for churches and other not for profit organisations.

To sign the petition visit: https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/20928
(You may need to cut and paste rather than click the link if it asks you to 'sign in')

 

For further details of how this will affect solar church projects visit: http://www.oxford.anglican.org/environment/news/feed-in-tariffs-review-2-nov-2011.html

What Caused the Extreme Weather of 2010-2011? Are we to blame?

Public lecture by Dr Nicholas KlingamanWednesday 9 November 2011
8 pm Palmer Building, Whiteknights, University of Reading

Free entry, all welcome

0118 3784313
publiclectureseries@reading.ac.uk

Owen Jewiss

Last Friday was Owen's funeral at St Barnabas, Emmer Green. The vicar's address can be read here.

One of his colleagues described the importance of  Owen's work on grasslands and the contribution his team made to the knowledge which currently shapes the way this crucial resource is used for meat and milk production.

I was pleased to learn that a few weeks back the Bishop of Oxford had presented the Order of St Frideswide to Owen, a rare honour recognising his outstanding Christian life.

The photos here are from St Barnabas's beautiful meditation and prayer garden completed earlier this year.