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We’re in a hole. Climate, nature and social inequality crises. Story with a swerve gets us out. It’s the shape of all our lives. Up-down, down-up. And this shape of slantwise story, it creates hope and agency.
In this podcast, we hear from culture leaders and wanderers, the crossers of boundaries, the story-tellers. They share their ideas on how we get out of holes. Good story is not just a hiding place. It’s a finding place.
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The music clips at the start and end of episodes were recorded at public dances in Punakha and Thimphu (Bhutan).
My new book will be supporting this podcast, and will be published in March 2027. It is called "Bamboo and Butterfly: Transformative Stories for Climate and Nature Recovery."
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27 Roger Morris on having to close rural churches because of climate change
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In the churchyard of Great Henny church, I’m chatting in the breezy sunshine with Roger Morris, the Bishop of Colchester. He’s brought his purple hard hat. We’re at St Mary the Virgin church, one of six churches in the diocese of Chelmsford that has had to be closed because of the effects of climate change. Soils and ground experiencing severe wetting and then summer drying are moving, and 1000-year-old churches without foundations are moving too. At Great Henny both the east and west ends are cracking and sliding away. Two of the five marks of mission, he says, are foundational: challenging unjust structures, and addressing sustainability and the climate crisis. Other closed churches are at Twinstead and Little Wigborough. These profound threats have occurred only in the past five years or so.
The task is so huge, he says, yet Mother Theresa said of actions of individuals: “It might feel like a drop in the ocean, but the ocean is made of drops.”
Roger mentions the unseen heroines and heroes already taking action on climate and sustainability.
Roger recommends reading the new theology statement on sustainability due from The Synod in July 2026. He also says, change your energy provider to renewables, and don’t fly. The Church of England has committed to net zero in all its buildings by 2030. Even if they miss the target, it has helped galvanise action.
My new book will be supporting this podcast, and will be published in March 2027 by Unbreaking/5m. It’s called "Bamboo and Butterfly: Transformation and Story for Climate and Nature Recovery."
Well, here we are in the upper reaches of the Star Valley at Great Henny, uh the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, and I'm with Roger Morris, the Bishop of Colchester. Great pleasure to have you on, Roger. Um, lovely, gorgeous spring day here, and we've got an object on the table in front of us, which is a hard hat. So that's a clue as to what we're talking about.
SPEAKER_00It's my Episcopal hard hat. I didn't know whether we'd need it today or not, but I thought I'll bring it just in case. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So so we're here at Great Henny Church, and what's the focus of our attention here? What's brought us here? It's climate change, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Well, it is. So Great Henny is an example, it's one of six churches that we now have in the Diocese of Chelmshood, so that's across the whole of Essex, where there has been such sufficient movement in the ground that cracks have opened up and the structure has been deemed to be unsafe. So there are no services happening in this church at the moment. It's it's uh temporarily closed uh because uh the engineer cannot guarantee the safety of people coming into the church. Yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_01And for an old building that has seen an awful lot over eight, nine centuries um since it was first begun, um that's a pretty extraordinary thing to be happening these days. Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00I mean the foot of the tower here is Norman. So you are. You're talking, you know, a millennium. Yeah. And uh and I mean the the use of the word unprecedented when we talk about climate change uh is a bit worn, but this is unprecedented. We've not seen anything like this. Yes.
