We are a small Episcopal Church on the banks of the Rappahannock in Port Royal, Virginia. We acknowledge that we gather on the traditional land of the first people of Port Royal, the Nandtaughtacund, and we respect and honor with gratitude the land itself, the legacy of the ancestors, and the life of the Rappahannock Tribe. Our mission statement is to do God’s Will in all that we do.

Season of Creation

Reduce single use plastics for Earth Day 2023

Earth Day, April 22, 2023 originated in 1970 after Sen. Gaylord Nelson from Wisconsin witnessed the ravages of the 1969 massive oil spill in Santa Barbara, California. He hoped it would force environmental protection onto the national political agenda. It did lead to the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the passage of the Clean Air Act and a dialogue on a host of issues.

In our time it focuses on climate change. The Earth Day theme for 2023, “Invest in Our Planet” is the same theme as 2022.

It starts at home. One of the continuing themes of Earth Day is reducing plastics, our focus at St. Peter this year. On one day walking 20 minutes in our neighborhood, we bagged up these plastics shown in the picture

Plastics in the environment never fully decompose. Instead, they break down into smaller and smaller pieces – eventually into microplastics – that remain in the environment.

Because of their small sizes, toxic microplastics in aquatic environments blend with plankton at the base of the food web. These microplastics are consumed and work their way up into larger and larger consumers, including humans. An estimated 10 million tons of plastic enter the oceans every year. By the year 2050, by weight, there may be more plastic in the ocean than fish.

Steps to Reduction of your use of platics.

The Earth Day 2023 Theme is “Invest In Our Planet. What Will You Do?”

1. Awareness– Enter our contest.

This Saturday, Earth Day, April 22—take a walk and participate in the St Peter’s “trashy contest.” Prizes will be given in the following categories: amount of trash, grossest piece of trash, smallest and largest piece of trash. Bring your entry to church next Sunday, April 23.

2. Going further – Calculate your usage.

Read more

More book, Part 3 – Reduce

The first two chapters were required material to get to Part 3 – Reduce. Understanding the significance of our need to reduce greenhouse gases from Part 1, led to calculate our carbon footprint in Part 2. We meet to strive towards net zero emissions by 2050. Net zero means cutting greenhouse gas emissions to as close to zero as possible, with any remaining emissions re-absorbed from the atmosphere, by oceans and forests for instance. Part 2 focuses on reduction to get to net zero. How much do we need to reduce our carbon footprints? For Americans, that number is about 90 percent.The United Nations’ intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has said that if we don’t act now, we’ll be facing the severe effects of a warming planet as early as 2040.  One example? 50 million people around the world, will be affected by coastal flooding This chapter lists 26+ ways for us to act

Keys to the Season of Creation

For centuries, our theology our theology has focused on relationship with God and our human relationships with one another. The Season of Creation focuses God’s relationship with all creation and with our relationship with creation (and with God through creation). It highlights our role in understanding and addressing address the ecological problems we face today as a part of God’s creation.

“Imagine a great circle. God encircles everything else in this circle.

Inside the circle is a second circle, and that circle is us. We human beings encircle the rest of creation, at the center of the circle. Look at the word, earth. If you move the letter “h” from the back of this word to the front, the word “earth” becomes the word “heart.”

We are going to look at 6 keys to the Season of Creation

1 God as Creator The Spirit of God moving over the face of the water created the earth. Creation is also on a journey,  it is ongoing constantly in a process of being made new. 

The Bible speaks of a God who is not passive or distant, but active and involved.  God here exercises divine power through peaceful means. God creates by the word “In the beginning, God designed a home, a home in which God dwells, a home in which God delights, a home which God calls good. The earth is God’s home…”Nothing goes to waste in this creation. All this creation has a purpose, and every bit of this creation depends on every other bit of creation.” 

I his letter to the Romans, right up front, Paul makes this statement.”Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that God has made.

The goal in worship then is to deepen our understanding of God as Creator, to celebrate God’s role as Creator, and to examine and deepen and widen our own relationships with God, creation, and with one another. How are we impacting creation which God said was “good.”

