CARE OF CREATION
The work of California Interfaith Power and Light is energized by the understanding that every major faith tradition call on us to be stewards of Creation. We have a responsibility to protect the earth for our children and future generations. For CIPL members, faithfulness to the care of creation is a spiritual mandate. We continually strive to nourish our commitment to the goal of living as responsible stewards. In so doing, we draw from the wisdom of Creation's many faith traditions.
 “Let us think of Mother Earth, her rich bounty that will result from
springtime, the golden corn and the seeds of harvest, all grown
strong from Mother Earth, the spring rains, and the energy of
Father Sky. It is time to consider healing: healing of ourselves,
healing of a loved one, healing of adversaries for peace among
nations and healing of the harms done to Mother Earth.”
Ed McGaa, Eagle Man
Reprinted from Prayers for Healing, - Edited by Maggie Oman
CIPL NEWS
IP & L Conference at Cathedral College in Washington, DC
In the Second National Conference of the Interfaith Power & Light movement, thirty attendees representing 15 of the 16 member-states met at Cathedral College in Washington D.C for four days to discuss and share information on their individual state programs. Discussion and training focused on outreach, common participation, media, fundraising and advocacy.
On the last day of the conference, IP&L representatives gathered in the Methodist Building on Capitol Hill to meet with D.C. lobbyists for the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the Episcopal Church, and the Coalition on the Environment in Jewish Life. After gleaning some very useful advice from them on how to talk with legislators about issues of faith and the environment, we met with 42 Senators and Congressional Representatives from 12 states to discuss energy policy and global warming. Dialogue included discussion of the energy bill, then in conference committee, specifically our strong support for inclusion of the renewable portfolio standard (RPS) requiring renewable energy to make up at least 10% of the nation's electricity supply by 2020. Currently, less than 2% of U.S. electricity comes from clean, renewable sources. (Unfortunately, the RPS did not make it out of conference committee, and environmentalists are now urging the Senate to reject the energy bill, which contains massive subsidies for oil, coal, and nuclear power.)
We also urged opposition to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve for oil drilling. Although that proposal was not included in the energy bill, it apparently may be added as an amendment to the budget bill.
California Interfaith Power and Light met with the offices of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, Sen. Barbara Boxer, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Hilda Solis, and Rep. Doris Matsui. We are pleased to report that all five of these California representatives support our environmental and clean energy goals.
The four newest members of the IP&L movement, New York, Minnesota, North Carolina and Texas, gave reports on the launching of the program in their states.
In an atmosphere of co-operation and collegiality, the executive directors, outreach directors and IP&L staff members were united in the conviction that outreach will emphasize the hopeful mission of the movement and the vision that we, the faith community, can and will make a difference to the health of our planet.
CIPL Outreach Director Ordained in PCUSA
While we look to find the encouraging signs of hope in addressing the threat of climate change, we applaud San Francisco Presbytery for validating the call of our very own Sally Juarez to Ministry of Word and Sacrament for her ministry in Caring for Creation as Outreach Director for California Interfaith Power and Light. Sally was ordained at Montclair Presbyterian Church in Oakland on July 31st.
HOT TOPICS:
Sea Life in Peril as Plankton Vanishes from West Coast Waters
"Upwelling" is the word used to describe the seasonal influx of cold water off the coasts of Northern California, Oregon and Washington State. With the colder water comes tens of thousands of tons of krill to sustain sea life from salmon to blue whales. But not so now in a mysterious and chilling absence of cold water. Also absent from the coastal waters are sea plankton, devastating the sea bird population and stressing fisheries. Seabird nesting has dropped significantly on the Farallon Islands off San Francisco, the largest Pacific Coast seabird rookery south of Alaska. According to Bill Sydeman of Point Reyes Bird Observatory, the collapse of the nesting season is unprecedented in the three decades that his group has been monitoring the Farallon Islands. One species of sea birds, the Cassin's Auklets, feed almost exclusively on krill; they have been the most severely impacted. Why the usual influx of cold water isn't happening is not immediately known, but one study suggests that it may be long term and associated with global warming. San Francisco Chronicle environmental writer, Glen Martin reports, "The study concluded the record high temperatures were caused by abnormally warm weather in Alaska and western Canada, as well as ėgeneral warming of global lands and oceans.'"