SPEAKER_01So uh six churches that you've had to you and colleagues have had to declare us effectively closed, or or or there's kind of concerns about them where.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so so I think I think they're in varying degrees. Um so the the first we saw was Little Wigborough, and effectively the whole of that south wall is coming away. It was the it was the southwest corner initially, and a big crack rolling the whole length of that southwest corner. Um but the movement has been so so profound that that building is now unsafe, and we are in the process of closing that building for for regular public worship. Uh we have uh some churches on the Denji as well. We have another one just up the road here at Twinsted. Um, and it it's all the same issue. It's all the same issue that the uh very, very dry summers that we are experiencing now, um, the fact that the days in the summers now are hot in the over the night as well as during the day means that you know most of the hottest summers we've had have been re very recently. Um and and what happens is that dries out the ground. So now there are exacerbating factors here that we'll go on to talk about, but um but that dries out the ground, the ground shrinks and contracts, uh, and then we're seeing really quite significant structural movement. Uh the the churches have lasted so well over years, they weren't built with foundations on the whole, and they they fle they can flex a move. Um if you ever go up a tower when they're ringing the bells, you will feel the sway of the tower with the bells. Um they're they're very flexible buildings, and and yet there is a limit to how far a building can flex. And because of the the very severe summers that we've had, we've reached that limit now.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Well, this part of the country, the upper staur, the sharp slopes from the river at the bottom here, where on the Essex side, Suffolk side is over here. Very variable soils, sandy soils, shaley washes, clay as well. So, with that kind of soil diversity, the the ground is responding to too much moisture or lack of moisture in in very different ways, and bringing these brand new threats to the churches. Tell us a bit about what we've seen here, because it's happening actually at both ends of the church, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It is. So uh so there are some stones, coping stones, that have come off uh at that that end of the church, just fell off because of the movement at that end. Uh the tower is is kind of twisting in one direction. Uh, and you will see that this is like many churches, this has sort of add-ons and bits and pieces. Um and so the the vestry and side chapel were later additions to this church, but again you're seeing quite significant uh cracks in the vestry and at that sort of east wall. Uh so it I mean, and they are they are cracks that you can uh certainly in the summer slide a finger into. You know, they're they're significant cracks. Yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_01Um and the I mean many old buildings have little kind of wrinkly bits, and and uh, you know, just to look at the bricks behind us here and the flint and the and the um treatment of the flint, the sandstone, uh of course it sees signs of aging as what we would expect for a thousand-year-old building. I mean, not all of it's that old, obviously. But but when did we start seeing in these buildings and the one at Little Wigborough in particular, when did we start seeing what are pretty obviously signs of climate stress?
SPEAKER_00Um it's just in the last few years? It is. So so there's always been movement in this this book. I mean, you know, clay soil moves. And you know, we've talked elsewhere about um, you know, the joys of water, but one of the things that water does as well when you've got damp ground is that of course as it freezes it expands. So, so you know, that there is always movement, and uh so there's been some historic underpinning here and things like that. What we've found now, though, it the underpinning uh of one part of this church went to a depth of about 1.8 metres, which is still quite that's quite a depth. Um we're now being told by engineers that's that's not enough. And and the difficulty is that when you underpin as well, you put in a bit of rigidity. So you then have to pretty much underpin the whole lot. Yeah. Otherwise, otherwise you've got bits that are flexing and bits that are rigid. Yes.
SPEAKER_01And it's like what we've seen with the tower, where it's oh no, it's the other end that's been underpinning. So that provides solidity, but the rest can twist.
SPEAKER_00The rest twists around it. Twist around it. Yeah. So so so you know, I think I think you would always have a bit of movement in an old building like this, but this this is the most extreme, and it it has been in the last years. The last summer in particular was a really bad one. Yeah. Um, because uh 2025, the hot the hottest summer on record. Um I was I was flabbergasted actually looking at the records uh today, and um the hottest summers apparently um are 2025, followed by 2018, 2006, 2003, and 2022. So 1976, which you know, popular cultural people as young as us will will remember, you know, few water scorcher. Yeah. It's not even in the top five. Yes, amazing. You know, so it is those very recent years. And the big factor is that they're they're hot day and night. 76 was hot during the day, 32 centigrade or something, but then it cooled down at night. We're now hot during the day, hot during the night, the the land is drying out, and we are seeing this, as I say, on six churches now that uh are suffering the effects of this kind of really quite um significant movement because of the shrinkage. Yes.