2 Jesus brings us Abundant Life –The Word Jesus was always with God even before creation began.

Jesus is the source of truth and understanding of God’s will.  All of creation, including planet Earth, is the result of the impulse of the Word (Christ) from God.  The Word is the supreme creative force through Whom all things were made.  Jesus is the source of life by which men have a relationship with God and hope of eternal life.  Christ reconciles all things in heaven and Earth

The Word is also divine wisdom, the principle of reason that gives order to the universe. Jesus dwelling in nature as one of us to bring us abundant life

As one of the Collects says  “Things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Take a walk through the woods and you’ll see fallen trees and decay, and yet new birth is everywhere with seeds and new life Volcanoes give birth to lava.  When the lava cools into rock, lichens grow on this rock, helping to erode it into soil in which plants can take root.

3. Role of the spirit. As the “Giver of life” and the “Sustainer of life,” the Holy Spirit is the source of our empowerment, inspiration, and guidance as we seek to live in a way sustainable for all God’s creation. Being “in the unity of the Holy Spirit” encompasses our relationship with all of life. This is foundational for our worship.

4  Humans have a role in Creation Care as caretakers and to be healers because we were created with the rest of nature . The breath of life is the created spirit that God gives all living creatures so they can live. In Genesis 2:7, it says that God “breathed into [Adam’s] nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul

We came from Earth and we cannot survive without all that Earth provides. Just as Earth has creative powers, so Earth itself has restorative powers. Unless we have centered opportunities to express awareness of and gratitude for our  dependence upon Earth and our relationship with other creatures, we will not be whole as human beings.

Dr. William P. Brown of Columbia Theological seminary has written “The fundamental mandate for creation care comes from Genesis 2:15, where God places Adam in the garden to “till it and keep it…” Human “dominion” as intended in Genesis is best practiced in care for creation, The root of the word “dominion” is the Latin word “domus,” the word for home.  To have dominion over the earth is to be a housekeeper of the home of all creation.  Our task, as the people of the earth, is to encourage the earth’s fruitfulness rather than to strip it of every life-giving resource. The world is a gift and we need to nurture it as such to make is prosper

5. What must we do ? Open our eyes to the beauty of creation and see life is connected

In his letter to the Romans, right up front, Paul makes this statement.  “Ever since the creation of the world, God’s eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things that God has made.” 

This healing and care cannot even begin until we take the time to open our eyes and truly see what is around us; to know that even in the midst of the degraded condition of the earth, glimpses of the goodness that God had in mind at creation are still visible.

When we truly look at our home in creation, the original goodness and perfection of God’s plan for all of creation and for all of us gets revealed to us, and in that perfection, we can see the promise of the kingdom of God that will someday come  to earth.

We tend to get lost in the big picture as we miss the details.

That’s why we must first, before we do anything else, take the time to appreciate the natural world in its beauty and sometimes terrible magnificence, to see it as the dwelling God has given us rather than an object to be used up for our own benefit.  As the Pope has said many times, “We are the guardians of Creation” and “everything is connected.” We must be the stewards of our earth and be on guard for its exploitation.

We were created with the rest of nature. We came from Earth and we cannot survive without all that Earth provides. Just as Earth has creative powers, so Earth itself has restorative powers. Unless we have centered opportunities to express awareness of and gratitude for our  dependence upon Earth and our relationship with other creatures, we will not be whole as human beings.<

So Jesus says, don’t just walk past a lily in the field.  Stop and consider it.   

To dwell on the beauty of a flower is to peer into the perfection of God’s creation.  And to dwell on the beauty of creation can be a hopeful act, one that sustains people in the face of the most unimaginable disasters.

This act of seeing is a prayerful activity.

This act of prayerful seeing gives us hope and gives us an undying longing for  the kingdom of God to come on earth, which is why Jesus taught us to pray, that God’s kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth, as it is in heaven.  In God’s kingdom on earth all of creation will be restored.

