IPLog

May 15: Free Online Training for Congregations

The EPA will be hosting a FREE Internet-based training session on topics useful to congregations for reducing their energy costs and improving their energy stewardship.
Please follow the link to register in advance for the session:

https://energystar.webex.com/mw0304l/mywebex/default.do?siteurl=energystar

Thursday, May 15

The session starts at 11:30 am, Eastern Daylight Time, and last one hour.

Thursday, May 15: Portfolio Manager 101 for Congregations
This session provides an overview of the functionality of Portfolio Manager and includes a review of the on-line tool, Portfolio Manager. The purpose of this training is to provide users with a step-by-step understanding of Portfolio Manager to provide them with the knowledge to benchmark their current energy use; track savings; share their data with master accounts; enter upgrades; and understand the outputs shown on the Statement of Energy Performance.

Heads up from New York Interfaith Power and Light.

Fight Coal

Support A Clean Energy Future for Virginia: Sign the “Mile Long” Petition

Congregations, citizens, and both Greater Washington IPL and Virginia IPL have been putting up a strong fight against Dominion’s proposed Wise County coal plant.

Any Americans opposed to coal can help their efforts by signing on the “Mile Long Petition” to Dominion.

If built, the plant would be a giant step backwards for Virginia’s environment and energy policy, harming creation, the poor, and the vulnerable. Though Dominion is billing the plant as “state-of-the-art,”

• it’s not carbon-capture compatible,
• would emit at least 50 times more mercury than similar plants do,
• and barely even meets the requirements of the Clean Air Act.

Residents of South West Virginia will deliver the petition to Dominion’s Headquarters in Richmond on May 8th.

See previous work here and here on this issue by VA and GW IPL leaders.

Colbert on Ethanol

Ethanol solves the energy crisis. Is there any problem alcohol can’t solve?

Kentucky Interfaith Power & Light

The Courier-Journal serving Kentucky and Southern Indiana writes:

Now a new group, Kentucky Interfaith Power & Light, is working to answer that call and help mobilize the state’s religious community to act against global warming.

“As people of faith we have a strong sense that anything we do to address the climate change is not just something we ought to be doing, it’s something we’re called to be doing by God, to be good stewards of the Earth and that which we have been given,” said the Rev. Joel Weible, associate pastor at Highlands Presbyterian Church and a member of the group.

The group, formed in December, is the local branch of the national Interfaith Power & Light movement. Such groups exist in 26 states, with about 4,000 congregations of nearly all faiths participating.

[snip]

The Rev. Joe Mitchell, a Passionist priest and director of the center, said stewardship has always been a key component of the Christian understanding of humanity’s relationship to creation, but the consensus of what it means has been shifting toward kinship and caring for the Earth.

The Rev. Jerry Cappel, priest at Resurrection Episcopal Church on Southern Parkway, said many people may have more desire to help than knowledge about what they can do. The group offers a way to turn that desire into action, he said.

“There is a growing awareness of both the urgency and the necessity for the religious faith community to get involved,” he said.

Clergy urged to speak on environment

The North Carolina News & Observer interviews Sally Bingham.

The Rev. Sally Bingham is the godmother of the environmental movement in the religious community.

Back in the 1990s, when religiously based environmentalists were still viewed as nature worshippers, she founded Episcopal Power & Light. Now called Interfaith Power & Light, the nonprofit organization has 27 chapters across the United States, including North Carolina. The mission of the organization is to mobilize a religious response to global warming through the promotion of renewable energy and conservation.

Bingham, the president of Interfaith Power & Light and the environmental minister at Grace Cathedral in San Francisco, met with 20 religious leaders at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church in Raleigh last week. She said religious communities have made remarkable strides in addressing the intersection of faith and global climate change, and she encouraged them not to give up.

“You clergy need to talk about it,” she said. “I think it should be in every single sermon.”

We caught up with her on the occasion of Earth Day on Tuesday to ask her about the progress religious people have made on the issue.

Q: How are churches becoming more active in environmental issues?

