Giant storms, world-wide drought, record floods, extraordinary temperatures, and massive wildfires, are but a few of the devastating effects of Climate Change that are already happening on our planet. All of this has been predicted since the 1980s. But the necessary changes in our human way of living have been ignored. Today the Episcopal Church is determined to make a difference.

At the General Convention in July 2022, the national church adopted a goal of reaching carbon neutrality by the year 2030. Our diocese in Oregon followed suit at its own convention last October.

Even before that, Bishop Akiyama had established a Creation Care Working Group for the Diocese. “Our diocese has a Creation Care Working Group that has been charged with providing for us wisdom, guidance, scientific insight, and practical things we each can do to respond to climate change,” the bishop wrote in a recent edition of the Diocesan Digest. “My earnest desire for us is to joyfully engage in the everyday practices necessary to change the course of climate change. Our fear will not save us,” the Bishop said, “…but we can make choices and sacrifices in favor of God’s creation.”

All of the churches in the Diocese will have the Working Group to provide information and ideas for actions they can take toward the Net0 goal. But each individual church will be responsible for establishing its own priorities and doing its own work. Here at St. Michael’s, we first need to establish a Creation Care Team. Following in the footsteps of the Green Team, whose hard work and dedication succeeded in obtaining the solar panel array we now have on our roof, we need people of all ages and backgrounds to help us gather information, formulate plans and carry out the activities we will need to accomplish in order to make substantive changes.

If you would be interested in serving on the Creation Care Team, contact Cheryl Braginsky. Her email address is in the church directory.