6. Season of Creation emphasizes the creative role of humans. We must act to heal and restore our creation that was a gift to us. – Our baptisms in living water help us claim our place in God’s harmonious creation. When that baptismal water pours over our heads, we are given the opportunity to open our eyes to God’s creating powers throughout our lives. We have the desire to seek that new creation even when all around us has grown old and hope seems to have vanished.   

 The world is filled with creativity because it was created by a creative God whose art and talent are inexhaustible. In recent years, much of humanity has viewed creation as a resource to be exploited rather than a mystery to be celebrated and sustained. The time has come not only to celebrate creation but to transform our human relationship to creation by worshiping in solidarity with creation

Through the Season of Creation and worship  we have an opportunity to come to terms with the current ecological crises in a spiritual way so as to empathize with a groaning creation. Worship provides a viable and meaningful way not only to include creation’s praise of God but also to engender a deep relationship with the suffering of a groaning creation.

“Imagine a great circle. God encircles everything else in this circle.

Inside the circle is a second circle, and that circle is us. We human beings encircle the rest of creation, at the center of the circle. Look at the word, earth. If you move the letter “h” from the back of this word to the front, the word “earth” becomes the word “heart.”

The current ecological crisis affects most of 6 days of creation – 2nd Day the sky , 3rd day – dry land, seas, plants and trees were created, 5th days creatures that live in the sea and creatures that fly were created 6th day animals that live on the land and finally humans

There are 4 areas of the environmental crisis.

  1. burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, and natural gas are adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere that will cause temperatures to exceed 1.5C, most simulations suggest. 
  2. Rising temperatures causes rise of sea levels though warming of water and melting of glacier
  3. Severe water shortages can be expected when there will be no or only very little ice left to melt in the summer. This will affect food supplies
  4. the global benefits provided by trees are being threatened by deforestation and forest degradation Deforestation is a major cause of global warming. When trees are burned, their stored carbon is released back into the atmosphere.  The most important factors are clearance for agriculture (including cattle ranching), poor governance (illegal logging, corruption, and ineffective law and order), insecurity of land tenure, the system of international trade, poor planning (e.g. building of major trunk roads in forest areas), and unsustainable logging
  5. We long for the new creation when all is made whole, complete, contained, safe. All of us, no matter how our lives have gone, came from the life giving safety of our mother’s wombs. And somewhere deep down inside, it is to that safety and security that we all long to return.  

Scripture describes this womb-like environment for humanity as the Garden of Eden, where all of creation lives together in harmony. 

This is our season of waiting.

In birth and death, springtime and harvest, weeping and laughing, mourning and dancing, we are waiting on God.

And while we wait, we undertake our journeys within this world, hoping for the day when we will reach that place that the generations before us have reached—the presence of God, our Garden of Eden.

But as we journey, we must remember and rejoice in the fact that God has granted us the miraculous privilege of a sojourn in the midst of God’s intricate, magnificent creation.

God, who is constantly breathing and speaking new life into all of creation, will renew our strength and give us wings like eagles for our journeys to God, who is our beginning and our ending and our beginning again.    

For everything there is a season.

So may we rejoice as the seasons turn, one to another, and as the days that seem long turn into the years that fly by.

But when we lost our way, so did the rest of creation.

But although we have lost our way, we have never lost our longing, and neither has creation.

And in that longing for the new creation lies our hope, and the hope of the whole creation

Jesus himself connects us with one another when we find him present in our midst as we break the bread and pour the wine and share it together, connected around God’s table, so that we can then go share God’s love with the world, working to reconnect what has been lost and disconnected.   

And when we come together in God’s name to reconnect with creation itself, the creation that God calls good, the creation that God dwells within, the whole creation that God will gather in at the end, the insects, the birds, the creatures, the trees, the oceans and rivers and the earth itself,

God will rejoice as we work to reconnect all that we have broken and divided.

And we will find joy and rejoice ever more deeply and fully as God reconnects all of us in the fullness of time into God’s new creation– as it was in the beginning, and is now and ever will be, God’s world without end.