A: Environmental issues were once political issues. They didn’t belong in the church. Now it’s integral to mainstream religions in ways unimaginable five years ago. … We’re seeing changes in the liturgy to reflect care for creation. That’s huge because in the Episcopal Church there’s a deep tradition that resists change.

I am seeing clergy take this responsibility seriously enough to actually say that care for creation belongs with love, justice and peace. You hear the term “JPIC,” or justice, peace and integrity of creation. It’s putting care for creation on parallel with love, justice and peace … We have a green mosque in Washington, D.C. We have hundreds of Protestant churches with solar panels on the roof. We have two large cathedrals with geothermal systems — in Boston and in Cleveland, Ohio. The Catholic Cathedral in Los Angeles in solar.

Q: How has Interfaith Power & Light changed?

A: We now have an office in San Francisco and a staff of seven. We coordinate this national campaign. That means we help the state programs get started … One of the important things we do is make sure the Interfaith Power & Light campaign doesn’t get sidetracked. We don’t want to be viewed as the Sierra Club at prayer. We’re not political. We’re not Republicans or Democrats. Our message is rooted in theology. It’s different from an environmental organization. We want to be seen as conservative people coming from a theological perspective. We don’t love trees more than people.

Q: What is the spiritual message you offer?

A: I see it as part of the commandment to love God and love your neighbor. If you love your neighbor, you don’t pollute your neighbor’s air. We are called to serve one another. If you see that your behavior is harming your neighbor and your neighborhood, other species, flora and fauna, or the next generation, it’s a direct disobedience to the commandment. Jesus said what you do to the least of these you do to me. If vulnerable and poor communities are harmed by our behavior, we’re insulting God.

Q: Would you call environmental degradation a sin?

A: If you knowingly drive a Hummer that gets 13 miles on the gallon and you don’t care because you’re big and important, that’s a sin. These days, there are people who can afford to drive a Hummer but are buying a Toyota Prius. People want to do the right thing.

Q: How did Interfaith Power & Light get started?

A: I was on a mountaintop in Massachusetts with Steve MacAusland in 1996. We were both members of the Episcopal Ecological Network. We were on a trail walking, and frustrated that our committee never tackled any problems. We just talked about them. We knew that both California and Massachusetts were getting ready to deregulate electricity, and everybody would get to choose [their electric carrier]. We decided it was a great opportunity to show people where their electricity comes from. In this conversation, we thought ‘Let’s get the Episcopal Church to buy renewable energy.’ That’s how it began.

N.C. Survey: Public Would Pull Plug on Duke Energy’s Proposed Coal-Fired Power Plant

Support in North Carolina for plans by Duke Energy to build a dirty coal-fired power plant at Cliffside is weak, according to a scientific survey of 600 state residents conducted by the Opinion Research Corporation (ORC) for the independent Civil Society Institute, a nonprofit and nonpartisan think tank located in Newton, MA.

The survey of North Carolina residents found that about four out of five North Carolina residents (79 percent) –- including a bipartisan 74 percent of Republicans, 84 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Independents — agree that “North Carolina should focus on increased energy efficiency and conservation steps and more use of sustainable energy to reduce demand for electricity before it goes ahead with a new coal-fired power plant.”

Alice Loyd, executive director, North Carolina Interfaith Power and Light in Raleigh, said:

“What the poll shows would certainly be true for the people we’ve met as we make presentations in faith congregations over the state. They see that emitting the kind of pollution this plant would create is just wrong. Recently Pope Benedict XVI named environmental pollution as a sin. Jim Rogers’ coal plant is not what people want, and building it at this time of climate crisis would fall into the category of moral failure.”

Environment Quiz

Test your environmental knowledge over at The Atlantic’s 10 question Earth Day online quiz.

Here are the first four questions:

1) How many degrees Fahrenheit did the global temperature rise in the last century?

1 degree

6 degrees

15 degrees

40 degrees

2) According to a 2005 National Academy of Sciences study, how much will the ocean rise in the next 100 years?