"It's the krill that drive the food web dynamics off this coast," said Ellie Cohen, the executive director of the Point Reyes Bird Observatory. "Their absence has tremendous implications for everything out there, right up to the humpback and blue whales. We don't know if this is a result of global warming or some natural cycling, but without the krill, you could be looking at a food web collapse."
Sources for this article:
"Sea life in peril ń plankton vanishing," San Francisco Chronicle, July 12, 2005
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/07/12/MNG8SDMMR01.DTL&hw=plankton&sn=001&sc=1000
Wading Birds of South-East England
This year's draught in England is taking its toll on the birds of the wetland reserves near Sussex and Kent where 80% of the Lapwings, Redshank and Snipe have disappeared. The Royal Society of Bird Protection reports that these fine feathered friends have diminished in number over the past twenty-five years due to low rainfall and climate change. The birds need the boggy grasslands and damp meadows in which to find food and nest. The south-east is drying up. When there is too little rain, the cracks in the earth will not close, and then what rain there is seeps through instead of staying on the surface to create the boggy environment that the waders need. In order to save their wetlands, water used in homes and gardens will have to be conserved. Says the manager in the Kent Reserve, "Climate change and water shortage pose a very real threat, but action now by the government, house builders, and water customers could save the beautiful wetland heritage of the region."
Commentary on G-8 Meeting in July
The outcome of the G-8 summit last month may have seemed to water down targets and timetables for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but the conversation is far from over. In his final speech, Prime Minister, Tony Blair announced that the G-8 countries and five of the world's largest emerging economies (China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa) had agreed to work together to slow down and to ultimately reverse the rise of harmful green house gas emissions. Blair also announced another meeting in November of this year.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and Australia, the two major nations who did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, have announced that they are developing a new pact on Climate Change with a group of Asian countries, which are presumed to be South Korea, China and India. According to an article published by the BBC News on July 27, it is believed that it will focus on technology transfer from the industrialized nations to the developing world.
It is difficult to speculate what will ultimately result from these pacts and summits or whether action on behalf of the planet can be executed in a timely enough fashion to reverse the steady progression of the global warming that is occurring everywhere on the planet. We in the faith communities must take hope in the sheer fact that these conversations are at last happening and that even our own administration is no longer denying the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming.
Criticizing Kyoto, Australian Prime Minister Campbell told reporters that Kyoto could not achieve the level of greenhouse gas reductions which the majority of climate scientists believed were necessary if climate change was to be kept within manageable bounds. "We're going to have a 40% increase in emissions under the Kyoto Protocol, and the world needs a 50% reduction," he said. "We've got to find something that works better."
That acknowledgement is something to celebrate.
Rev. Sally Juarez, Outreach Director
FACING FACTS
Current Statistics
* Average temperatures in the Arctic region are rising twice as
fast as they are elsewhere in the world. Arctic ice is getting
thinner, melting and rupturing. For example, the largest single
block of ice in the Arctic, the Ward Hunt Ice Shelf, had been
around for 3,000 years before it started cracking in 2000.
Within two years it had split all the way through and is now
breaking into pieces. Experts say that the Arctic is the canary
in the coal mine.
* Images from NASA satellites show that the area of permanent
ice cover is contracting at a rate of 9 percent each decade.
If this trend continues, summers in the Arctic could become
ice-free by the end of the century.
* Scientists project as much as a 3-foot sea-level rise by 2100.
According to a 2001 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency study,
this increase would inundate some 22,400 square miles
of land along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of the United States,
primarily in Louisiana, Texas, Florida and North Carolina.
GOOD NEWS:
Good News on Better Air
Many governmental bodies around the globe, including state governments in the United States are taking the threat of global warming seriously and are taking steps to curtail emissions. In California, the Million Solar Roofs Initiative is designed to offer consumers an affordable, clean-energy option, creating new U.S. high-technology jobs, and playing an important role in reducing emissions. In North Carolina, that state's House of Representatives voted to create a climate-change commission that could set the state's first greenhouse-gas reduction targets. Pennsylvania's Environment Secretary Kathleen McGinty announced that her state is adopting California's tougher car emissions regulations. Many countries are working to obey the 1997 Kyoto treaty rejected by the United States. The treaty requires the countries to cut emissions of greenhouse gases theorized to cause global warming. In Canada's Ottawa province, one of five coal-burning power plants has been closed down and the others are slated to follow.