SPEAKER_01So uh we met before the pod began with some of the parishioners here who have who are uh live locally and who are very keen to keep the church going, uh whether they are churchgoers or not. I mean they're just it's part of the culture of of villages of of England. Um it's an important building irrespective of how you use it, but you feel that it's part of your identity. So they're keen to do what need can be done, of course. Um but where do you find yourself when you're thinking about well, of course, we need to press ahead as much as possible, but there may be more difficult policy decisions that have to be made a little bit further on.
SPEAKER_00The first thing to sort of illustrate the scale of the issue we face as as the Church of England, if you like, nationally, is that the Church of England looks after um roughly half, forty something percent of all of the grade one listed buildings in the country. And you'll you'll see we we were met by actually quite a number of parishioners when we arrived today. And you saw the passion and the commitment. You know, these are people that um that have given so much to the life of this church and and and over many years. So they talked about the work that was done on the tower here where they had to, you know, replace some of the tiles and things like that. The they've kept the old bit over there for woodpeckers to peck, you know. There's something really beautiful about the way that these churches hold the history of the community and are cherished by many, many people, not just those who come to worship. But but they have to fundraise, they have to maintain the building all through local funds and grants that they apply for. Um the only bit of assistance we had from central government was through uh through some VAT relief, but that has now pretty much been taken taken away. There is a small grant scheme still running. Uh, but but actually many of our churches, so half of the grade one listed buildings in this country are looked after by small groups of well-meaning parishioners doing their utmost, doing their best.
SPEAKER_01Doing their best, exactly. Which is an amazing thing. A kind of amazing activity and responsibility to be able to do that. And um uh parishioners have been doing that for a thousand years, but it's only in this last 10 or 15 or so that people have had to pay attention to a sort of a shift of of severity. That these things have become more serious to the point where it's not just saying, oh, that doesn't look great, to the point of saying actually that is potentially dangerous. And then, as you said, with Little Wigbrug with the south wall, that means we might have to close some of them because of that. And that's a kind of horrible thought, I think, for a lot of people, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00It it is, it's it is really tragic because you know, there is a sense, I think, for the parishioners here, you know, not on our watch. Yeah, we don't want it to be on our watch that we have to close this building. So that's a terrible pressure to live under. But but I I'm not sure what what else they can do. And you say it's groups of parishioners looked after it for a thousand years. Maybe not so, because you know, in the days when this would have been, say, a manorial estate, you know, the Lord of the Manor would have sent workers to do the work and things like that. Uh, in our country, you know, government has effectively centralized, and uh and and there isn't that recourse to those funds, to those workers to to do the work on the churches now. Uh, and and so that's where the parishioners have stepped in. They're looking after these buildings, they're they're not equipped for this, but but that you know, they're talking with the Darsas and Advisory Committee because we're we're exempt from listed building control, uh, under something called the ecclesiastical exemption. But then we have our own system uh which involves all the amenity societies like um uh uh like uh English Heritage as was um like uh historic England now, uh the Victorian Society, the Edwardian Society, the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, all them, they're all involved in that as well, as well as experts, and they advise the Chancellor about what can and cannot be done in our churches. So we have a whole system that looks after these precious jewels in in our nation's kind of uh history, but but we're relying on some well-meaning parishioners, and this is stretching things a bit when they have to deal with really quite serious um structural things now that I mean I I've never been trained in that, you know. I don't know if you have, but no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01These are this is the it is almost the point, is that the changes that we're seeing in lots of parts of kind of not just physical assets but the kind of social and cultural landscapes in which we live are changing rapidly. Uh and we know that um climate and nature destruction are an important part of the drivers behind those concerns that we have. Um have we got time to turn some of those things around? Well, we hope so, but once certain kinds of damage are done to physical infrastructure, you've got to work hard to fill the gaps in the sense.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I mean our our seasons are changing. And you talk to farmers, I mean, we're in prime sort of agricultural area here as well. You talk to farmers, and uh um and it's it's quite interesting in terms of what's what's happening now, the effects on farmers, what what it will be better to grow, what uh sometimes it's really hard to grow, you know, if you don't have that moisture through the summer, um what can you do? We've we've spoken on the uh Climate Action Commission about about management of water on our farms, um, hopefully getting to a place where it is easier for farmers to build reservoirs and manage, because uh over last year when when we had the harvest at the tail end of uh the summer of 2025, there was a marked difference between those who were able to manage water on their farm uh and therefore irrigate and and all the rest of it, uh, and those who are reliant upon the weather. Yeah. Um and and yields were massively well, they were just all over the place, depending on whether you could water or not.