15 to 20 feet

6 to 11 feet

4 inches to 3 feet

1 to 3 inches

3) Which one of the following areas is NOT likely to be made more hospitable by global warming?

Sub-Saharan Africa

Europe

Siberia

Washington, DC

4) What source is responsible for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions?

livestock

SUVs

Tractor-trailers

airplanes

Click here to take the quiz.

Earth Day News Round Up: IPL Everywhere!

Sister Joan Brown writes in the Gallup, NM, Independent:

I invite you to a hatching action. The New Mexico Interfaith Power and Light, an organization always open to new member churches, synagogues and faith communities throughout the state, is stepping up education and action around global warming. We are conducting a campaign of Hands Across New Mexico this year beginning with “Our Children’s Future Is In Our Hands: Stop Global Warming: Mother’s Day Gift of Hands Across New Mexico.”

We are collecting 5,000 hands outlined on paper that expresses our concern and care, and can let public policy makers know that New Mexicans are concerned about the children and the future. You can download information and offer a Hand by going to www.nm-ipl.org or www.1skynewmexico.org. Deadline is before Mother’s Day.

The Stamford, Connecticut Advocate notes:

“Environmental problems are getting obvious and worse,” said Rabbi Andrea Cohen-Kiener, director of the Interreligious Eco-Justice Network, a Hartford-based environmental advocacy group. “People feel that when they look outside.”

One of the Eco-Justice Network’s projects is Connecticut Interfaith Power and Light, which is part of a national campaign that promotes renewable energy, with more than 25 states participating.

Over the last two years, Connecticut Interfaith Power and Light has helped organize the program This Old House of Worship, which assesses the energy efficiency of churches, synagogues and other religious buildings. A new workshop will focus on homes.

“I think people are coalescing around it,” Cohen-Kiener said. “We’re building community with it.”

Religious environmentalism is not new. The Interfaith Power and Light effort began 10 years ago.

Today, the Burlington VT, Free Press reports:

Burlington Mayor Bob Kiss will kick off a city-wide effort to reduce household-level carbon emissions at 12:15 p.m. Tuesday on the top block of Church Street.

Kiss will be joined at the kick-off by other partners in the effort; the City of Burlington’s Legacy Project, Seventh Generation, Vermont Interfaith Power & Light, the 10% Challenge, and several other Burlington-based partners. The Arts Forte Players will also be on hand with music, dance and humor from the global warming musical, “Beat the Heat.”

I love the title of this class, reported by the Deseret News:

Holladay United Church of Christ and Utah Interfaith Power & Light will present “Global Warming — Changing CO2urse” from 6 to 8 p.m. each Wednesday through May 7 at the church, 2631 Murray-Holladay Road.

The course, developed by the Northwest Earth Institute, aims to help people explore how their values and habits relate to climate change, to help them understand the history and science of global warming and to empower them to take action to curb it.

David Chapman, a professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah, teaches the course.

Austin Chronicle features Bee as a Green Leader!

Texas Interfaith Power and Light reports:

The “Green Crush” issue of this week’s Austin Chronicle contains an article that features Bee Moorhead, Executive Director of Texas Impact/TXIPL. The article discusses the efforts made by Texas Interfaith Power & Light for our environmental sustainability by reaching out to the faith community of Texas. Take a look at some of the things congregations and people of faith are doing around Austin to really build an ongoing relationship with creation!

Who Loves Mountains?

Our friends at Appalachian Voices recently completed their 3rd Annual Mountaintop Removal Week in Washington DC. They had 125 volunteers from more than 20 states in attendance.

They met with members of Congress and asking them to co-sponsor the Clean Water Protection Act (H.R. 2169) and to take action to stop mountaintop removal coal mining.

Appalachian Voices has been working with Interfaith Power and Light leaders in Georgia and California and is eager to work with more.

Sandra Diaz, National Field Coordinator for Appalachian Voices says that they are scheduling visits in Florida, PA, Texas & Ohio between now and mid-June and would love to coordinate with local IPL leaders and congregations. Phone: 828.262.1500