Source for this article:
Re-written from an article By Seth Borenstein, KNIGHT RIDDER WASHINGTON BUREAU, U.S. Newswire, July 5, 2005. Please go to http://www.pipa.org to view the poll results.
Overwhelming Majority of Americans Favors US Joining G-8 Nations in Campaign to Limit Greenhouse Gas Emissions
According to a new PIPA-Knowledge Network poll, 89% of Americans polled, representing both major political parties, said that the US should join with other G-8 nations to limit emissions and control global warming. Virtually all respondents said that the US should limit its greenhouse gases by at least as much as the other developed countries have pledged to. Forty-four percent think the U.S. should do more. A curious 43% of those polled assume incorrectly that President Bush favors U.S. participation in the Kyoto treaty. Only 43% were clear about the official U.S. position and 14% were unsure.
One conclusion of the poll is that the perception of a scientific consensus about the reality of global warming has increased over the last year. Forty-eight percent of those polled said that they had heard a great deal about climate change and global warming during the last year. Three in four Americans embrace the idea that global warming is a threat that needs action and only 21% opposed any steps with economic costs while 34% percent said that the problem was urgent: "we should begin taking steps now even if this involves significant costs." An overwhelming 83% supported the McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act that would require large companies to reduce their emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
This is very good news that portends a growing awareness of this threat to the planet and a general public concern that could help turn the tide on global warming.
COOL TIPS
* Replace your old inefficient water heaters with a new efficient model.
Water Heaters 10-years old or more are inefficient because they have to
keep a tank with gallon of water hot at all times. This accounts for up to
30% of your monthly hot-water bill.
* Install a geothermal heat pump in you home or business. If 500,000
households installed geothermal heat pumps for their heating, cooling
and water heating, in one year they would prevent three million tons of
carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere; that is the equivalent of
planting 190 million trees!!
* Consider replacing your old water heater with a solar one: A solar
water heater will reduce your water heating costs up to 85% compared to
an electric water heater and will cut CO2 emissions by 100%.
EVENTS
Sacramento CIPL Working Group:
Monday, August 1
Noon - 1:00 PM
St. John's Lutheran Church
2nd Floor Conference Room
1701 L Street
Sacramento, California
RSVP to Rev. Dexter McNamara
916-448-2212
dexter@isbsacramento.org
San Diego CIPL Working Group (RECAP) Meeting:
Tuesday, August 2
6:00-7:30 PM
SDG&E
8335 Century Park Court
San Diego, California
(The office is in building 1 of the office park, which is a secured building.
Please call Ed Whitmore at 858-654-8776 for entry if no one is at the door)
RSVP to Tom Bourne
916-442-5447 ext. 13
tom@interfaithpower.org
Interfaith Leaders Breakfast in Contra Costa
Thursday, September 22nd
8:15 AM
Co-sponsored by CIPL and Interfaith Council of Contra Costa
Mt. Diablo Unitarian Universalist Church
55 Eckley Lane
Walnut Creek, California
RSVP to Rev. Sally Juarez
916-442-5447
outreach@interfaithpower.org
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Does your congregation have an eco-event coming up? Let us help you get the word out to all of our covenant congregations. Do you know of a great film or reading that you wish everyone would take advantage of? Let us know about it and we will include it in the Newsletter. Send us all copy by the 25th of the month for inclusion in the next month's edition. Email Rev. Sally Juarez at outreach@interfaithpower.org.
CLOSING REFLECTION
“May the Holy Spirit guide us as we seek to heal and to nurture the earth
And all of its creatures, to live in the midst of creation, and to love one
Another as brothers and sisters with all life.
The CIPL E-Newsletter is produced by:
California Interfaith Power & Light
2715 K Street, Suite D
Sacramento, CA 95816
916-442-5447
www.interfaithpower.org
Rev. Sally Juarez
Outreach Director
outreach@interfaithpower.org
Tom Bourne
Executive Director
tom@interfaithpower.org
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