SPEAKER_01Yes, exactly. And the interesting thing is that where we sit here with the river down on this side, um the staur is part of this massive water transfer system that comes from the Fens, the wetlands of of uh northwest East Anglia, um, uh transferred by pipes and then by the river, and then by further pipes around Colchester and into the reservoirs of Essex. So the driest part of the country, the priority is going to be on drinking water, so farmers won't be able to rely on extractions from the river. They will need to hold water as much as they possibly can. Again, changing the physical nature of the landscape as well to adapt to climate change.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely. Absolutely. So and all those things are indicators of what we're dealing with. So the you know, the changes in terms of you know, migrant species, you know, birds and so on coming here, all the things we're noticing are saying we're in a different place now from where we were. Um the summers are much, much hotter. Uh the the winters are much, much wetter. Um how do we how do we adapt to that? How do we live if this is the new normal? Um and it, you know, it's having an effect on our buildings, which is what is here today, but it's having an effect in all sorts of ways.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. So could you tell us a little bit about I know you've been closely involved with with sustainability issues when it comes to the church as well as churches, as it were, um, uh which which opens up a bigger space from just how do we respond to bad things happening? Um there are a range of actions that that can be taken by large bodies, if we can kind of put it that way. You know, they can take on policies which then affect a lot of different people in a lot of different places. Um the ecochurch movement is uh very successful in terms of again getting people to coalesce around nature and climate issues, and much more than that, carbon from their communities. Tell us a little bit about what you've been doing on that side and then how that kind of plays out in the the bigger thing called Burrchurch, but also churches have got the freedom to be able to, or parishes have got the freedoms to be able to say, Oh, we think this thing is important and we would like to do that. Oh, absolutely.
SPEAKER_00So uh so to start with where the Church of England is nationally, so we set a commitment which was uh a huge goal to try and get to net zero carbon by 2030. Yeah. Um, spoiler alert, I don't think we're going to do it. But by setting that very hard target, we've probably done more than we would have done if we had a uh a longer-term target. So we've uh we've accelerated a lot of initiatives to try and do things um and and that's been really successful. Uh we have you mentioned Orosha and the EcoChurch movement. Uh interestingly, by the way, uh Fox Earth, uh, which is not too far away from here, Fox Earth Meadows, of course, uh, is is one of the things that Arosha looks after. They have outdoor services there that have the most amazing. If you want to see dragonflies and things like that, Fox Earth Meadows is the place to go. Absolutely stunning. Uh, it's the only time when I've been speaking there and giving a blessing at the end of an outdoor service that I've been uh heckled by a cuckoo. Um but it's it's just beautiful. Uh and Arosha have a system of uh uh bronze, silver, and gold awards for churches, depending on what they're doing, um, not just around net zero, but also around biodiversity and things like that as well. And because if you look at this churchyard, you know, it's beautiful, uh rich place of biodiversity.
SPEAKER_01It is, it is buttercups and uh large stand of cow slips on the other side of the church, on the north side, um gorgeous, so yeah.
