CLIMATE CHANGE RALLY

Stop Climate Chaos.org/Scotland is organising a CLIMATE CHANGE RALLY on Wednesday 22nd April 2009 outside the Scottish Parliament.



If you care about highlighting issues of climate change and demonstrating your concern to our MSPs please join us.

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Credits

The photograph of the rally was taken by macinate

Church of Scotland at the Scottish Parliament Climate Change Event

The Church of Scotland was invited to attend the Scotland and Climate Change Getting it Right Event organised by the Scottish Parliament's Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change Committee on Friday 27 March 2009.
Adrian Shaw and Dr. Murdo Macdonald from the Church and Society Council attended the event. Adrian Shaw spoke during the afternoon session.

You can view a recording of the event at Holyrood TV.

A number of speakers were at the event and you can see their bios as well as their PowerPoint presentations following this link.

The event coincided with the Parliament’s scrutiny of the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill – Climate Change (Scotland) Bill - Further Information on the Committee's Work.

There were over 120 delegates from sectors including transport, business and industry, energy, environmental NGOs, the built environment, the public sector, individual communities, science and education, health and charities.
The event was opened by Dr David Guggenheim from the 1planet1ocean conservation body in the United States and then took the form of two debates – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Each of the debates was led by short presentations from climate change stakeholders.

The morning debate focused on the international impact of climate change and included speakers from Bangladesh, the Maldives and the European Environment Agency. There was also a presentation given by students who are currently part of the University of Edinburgh – Carbon Management Masters Programme. The students are from Tanzania, India, Nepal, the United States, United Kingdom and Indonesia.

The afternoon debate focused more specifically on Scotland and the Climate Change (Scotland) Bill with short presentations from Stewart Stevenson MSP, Minister for Transport, Infrastructure and Climate Change, Simon Pepper, former director of WWF Scotland, Dr Ian Burton from Canada and Professor Don Brown from the United States.

The event was broadcast live on the internet by Holyrood TV.

Credits

The photo of the Scottish Parliament was taken by Anita Gould

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Guided Nature Walk

It’s one thing to talk about God’s creation, but quite another to experience it! What better way that to have a guided nature walk in spring, round one of West Lothian’s finest country parks, Almondell and Calderwood. Our guide will be Senior Ranger Mary Konik. Families welcome, booking required. This walk is sponsored by the Lauriston Jesuit Centres.

Date: Saturday April 24th
Place: Almondell and Calderwood Country PArk

Grants available for Environmental Projects

The CSV Action Earth 2009 campaign runs until 31st July 2009. The campaign is designed to empower people to take action in their community. They are offering grants to support volunteer action in:
a) local conservation or environment projects
b) improvement of biodiversity in Scotland.

1. SNH Biodiversity Awards of £250 support and encourage groups that carry practical environmental projects, creating or upgrading wildlife habitats or improving the life of Scotland's wildlife. Projects have included pond renovation, removal of invasive species, hedgerow planting, frog hotels, bird and bat boxes and planting wildflower meadows.

2. CSV Action Earth awards of £50 are also available to help projects to purchase plants, tools and materials and to cover volunteer expenses. This covers projects of all sizes and can cover community clear ups to litter picks and a range of other environemntal projects.

Both grants are very easy to access. Please go to http://www.actionearth.org.uk/ for more information. You can download application forms from here or apply online.

Please register as early as possible (especially for events at the end of the campaign) as awards are handed out on a first come basis. Please contact robert henderson if you have any questions about the campaign or your planned project. Thanks are due to SNH and Morrisons for their support.

Climate Change: Be part of the answer

A conference on climate change took place on Saturday March 21st
At Bankfoot Church Centre.

This was a day for churches and individuals to find out what they can do to reduce their carbon footprint and to visit the latest eco-friendly church to be opened in Scotland. The conference was organised by Marjorie Clark of the Presbytery of Perth, Church and Community Committee.

If your congregation or presbytery is interested in hosting an Eco-Congregation conference please contact Margaret Warnock.

Earth Hour is going to be BIG!!!

Help us reduce the amount of electricity consumed world wide. Give back our world one hour without electricity. This is what the WWF's Earth Hour is all about. So far there is an amazing 1800 cities and towns in 80 countries signed up now. here is what is happening in Scotland. http://earthhour.wwf.org.uk/how_you_can_help/who_signups/scotland/

If you've not already done so, then please do sign-up personally today. It would be great if you could disseminate this announcment as widely as possible.

If you are able to sign-up on behalf of your organisation too, then please do that as well.

Credits

The picture of the lovely candles are by tammyjg41.

Hello World!

This is the blog of Eco-congregation Scotland. The purpose of the blog is to exchange information and ideas about the work that eco-congregations are doing around Scotland to care for our world.