Climate Change Announced as Theme for the Diocese of Upper South Carolina’s Annual Convention

Each year, the Episcopal Diocese of Upper South Carolina’s annual convention includes a “Leadership Day” of keynote speakers and breakout sessions. This year, Bishop W. Andrew Waldo announced on October 17,  Leadership Day will focus on climate change and environmental stewardship. “As Christians,” Bishop Waldo said in a YouTube video, “we need to take care of what God has given us.”

The keynote speaker will be Dr. James McClintock, who the diocesan website promises will provide “a riveting presentation on science and our stewardship of creation. As a fellow Episcopalian, [McClintock] has served as an Endowed University Professor of Polar and Marine Biology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham since 1987. McClintock has led/co-directed more than a dozen scientific expeditions with the United States Antarctic Program (USAP). Together, he and his research collaborators have become the world’s authorities on Antarctic marine chemical ecology. He is the author of A Naturalist Goes Fishing and Lost in Antarctica – Adventures in a Disappearing Land.”

Other speakers will include Rebecca McKinney (Executive Director, South Carolina Organization for Organic Living; academic program director, Sustainable Agriculture Certificate Program at Greenville Tech, and Sustainability Specialist, Bon Secours St. Francis Health System); Lori Ziolkowski (Asst. Professor, School of Earth, Ocean and Environment, University of South Carolina); Shelley Robbins (Energy and State Policy Director, Upstate Forever); Rob Brown (Rector, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Spartanburg); and John Tynan (Conservation Voters of South Carolina). For event details and registration information, click here. The fee is $50, which includes dinner.

On October 20, just days after Upper South Carolina’s announcement the Episcopal Diocese of Spokane passed a resolution at its annual convention in support of planting “Paris Groves,” plants that commemorate the moral purpose of the Paris Agreement on Climate Change. These diocesan actions are the kind that could be replicated by many others across the church.