SPEAKER_00So, so you know, looking at all the things that we can do in in that respect as well in our churchyards. Uh and in terms of the larger diocese, the diocese with uh the diocese of Chancellor, at which we're a part, is the whole of Essex, including Southend and Tharrock, plus five London boroughs. So it's a huge diocese. And of those larger dioceses in the country, we have more uh awarded churches through Eco Church than any of those other dioceses. So um we've got environmental chap uh champions working in uh many of our deaneries, that's one of our sort of smaller sections. We break down into, you know, a diocese is broken down into areas, areas into archdeaconries, archdeaconaries into deaneries, deaneries into benefices and parishes. Uh, and so we've got environmental um uh advocates and champions working in many of our deaneries. Uh we have uh all kinds of things going on uh that that I think are actually quite exciting. Sometimes it's the little things. If you go to Thaxted, which is a stunning church and well worth a visit, um they have they have decided that drafts are the big issue. You know, these churches can be quite drafty buildings. So so they have made at quite low cost some some little sort of draft excluders effectively that they've put down. They've done some other things, they've done a lighting scheme that reduces the power usage and things like that. Uh, but actually they have they have reduced, we we have an energy footprint tool, and so we can m we can measure what uh energy churches are using, and uh and they are bringing their use of energy right down because of some of the things that they've done. Um we are we are trying to look at, you know, what do we do uh if if a boiler ceases to work. So we have a church down in Clacton where the architect uh back in the day, and we're talking, you know, uh over a hundred years ago, uh built the church but didn't like the sight of radiators, so hid them in the walls. It's the most inefficient heating system you can ever imagine. It has some very nice warm walls, but that's about it. Warm the walls. So So they are they are uh working on a a scheme with solar panels on the church hall uh that could actually generate enough for them to be able to do quite a lot of the background heating. Fantastic. We've got a church like in Lawford where they have uh uh air source to a wet system. Um and they've put that in and and really quite I mean you are seeing some of the real pioneering work going on actually in some of our churches to try and get towards that that net zero carbon. Our schools, uh we've done a lot with our church schools to reduce um reduce their energy footprint. Uh we have uh in in one part of the diocese our first uh carbon neutral school. Yeah. Uh not a new build, but with retrofit bringing around that carbon neutrality, which is a huge challenge, actually. Yeah. Uh we're doing that with our housing stocks, so we're trying to improve things. So my house has solar panels, which I love at this time of year. When I plug my car in, yeah, and I watch the little green dots on the charger, which says this is this is the source of my of my fuel. I I'm not having to pay nearly two pounds a litre for for diesel or whatever. Um I get it for free. Exactly. I mean it's just superb. So so you know, we are putting those things in place. We are we are working as best as we can, but at the same time speaking about the issues. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So um And that speaking helps to bring people together, so it creates these caucuses or collectives of common understanding, which then allows for bigger changes to be made over time. I mean, it's a good step, hasn't it?
SPEAKER_00So we have we have different ways of doing that. So um, you know, we we have uh we have uh environmental officers and people like that in throughout the country and the Church of England uh who will be working with their diocese to help them to to address issues of climate change. Uh but but what we have also done is we'll have a number of Christians who are part of um Christian Climate Action, which is a kind of branch, if you like, of Extinction Rebellion. So you you have them across the whole spectrum of people involved in this uh in this work. Um there's there's been some really good work recently uh designating, hopefully in July, the synod will agree to designate a particular Sunday as the kind of um you know God in creation Sunday where there will be a particular theme around this this this kind of work. Uh and uh I was saying to you earlier, some theology that's going to come out on that as well, which is really exciting. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01That's that's great. And so do you feel that um uh in looking at I was gonna say the institution of the church, I think that's probably kind of slightly unfair to say, because you've described this kind of great variety of actions and plurality of of groups and um literally a broad church. I mean it's kind of it's got a big arm around everybody, isn't it? Um saying, well, look, this is the sorts of things that we feel are important to do for for kind of moral and ethical reasons that will then play out into the into climate. Um uh do you feel as though that that is action that that um the church is kind of rightly taking as a kind of key actor within the landscape of a country, let's kind of put it in that broader sense completely.