Season of Creation, 2023 – Some Positives

The bottom line is that there have been some improvements since the last time we did Season of Creation. The increase in emissions has been reduced.  People and enterprises are taking this subject seriously The need for reduction in emissions has been addressed by countries, companies and many levels of government

At the moment we’re heading for a temperature rise of 2.7 celsius by the end of the century assuming countries make good on their promises. Progress in reducing emissions doesn’t mean we can relax time is running out if we’re to avoid the worst effects of climate change. 2.7 is much worse than 1.1 now and the 1.5 goal made in 2015 in Paris.

Our goal is a Net Zero position by 2050.  Net zero refers to the balance between the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) that’s produced and the amount that’s removed from the atmosphere. We have a long way to go by 2050 to get to our goals where we are balanced – Net Zero.

1 The rate of increase in emissions has slowed somewhat since 2005

From C2es.org  “ We estimate that U.S. net greenhouse emissions are now 17 percent below 2005 levels in 2021. Electric power sector emissions have fallen nearly 36 percent (2005 – 2021) as a result of a shift from coal to natural gas, increased use of renewable energy and leveling of electricity demand Transportation sector emissions fell almost 9 percent, while industrial sector emissions fell by a little more than 4 percent over the same period.”

Along the way, the US will achieve a 29-42% reduction in GHGs in 2030—a meaningful departure from previous years’ expectations for the US emissions trajectory but not enough for the US to meet its pledge under the Paris Agreement to reduce emissions by 50-52% below 2005 levels by 2030.

In the real world, global coal use has been flat, if not slightly declining since 2014.

Clean energy costs have fallen dramatically, solar is 90% cheaper in the last decade. Wind is 66% cheaper, batteries are 90% cheaper. Electric vehicles are about 14% of new vehicle sales globally now, and upwards of 20% in places like China and Europe

Some global issues such as deforestation is looking better in the US. Deforestation? Actually the size of America’s forests has been basically stable since 1910 – Despite the fact that the country’s population has tripled since then. Wildlife extinctions? 99% of the species placed under the protection of the Endangered Species Act have been saved, though there’s still more work to do to get them off the endangered species list entirely. Climate change?

2. 45 countries in the world including the United States the UK and most western democracies are in fact cutting their emissions or are planning to do so

US  100 percent clean power by 2035 and slashing 2005 climate pollution levels in half by 2030. America has actually cut its total amount of carbon emissions more than any other country in recent years.

As of 2022, about 75% of global emissions are covered by countries that have committed, at least on paper, to get to net zero emissions by the middle to late 21st century, and that includes countries like China and India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, as well as of course, the U.S., the EU, and others.

America’s air quality has dramatically improved in recent decades. Since 1980, carbon monoxide emissions decreased 75%, lead went down 99%, nitrogen oxides went down 72%, and sulfur dioxide went down by 93%. The result: air so much cleaner that research suggests it may have actually extended our life expectancy.

3. Disclosures from companies

In March,2022 the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released a statement outlining proposed rules that would require publicly-held companies to provide climate risk data and greenhouse gas emissions to regulators and investors. Companies would also be responsible for reporting annually on progress toward their targets

Example – Alphabet (Google)

Alphabet is the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy, which includes

more than 50 projects totaling 5.5 GW of renewable energy projects under contract

worldwide. This accounts for an annual deficit of approximately five million tons of

carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. By 2030, Alphabet plans to become the first major company to operate full-time on carbon-free energy. It plans to do so by continuing to invest in renewable energy generation and storage technologies that can also benefit other businesses

4. Virginia

Virginia Clean Economy Act, mandates that Dominion Energy, switch to renewable energy by 2045. Appalachian Power, which serves southwest Virginia, must go carbon-free by 2050.

Almost all the state’s coal plants will have to shut down by the end of 2024 under the new law.

Fredericksburg – In 2019, City Council passed the 100% Renewable Energy Resolution, which committed the City of Fredericksburg to have 100% renewable energy power municipal operations by 2035

5. Climate change is being included in budgets. You need to allocate resources

The Oslo Norway Climate Budget, was put forward for the first time in 2016.  A climate budget is a governance tool. It structures and organizes how we can get from climate target policies and words to action and results. It also makes all parts of the administration in Oslo a stakeholder to the climate goals. Our climate budget, which is measured in tons of CO2 emissions, is fully integrated in the municipal budget.

