Environmental Stewardship

On this site you will find the following:

1. Audubon Global Warming Top Ten

2. Suggestions for clergy preaching on Environmental Stewardship for Rogation Sunday

3. A Reporter at Large: Big Foot, by Michael Specter

4. Bishop's Letter on Global Warming

5. Prayers for the People for Rogation Sunday

6. Global Warming Top 10

7. 181st Annual Council Resolution on Earth Stewardship
 

BISHOP GRAY'S LETTER TO THE DIOCESE 

Sept. 15, 2007

As your Bishop, I must at times bring important issues to the forefront within the diocese.  The state of the world is now such that all of us in Mississippi need to reexamine the moral responsibility that we have to protect God's Earth.  The Creation surrounding us is a constant reminder of God's Grace given to his people.  Our actions must honor that grace. As Episcopal Bishop of Mississippi I joined my fellow bishops from the surrounding southeastern states in 2003 to urge our parishes and missions to take on the joyful, weighty responsibility of stewardship of the earth that sustains us all.

In our joint letter, we urged congregations to educate their members on relevant environmental issues in each diocese. In Mississippi, we emphasized recycling, environmental education for children and adults, and education on water issues.  The larger issue of climate change was not squarely addressed at the time and was not in the forefront of our message on environmental ministry.  For me, this has changed.

As Christians we are stewards of God's Creation and have a duty and obligation to take care of the earth and its living systems.  We feed ourselves by planting in the soil, we drink the earth's fresh water and are baptized in it, and we breathe its air.  This earth is a gift from God that sustains humanity and all of life.  "Global warming" appears to be happening in our time though its possible causes generate disagreement.  If real, its results include severe damage to our children's future, the health and future of our communities, and the health of generations yet unborn.  Because the consequences could be so dire, and because human actions are demonstrated to be likely causes, we cannot afford to delay action.  We Christians, like most Americans, consume material things and energy at a rate never before seen in human history.  I hope you will agree that conservative use of energy, fuel, and water, along with the reduction of waste and pollution are all ways to honor God's Grace toward us.

As your Bishop, I encourage you as an individual, parish, or mission, to recycle if you are not now doing so.  I urge you to learn about and implement the actions outlined in the "Climate Change Top Ten".  This list and other materials to help you understand climate change, and lists of recommended actions for individuals and for congregations will be made available at (www.dioms.org) the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi's website.  I hope that you will make use of these resources as they are a solid source of reference on this topic.

As your Bishop I ask senior and junior wardens and priests of every parish and mission in Mississippi to take action now. Identify someone in your congregation to coordinate recycling, energy conservation, and education of all your members in promoting care of the earth.  In short, start an environmental ministry in your church now.  Our churches must lead by example.  I further encourage and expect all wardens and priests to support this environmental ministry as an essential part of our response to the gifts we enjoy from our Creator.  Time is of the essence in caring for this rare and beautiful gift God has given us, this earth, our island home.

Thank you for your time and action on this issue.  I look forward to hearing about the progress of our individual parishes and missions in the very near future.

Bishop Gray is requesting that we include in the Prayers of the People for this Sunday, April 27, the United Methodist Annual Conference being held in Fort Worth, Texas.   As you are aware Bishop Gray is very interested in deepening the bonds between our diocese and the Mississippi Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church

Here are a quick list of facts about their General  Conference.

• The General Conference meets every four (4) years.
• The meeting this year is April 23 through May 2 in Fort Worth, Texas.
• They have 992 delegates which half are clergy and half laity.
• There are 16 delegates from Mississippi.
• There are 15,000+ petitions' to address at this conference. 

For more information visit their national web site at www.umc.org and the state web site at www.mississippi-umc.org.

Climate Change Top Ten

Carpool, walk, ride a bike, use mass transit, or work from home: If every commuter did this 1 day each week, we’d save 5.85 billion gallons of gas and 143 billion tons of CO2.

Get better gas mileage: Every 3 miles per gallon improvement can save 3,000 lbs. of CO2 per year; a hybrid car can reduce CO2 by 16,000 lbs. and save you $3,750 per year; Rapid accretion can decrease mileage by 5 to 33%; under-inflated tires waste 2 million gallons of gas each day in the U.S.

Replace your light bulbs with CLF’s: If every house used only 1 CFL, it would be equivalent to removing of 1 million cars from the roads; Lighting accounts for 20% id all electricity consumed in the US.

Set your thermostat at 78 in the summer and 68 in the winter: Heating/cooling your home accounts for about 45% of a home’s total energy use.

Seal your doors and windows, insulate: The average home causes more pollution than our car because of the fossil fuels burned to supply the power we need.

Unplug everything you are not using: Standby power can account for 9-10% of household energy; A television uses 25% ot its energy when turned off!

Take shorter showers: Aim for no more than 5 minutes; 1883 low flow shower heads will save 472,630 lbs. of CO2.

Stop junk mail: The production of junk mail consumes as much energy as 2.8 million cars. There are 200 million trees cut for junk mail each year - that’s like cutting down the Rocky Mt. National Park 3 times per year.

Use refillable and reusable containers, recycle: 1.5 million barrels of oil is used for America’s bottled water. This equals fueling 100,000 cars for a year; 8 out of 10 bottles end up in landfills; Worldwide, 500 billion plastic bags are manufactured each year, nearly 1 million per minute. Use cloth bags instead.

Use the power of your voice and your vote: Write your local, state and federal officials to let them know you think this is a critical issue that needs to be addressed with appropriate measures.