Making a pledge

As we reach the end of this climate year we’d like to offer you the opportunity to pledge to act in response to what you have learnt. You can pledge to do something different in the future, or use the pledge to record somehting you have already done.

If you’ve been working through our climate year programme with us then you might already know what you like to pledge to do (or to record what you’ve already done). If not, then here are a few ideas.

Pledge to speak out

Throughout the Old Testament a succession of prophets criticised Israel’s rulers for what they were doing and presented them with a vision of how God wants our world to be. Take, for example the words of Jeremiah (4:22-26)

“For my people are foolish,
    they do not know me;
they are stupid children,
    they have no understanding.
They are skilled in doing evil,
    but do not know how to do good.’

 I looked on the earth, and lo, it was waste and void;
    and to the heavens, and they had no light.
 I looked, and lo, there was no one at all,
    and all the birds of the air had fled.
 I looked, and lo, the fruitful land was a desert,
    and all its cities were laid in ruins
    before the Lord, before his fierce anger.”

It is our duty as Christians to continue in this tradition and proclaim what is wrong with the world and proclaim how God wants it to be.

Pledge to share

The climate and ecological emergenicies are international challenges that need to be addressed by national governments. In a democracy like ours this will only happen if enough people share our concerns and express them to our elected representatives to persuade them that action is what the elecorate (us) wants. The most important response any of us can make is therefore to share our concerns with others and demand change.

It’s often fun to do things together so why not join a local group like Sustainable Bramhall. Follow this link to go to their Facebook page and find out more.

Pledge to campaign

Or you could campaign for a specific issue or with a specific group. There are lots of organisations that you could join in order to do this such as (click on the images to go to the different websites).

Pledge to moderate our consumption

Jesus taught that we need very little to live fulfilled lives, an example would be his words in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 6:25).

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink,
or about your body, what you will wear.
Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?”

If we as indivduals, as nations and as the entire world could learn to live more simply and focus on what is important in life then we will live much more fulfilled lives and protect our planet from over-consumption.

There are also lots of changes that we can make to how we live. Although these can seem small in comparison to the size of the problem they can make a difference if lots of people join in. They can also demonstrate how passionately we feel and help us to communicate to others the changes that we believe are required.

Pledge to use less energy

Most of us don’t even know how much energy we do use so the first step is to calculate your carbon footprint. This will enable you to recognise where you are using most energy and thus were changes will be most effective. There are several Internet sites that allow you to do this but we found the most informative to be at carbonindependent.org. we’ve used a differnt tool to calculate the carbon footprint for the entire church and are now looking into how we can use this information to reduce our energy use.

You’ll probably find that heating your house is where you use most energy. You might find that insulating your house, or turning your heating on later in the year, or turning your thermostat down could save a lot of energy and a lot of money. You might even loke to think about installing solar panels or a ground or air source heating system. Stockport council have lots of information about how you can reduce energy use including details of local schemes to help you do this at this link. Another option is to install solar panels or air or ground source heat pumps (find out more about this from the Energy Saving Trust). Don’t forget simple tactics like turning devices off at the socket to reduce “standby energy”, only putting as much water as you need in the kettle and only running the dishwasher or washing machine when they are full (and while we are at it why not hang your clothes out to dry rather than put them in the washing machine).

If you go on holidays abroad you will be using a lot of energy to fly. Travelling by car or train is generally much greener but holidaying closer to home is even better.

Pledge to eat less meat

It’s not just energy that we’re using too much of. We using up too much of nearly all the earth’s resources and generating more waste than the planet can sustain.

One huge issue is that amount of land we use to generate food which comes principally because, rather than eating plants directly, we feed them to animals first and then eat the animals, which is far less efficient. Almost a third of all land on earth is used for livestock production (this includes the land needed to grwo the plants to feed to the animals).

Why not try one of the many secondhand shops in Bramhall and the surrounding suburbs (including our own CentrePoint Thift Shop) before buying anything new or use websites like Freecycle and Gumtree?

We all enjoy the convenience of Supermarket shopping but this generally uses large amounts of unnecessary packaging that just ends up in the bin. There are agrowing number of places where you can buy stuff with less packaging. Small local greengrocers and butchers are often a good starting point and often sell locally sourced products as well. (Eating seasonal produce can avoid the huge amounts of energy needed to import food or force it to grow throughout the year. Try our the Seasonal Calendar from BBC Good Food.)

Pledge to go green in the garden

The garden is another place we can make changes, particularly to encourage wildlife and to use less resources.

Why not install a water butt and cut down on the treated drinking water that you pump onto the garden or use to wash down the car? A water butt can collect around 5,000 litres of water a year (which is £15 off your water bill with United Utilities).

Or help pollinators by planting a mini-meadow in a pot, not mowing part of your lawn, or allowing wild flowers to go in a patch of your garden.

Or start a veggie patch to grow some vegetables to eat yourself and share with your neighbours.