6. Consultants

Climate Ready America is a proposal for a nationwide system of climate support services to help communities do their part to address climate change. It creates a civic infrastructure that will partner with the federal government to leverage and support the climate mitigation and adaptation programs of federal agencies and other organizations, helping those tools reach the ground.

 Project Drawdown – Drawdown refers to the future point in time when levels of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere stop climbing and starts to  decline. This is also a company in San Francisco. Central to the project is the compilation of a list of the “most substantive solutions to global warming.” The list of 100, which encompasses only technologically viable existing solutions, was compiled by a team of more than 200 scholars, scientists, policymakers, business leaders, and activists and is now online.

7. Laws

Inflation Reduction Act – The IRA directs nearly $400 billion in federal funding to clean energy, with the goal of substantially lowering the nation’s carbon emissions by the end of this decade.1 The funds will be delivered through a mix of tax incentives, grants, and loan guarantees. Clean electricity and transmission command the biggest slice, followed by clean transportation, including electric-vehicle (EV) incentives. It could lower U.S greenhouse gas emissions from 30 to 40 percent by 2030

8. Human adaptation to climate change. At the current rate of warming, human adaptation has actually been working out pretty well so far. In fact, according to WMO, over the last 50 years, the number of disasters globally has increased by around 400%, while the number of deaths has fallen by two thirds.

M.O.R.E Book, Part 2 – Measure. How and Why it matters ?

This is the second of four parts discussing the M.O.R.E Book. Last week was an introduction to climate change

Basically, a carbon footprint is a way of calculating the Green House Gases created  on behalf  of a person, place or thing. The Green House gases  are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.  These gases are responsible for warming the environment  Your ecological footprint includes not only your carbon footprint, but other factors too, like how quickly you consume natural resources like plant crops, animal foods  and water.

You can calculate a  carbon food print for virtually anything: an individual, company, industry or country The bigger the footprint, the bigger the contribution to global  warming and climate change.

What is carbon neutral ? You’re carbon neutral if the amount of CO₂ emissions you put into the atmosphere is the same as the amount of CO₂ emissions you remove from the atmosphere

Why carbon neutrality  important ?

 -Less environmental pollution and improvements to health.

 -A boost to sustainable economic growth and the creation of green jobs.

  -Enhanced food security by lessening the impact of climate change.

 – A halt to the loss of biodiversity and an improvement in the condition of the oceans.

We will be calculating a carbon footprint using an online program- Cool Climate

https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculators/household/ui.php

We will construct an action plan to reduce your footprint

M.O.R.E Book, Part 2 – Measure. How and Why it matters ?

Join us Sept 19, 7pm on Zoom to discuss and learn about how much of a carbon consumer we are. This is the second of four parts discussing the M.O.R.E Book. Last week was an introduction to climate change

Basically, a carbon footprint is a way of calculating the Green House Gases created  on behalf  of a person, place or thing. The Green House gases  are carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.  These gases are responsible for warming the environment  Your ecological footprint includes not only your carbon footprint, but other factors too, like how quickly you consume natural resources like plant crops, animal foods  and water.

You can calculate a  carbon food print for virtually anything: an individual, company, industry or country The bigger the footprint, the bigger the contribution to global  warming and climate change.

What is carbon neutral ? You’re carbon neutral if the amount of CO₂ emissions you put into the atmosphere is the same as the amount of CO₂ emissions you remove from the atmosphere

Why carbon neutrality  important ?

 -Less environmental pollution and improvements to health.

 -A boost to sustainable economic growth and the creation of green jobs.

  -Enhanced food security by lessening the impact of climate change.

 – A halt to the loss of biodiversity and an improvement in the condition of the oceans.

We will be calculating a carbon footprint using an online program- Cool Climate

https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/calculators/household/ui.php

We will construct an action plan to reduce your footprint

© St. Peter's Episcopal Church, 2025