SPEAKER_00So um so actually church is uh because it was uh uh an ecumenical uh piece of work, uh developed what's called the five marks of mission. So to understand what mission is, you know, mission is uh involves all sorts of things, not just um sharing, if you like, the the beliefs that Christians have, uh but also challenging unjust structures, but also uh addressing issues of sustainability. And so that that is baked in, that's our understanding of what we are about. Um and and and there are churches, there is church because there is mission. So so this is a foundational thing for us. Fantastic. And and what that means, we we were talking about ecclesiastical exemption, because I saw you glaze over when we talked about that earlier. Um I was looking for a problem. So so basically, churches uh will be listed in the same way that other buildings are listed, um, but we are exempt from listed building control. You know, if I had a cottage and it's grade one listed, I would have to apply to the local planning authority for permission to do certain things. We do that internally as a church through what's called the ecclesiastical exemption. And whereas in the civic system you would have a planning officer who or or a heritage officer who would advise the planning committee and the planning committee make the decision, we sort of flip that on the head that we have a committee called the Diocesan Advisory Committee, and they advise the Chancellor, who is a barrister, um uh versed in ecclesiastical law, uh, who then makes the final judgment and decision as to what can be done and what can't be done, working with the archdeacons uh in the diocese. And and actually what that means is that when you propose something, a change, uh, and they talk about harm when it's historic buildings. So this thing might do harm to you know the historic building, but but you that has to be balanced with uh what what actually will result from making that change. Uh, and it might be that that change means that the building is more effective as a tool for mission. Yeah. What's interesting actually with some of the environmental stuff is that chancellors are making decisions where the the sustainability, the environmental concern, as part of our mission, and they have to have due regard to the mission, the whole mission of the Church of England, as part of that mission, that that is in balance to the harm in inverted commerce that is done to the historic environment. So you might say, well, you couldn't possibly put solar panels on an ancient church building. And uh and actually you you can because uh and and one of the things that you would normally do, so um uh King's College Chapel in Cambridge, for example, has solar panels. Um and in fact uh you can only see them if you're above. Yes, you send up a drone or send up a drone or if you're flying over by helicopter, you know, but otherwise you won't see them. So so we've become very adept at hiding things. One of the things that some chancellors are suggesting is that we need to make these things more visible because they show what we are then doing in terms of the mission of the church in addressing those climate concerns. So so it gives us an opportunity to do things we would not otherwise be able to do. Very interesting.
SPEAKER_01And it strikes me, I mean, there's a lot of institutions have been through this kind of 30 or 40 year journey of environment and sustainability being a kind of plug-on on the edge. You know, you do that kind of when you've done everything else at half us five in the afternoon kind of thing. You know, it's it's not central to the mission, as you were saying, or the policy of an institution. And that's become much more internalized over time, to the point where it's not just uh a uh, as you were describing, it's not not a uh narrow kind of, oh we'll we'll get to the sustainability bit in a minute, which it's got its import. It's central, it's central to the whole character and meaning of then I think we've got something really interesting because then the adoption of uh technologies can be faster. The solar one I think is really interesting. I mean, just as we were saying, as we sit here, the thing about fossil fuels is you pay three times for them. You pay for the capital, you pay for the running costs every day, every week, they're gonna go on forever, and you pay to clean up the mess. Whereas for renewables, you pay once for the capital. You you purchase it, you put it in place, and then you get the service for free. So telling a story around that strikes me as really important, and maybe there is more that can be done not just on the buildings but in the grounds of buildings to help supply energy, for example, and to play a uh a role in getting to that net zero point. So there may be another kind of stage that things can move to quite quickly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and it's it's been really interesting to track how how things have changed over the years. So one of my old churches from where I was a vicar was the first grade one listed carbon neutral church. Fantastic. Um and uh, you know, uh a friend of mine who was actually the the architect of that in a sense. Um uh I one of the last things I did as vicar was prepare him and his wife for for marriage, and you know, we'd known them since they were at school, so it was lovely. Um but he's now one of the you know one of the leading lights in some of this kind of work. But things have changed so so massively. So there they put in a wood pellet boiler. We probably wouldn't do that now. No, no, exactly. Yeah, so so there are all sorts of things where things have changed, technologies have have moved forward, and I've always been one of those that believes that get in early and and it it won't be as good. You know, my my first generation iPhone was not brilliant. Yes, but the more people get in at one level, then then it speeds up, as you say, it accelerates that process of refinement, you know, and discovery and all the rest of it, and we will end up with some really good things in the future. If we can get away from, say, lithium in cells and use sodium, or you know, which happening. That's that's the big piece of work, things like that.
