Various Popes have made ‘green’ utterances about ecology – John Paul II spoke of the ‘ecological crisis<\/a>‘ and in 2008 Benedict XVI installed solar pv<\/a> in the Vatican.<\/p>\n Pope Francis has made it pretty clear<\/a>.\u00a0 Catholics and the rest of us should be using renewable energy:<\/p>\n “We know that technology based on the use of highly polluting fossil fuels – especially coal, but also oil and, to a lesser degree, gas – needs to be progressively replaced without delay.”<\/em><\/p>\n “There is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced, for example, substituting for fossil fuels and developing sources of renewable energy.”<\/em><\/p>\n “Worldwide there is minimal access to clean and renewable energy. There is still a need to develop adequate storage technologies. Some countries have made considerable progress, although it is far from constituting a significant proportion. Investments have also been made in means of production and transportation which consume less energy and require fewer raw materials, as well as in methods of construction and renovating buildings which improve their energy efficiency. But these good practices are still far from widespread.”<\/em><\/p>\n So how widespread are they in the Catholic Church itself ?\u00a0 One hopes that somewhere in the Vatican, someone is keeping track of progress ?<\/p>\n It’s not as if this idea is wholly new, even in the Catholic Church.\u00a0 In 2009 an academic study available online,\u00a0 Solar Photovoltaic Energy for Mitigation of Climate Change: A Catalytic Application of Catholic Social Thought <\/a><\/em>worked out the potential impact on developing the solar pv market in the US if the\u00a0 20,842 Catholic Parishes in the Continental U.S. put solar pv on their roofs. And there are plenty of Catholic, Christian and other Faith initiatives on the environment and even specifically on renewable energy.<\/p>\n For instance in the US, for 15 years the California-based\u00a0 Interfaith Power & Light<\/a> (IPL) ‘has worked\u00a0to turn people of all religious faiths onto the idea that addressing climate change by deploying renewable energy technologies’. Renewables ‘can not only deliver clean, affordable electrical power’, it says<\/a> ‘but it can also address unemployment and spur socially beneficial development in communities nationwide’.<\/p>\n IPL works with 18,000 member congregations, and is running an online Solar Pledge<\/a>\u00a0campaign and can point to lots of examples<\/a> of churches using renewables.\u00a0 But does anyone have systematic data on progress ?\u00a0 Now is the time for the bean counters of the Vatican and other faith institutions to do their ecological accounting with the same thoroughness that many devote to keeping track of their often vast financial resources.<\/p>\n It might come as no surprise if it turns out that the Germans, and maybe the non-Catholic Christians, are ahead of the game ?\u00a0 Today (24 June 2015) it was reported by the website Power Technology<\/a> that:<\/p>\n The Lutheran World Federation (LWF), a communion of Lutheran churches has decided not to invest in fossil fuels any further and has called on its member churches in Switzerland to do the same, in order to meet its climate commitment.\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n As a part of its long-standing pledge to preserve environment, the federation has urged its members and associated institutions ‘to support energy efficiency and renewable energy companies’ instead.\u00a0 The council intends to turn carbon neutral by 2050<\/em><\/p>\n More than 2,000 churches in Germany already have<\/a> either photovoltaics or solar thermal.\u00a0 Was this the first pv on a church building anywhere ?\u00a0 Quite possibly.\u00a0 In Germany of course, and as it makes clear, a Conservative<\/strong> project.<\/p>\nCatholic Potential<\/h2>\n
\n<\/span><\/p>\nAre The Germans The Real Leaders ?<\/h2>\n