Epiphany 2022
To: All Senior and Junior Wardens

Dear Wardens,

The Diocese is offering a grant of up to $10,000 to every congregation for energy efficiency retrofits that reduce your buildings’ consumption of fossil fuels. You can apply from now until the end of 2022. This is action we Episcopalians can take now to mitigate climate change and reduce our neighbors’ risk of lung and cardiovascular disease, without waiting for governments to act. Our reminder to you comes as you cope with winter utility bills. The US Energy Information Administration predicted in October that natural gas costs will be 30% higher and electric costs 6% higher than last year.

The members of the Diocese’s Creation Care and Environmental Justice Task Force are glad to help you analyze your buildings to identify eligible efficiency projects. You can start with the Project Requirements List at the grant application link. The proposal is simple: what’s important is for you to decide on projects that will reduce your energy use (and bills!). Many congregations in our diocese have already received Level II Energy Audits over the past few years, and if these have been set aside in the transition from warden to warden, we have a lot of them on file and can forward them to you to use as a starting point.  Eligible projects include efficient lighting, HVAC equipment, thermostats, insulation, and new windows or doors.

Ohio is part of a very dirty electric grid, producing 20% more CO2 and health-harming sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide that the national average, as you can see from this chart, (generated by putting the downtown Cincinnati zip code in the EPA Power Profiler box). 
Using less power is a real act of loving your neighbor, whether it’s the farmer struggling to prevent her family from starving in increasingly arid Uganda, or a mother up all night with a child suffering an asthma attack in an apartment downwind from an Ohio coal-fired plant.

Please take the next few weeks to review your church building, rectory or other buildings, and reach out to us if you’d like free consultation. Members of our task force are volunteering our professional expertise developed over decades in building efficiency, out of passionate hope and prayer that the Episcopal congregations of Southern Ohio can act swiftly by taking the most effective action in our power to prevent the worst humanitarian impacts of climate change and preventable illness caused by particulates emitted by the burning of fossil fuels. 

Join us. Use your power for good.

Yours in Christ,

The Rev. Craig Foster, PE, and Catherine Duffy, MA, Co-Chairs
Creation Care and Environmental Justice Task Force, Diocese of Southern Ohio
Cc: Creation Care and Environmental Justice Task Force, Standing Committee, Diocesan Council, Diocesan staff