SPEAKER_01They will happen soon. That new those new generations of batteries are just around the corner. Absolutely. Again, back to the buildings thing. Um, if you've got now that plug-in solar is is now uh available and you can buy solar panels for a couple hundred quid now. Yeah, you know, you can if you live in a block of flats, you can put them on your balconies. 1.5 million people in Germany have done that in a year. Yeah. So you make something available and tell a bit of a story, and people run at it very quickly. Well, we're sitting in the churchyard in the broader sense here. So tie tie together. I mean, you're a fellow commissioner of the Essex Climate Action Commission. We've been going for six years and achieving a lot of things across the whole of the Greater Essex County area. Um, one of the areas of biodiversity focus is indeed in churchyards and clevelands, um, and the sorts of um actions that can be taken by church and churches is to make them little beacons of biodiversity to eventually to link up the local nature recovery strategy as well, show the linkages that can be made between these kind of little hotspots of biodiversity. Um that's still a part of the picture, isn't it? Trying to is a huge part of the picture here.
SPEAKER_00So so we will have uh areas of churchyards quite often where um we we don't mow them. You always have to balance that because people, you know, if if their loved ones are buried in the churchyard, they want it to be spick and span and tidy and all the rest of it. But but there will you can see there are areas here that that lend themselves to being um uh not so manicured and mowed that you lose some of that and and you know making butterfly kind of areas and things like that. We've uh we've been doing a lot uh recently with Swift boxes. So we have some churches that now have Swift boxes on. Um uh so so there are all kinds of initiatives that we're trying to look at to see what we can do that that positively contributes to that that biodiversity. Yeah. Uh and and churchyards, Gleebland, you know, that's all part of it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um fabulous. And it might be those little kind the small steps add up. I mean, the small things that we can do in our um own homes and in our own gardens uh to take little steps in that kind of direction. But hugely, and I think the church is people, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00I mean it is I think you're absolutely right that you know there can be an inertia sometimes because we think, gosh, the the task is so huge. There's nothing we can do. Yeah, exactly. You feel short and slump a little bit. And you know, and or as Mother Teresa used to talk about, you know, it may just be a drop in the ocean, but the ocean is made up of drops. Yeah, exactly. You know, and and and do small things with great love, she used to say. So I think I think those small things we can do are are just huge. And and they may seem so, you know, insignificant, you know, making sure that our recycling is absolutely as it should be, that we don't throw any throw away anything that um uh that we can otherwise recycle because you know there is no away. That's going somewhere. Exactly. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Um it's not going away, it's going somewhere else.
SPEAKER_00Yes, so so so what can we do in terms of improving our our recycling? You go to some churches, we've got some uh some churches out sort of Whittington, um, that sort of way where uh they recycle everything. There are little boxes in the porch of the church for everything from spectacles to you know batteries to you name it, they've got a little receptacle for every possible thing that you might be throwing away. Uh and they have a they have a thing to to get rid of it. Um we we I think need to do two things. So we've um one of the things that can be quite contentious is there are still bishops in the House of Lords. Yeah. Um but actually some of the people who are doing some of the significant speaking out on environmental issues are those bishops in the House of Lords. And uh and and we need to sometimes do things on two levels. So, yes, recycle, but you know, you look at you look at, for example, the packets that your pills come in. Yeah. Which are the worst things to recycle because they're they're two materials fused together. You've got metal and you've got plastic. Um that that needs to change. There's no reason why they have to be made out of those materials. Not really. You can you can make them out of something else. Yeah, you can make it so that it's much much better, more recyclable, or or if you throw it away it will decompose. And and so we we again put pressure on to say, can we do something about some of this packaging? Exactly. Can we so so at both ends the church is able to work, as you say, yeah. You know, people on the ground doing the little things with love that make a difference, and then also at the same time acting politically with a small P to change the bigger things so that everybody can improve what we do.
