Cathedrals respond and raise awareness to the threat of climate change

Worcester Cathedral has achieved its Silver Eco Church Award, Coventry Cathedral has announced a new exhibition charting the climate emergency and Ely has just hosted a new 3D sculpture celebrating the biodiversity of our wetlands.

Cathedrals respond and raise awareness to the threat of climate change.

Worcester Cathedral Celebrates Silver Eco Church Award – from A Rocha UK – the Christian environmental charity committed to equipping churches and their congregations to care for the environment.

After achieving the Bronze award last year, Worcester Cathedral’s Eco Group has been busy working towards Silver, implementing a number of initiatives to improve its eco rating and involve the whole community – including a rewilding project to create a wildlife habitat that has been picked as one of Co-op UK’s Local Community Fund causes for the second year running.

Last year the Eco Group was awarded National Lottery Funding for its ‘Living Gently on the Earth’ project; a series of community events, talks and workshops on caring for our planet which hosted sessions including a vegetarian cooking demo, ethical investments, reducing and acting on waste and plastic, growing your own food, active travel, energy use and measuring and acting on your carbon footprint.

The Cathedral also held its first Big Green Eco Fair in its medieval cloister as part of the series and is looking forward to making this an annual event for the whole community to come together and celebrate eco-friendly living.

The Vice-Dean of Worcester, Canon Stephen Edwards, who heads up the Eco Group, said:

“We are absolutely delighted to have been awarded the A Rocha UK Silver Eco Church Award. Since its formation, the Cathedral’s dedicated and hard-working Eco Group has been working towards the Eco Church scheme, and we are thrilled to have achieved the second milestone on our journey to becoming an Eco Cathedral.”

For more information, please visit the Cathedral’s Eco Pages here.

Coventry Cathedral to host special climate change exhibition.

Coventry Cathedral will host This Fragile Earth the latest from the Fleming Collection, consisting of works by the Scottish Colourists and the Glasgow Boys, to name just two, and considered to be amongst the finest collection of Scottish art outside public institutions.

This Fragile Earth focuses on a group of veteran Scottish artists who were ahead of their time in responding to the threat of climate change. For some this response was triggered by finding artistic inspiration in the High Arctic; for others, it was in response to the threats to Scotland’s own ecology and the destruction of traditional working communities that has entailed.

The resulting work, often on a monumental scale, provides both a precious record of icescapes now irretrievably lost, as well as symbolic and figurative expressions of anger at the urgency of their cause. The exhibition opens April 4 – May 29.

Ely Cathedral highlights the restoration of wetlands with a unique interactive mural.

A 20ft-long interactive mural brought the wetlands to Ely Cathedral– part of a UK tour to highlight this year’s World Wetland Day theme of wetland restoration.

The artwork, by 3D Joe and Max, shows a degraded wetland transforming into a flourishing habitat, filled with thriving wildlife and highlighting the potential of wetlands to capture carbon, clean the water, protect from flooding, provide a home to wildlife and boost our health and wellbeing.

Members of the public were encouraged to be part of mural by standing on the jetty, sitting in the boat, or snapping a photo as they planted a shoot in the saltmarsh to symbolise its regeneration.

The Dean of Ely, The Very Revd Mark Bonney, said:

“We are delighted to be engaging with the WWT 3D mural. Wetlands are a significant part of the landscape and environment of the area in which the cathedral is situated.

“As together we look to meet the challenges of climate change goals, their recovery and sustainability has an important part to play.”

WWT campaigns manager Laura Williams said:

“Hundreds of people took their photo with the mural on World Wetlands Day, learning more about the amazing powers of wetlands to tackle the nature, biodiversity and health and wellbeing crises and we are very excited to be able to take this on tour to other places – from cathedrals to shopping centres and conferences to visitor centres.”

Letters for Creation at Chester Cathedral

Pupils from around Chester have been expressing their thoughts on climate change for a special exhibition at Chester Cathedral.

They have been working on a project, called Letters for Creation with international development charity ,Christian Aid.

The aim is to help communities raise their voices on the issue of climate change and pupils were asked to come up with their own creative responses to show their feelings about the environment and their hopes for the planet.

The exhibition includes letters, drawings, photos or poems and engaged pupils from a number of Chester’s Church of England primary schools like Thea Bryant from Saighton CE Primary School who said: “When I see someone dropping a plastic bag or a can of Coke for example, it makes me feel awful because I know that it is hurting our planet.”

Christel Langdon-Griffiths from Christian Aid said: “The children have really taken on board the message that we can make a difference and that it is our responsibility to change the world for the better for everyone in the world. They have done an absolutely amazing job.”

Photo – Keith Heppell,The giant 3D wetland mural at Ely Cathedral. Children at Chester Cathedral, ITV