SPEAKER_01Great. So let's let's kind of uh come come to a to a wrap on this with a couple of questions. One one is there is there a a hero or a heroine that you would point to in uh I was gonna say in environmentally, but not necessarily. I mean who who would you who would you point towards? Um it's usually we're usually looking at people who we think um uh they might have achieved something against the odds, or I like the way they did this thing, or changed the world in this kind of way, um, because that's what we're gonna need to do when it comes to the climate and nature crisis. Change the world in a really big way.
SPEAKER_00Uh is there someone you would point towards? I I think there's probably a group of people, and they're the unseen people. They're the unseen people. But they're the people who've made key decisions in our churches. The decision to switch their energy provider to a green energy provider, that makes a big difference. The people who said to me, and a number of people have said to me, we don't fly anymore. You know, we've taken the decision not to fly. Uh the people that are, like the people at Thaxted who've who've made those uh those things that you know just just plug up the odd draft here and there. The people who've worked hard to get, you know, swift boxes put in, you know, and and and that kind of thing, you know, uh all those kind of people who have done little things quietly, the people you met today, um you know, they they are they are such important people who have quietly looked after this building, uh who maybe now have sleepless nights, you know, will it be on their watch that that you know they have to make some really tough decisions?
SPEAKER_01Um those kind of people. A key something to for people to read. It could be a book or a report. Is it the one you mentioned earlier?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so yeah, so the Church of England has a report. We have a kind of an in-house uh theology department, if you like. Um that's good. They've they've produced a report. I'd love to share it with you. I've I've got a copy, and uh I I think it is really, really good. It is going to the House of Bishops and then we'll go to Synod this July, uh, and then it will be uh widely available, downloadable from uh websites. And um uh that is a really good report. And it it's from a kind of church idea about what we understand about God and stuff, so a theological report, but actually looking at the climate crisis with that lens, it somehow manages that very careful task of um being prophetic about what we need to speak out about, but doing it in an invitational way that doesn't make you just feel rotten at the end of reading it, you know. So it's a it's a beautifully done. Because I think, I mean, something you've said, which which I want to maintain, um uh where you said, you know, if we if we effectively if we reduce our consumption to say one ton of carbon dioxide per person per year, the the game changer for me that you said was uh not only uh might we save the planet, but we'll be happier. Yes, exactly. And I think there's something rich in there, and I think I think this report is going down that same line of of trying to mine that sort of sense of you know, we want people to have life in all its abundance, we want people to flourish. Um, and sometimes when you talk about climate stuff, it can feel like a restriction, like we're the party poopers. And and I think what this what this report does is say that actually this is a good way to live. You know, you'll you'll be happier living this way. So so I would say read that when it comes out. Um, but but check out some of the stuff the Church of England is doing. Uh we've produced a whole load of prayers now that that are on the theme of climate. Oh, so so you know, uh and they're freely downloadable because you know we try and give away as much as we can. So there are all sorts of things that people can access, which is, I think, really good. Real pleasure.
SPEAKER_01Bishop Roger, Roger Morris, Bishop of Colchester. Thank you so much indeed for the conversation here. We brought along our hard hat to talk about the church here um at uh Great Henny, and uh we wish the parishioners and everybody else the best of good fortune in terms of uh being able to take the actions to look after the church for another thousand years. Thank you, Jules, it's been a pleasure.