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March 29, 2007
Periodic news items and alerts about global climate change justice, energy efficiency, energy conservation, and sustainable energy alternatives for congregations.
Please share this with your friends and ask them to subscribe by contacting Tim Kautza at ncrlctk@mchsi.com. As you know, it’s free!
Please let us know what you are doing to address climate change as a justice issue and what your congregation is doing to improve energy efficiency, reduce energy consumption, or use alternative energy sources.
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Blessings!
Tim Kautza
Coordinator
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Rachel L. Anderson
Editorial Assistant
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CONTENTS:
Latham to Meet with Religious Leaders; Loebsack co-sponsors RES
State Legislation Stalled; Action NeededRight Now
Cool Congregations at Dubuque; Last Chance
National Day of Climate Action April 14
Full House Hears Carbon Tax Pitch on Capitol Hill
Interfaith Group Braves Storm in Massachusetts Climate Change Trek
U.S. Automakers and UAW Tell Congress that Proposed Mileage Standards Could be 'Calamitous'
Living Day to Day by a Gospel of Green
Global 'Sunscreen' Has Likely Thinned, Report NASA Scientists
Congregations Called to Register Earth Day Activities
Winter Was Warmest on Record
Global Warming, A Moral Issue Discussion
Carbon Trading Won't Stop Climate Change
Pelosi and Boxer Aim to Green Capitol Hill
Help Support Iowa Interfaith Power & Light
Earth Day Dinner Kicks Off Series on Sustainable Living
Prospectus Health Consequences of Global Warming: Exploring the Links, Breaking the Chains
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Latham to Meet with Religious Leaders; Loebsack co-sponsors RES
4th District Congressman Tom Latham has agreed to meet with religious leaders at 10:30 a.m., April 10 to discuss global warming and sustainable energy. Please come if you are a senior religious leader representing some of Congressman Latham’s constituents or if you’re a constituent of the 4th district. If you plan to attend, please notify Mark Kresowik, mark.kresowik@sierraclub.org; 319-621-7393 for more details and so we can notify you if there are changes in date, time or location. The meeting will be held in Congressman Latham’s Ames office at 1421 South Bell Avenue - Suite #108A. For a map, visit http://www.tomlatham.house.gov/PAGES/contact.ames.htm Tim Kautza met with Congressman Latham’s Washington, DC staff earlier this month.
As a result of our meeting with Congressman Loebsack two weeks ago, he has since joined as a cosponsor of the Renewable Energy Standard (RES) legislation (HR 969). This legislation would require 20 percent of U.S. electricity generation to come from renewable energy sources, like wind and solar power, by 2020. This bill would establish a nationwide credit trading system to allow the development of renewable energy at the lowest possible price. If enacted, it is estimated that a national RES would generate over 355,000 new jobs, create new economic investments, save consumers billions of dollars, and avoid over 500 million tons of global warming pollution.
Religious leaders also met with Congressmen Braley and Boswell in February and plans are developing to meet with Congressman King yet this spring.
State Legislation Stalled; Action NeededRight Now
While neighboring states are REDUCING carbon dioxide emissions, the lack of such plans in Iowa promises that three new coal-fired power plants will INCREASE our emissions by more than 35% in the next 5 years and displace investments in energy efficiency and community wind development that improve Iowa's rural economy. Time is running out in our legislative session. Our legislative leaders need to know that we want them to reduce global warming pollution.
SENATOR GRONSTAL (515) 281-3901 and HOUSE SPEAKER MURPHY (515) 281-5566) should know how you feel about global warming and that they should support:
a) Senate File 485, to allow the Department of Natural Resources to consider the impact of greenhouse gases in new electric generation permitting decisions.
b) Senate File 494, to establish a Climate Change Commission to plan for carbon dioxide reductions (ask them to include a faith-based organization on the commission).
c) House File 498 and Senate File 500, to establish the Governor's Power Fund (ask them to include language about greenhouse gases, and requiring merchant power plants to meet the same efficiency and renewable standards that rate-regulated utilities must meet).
GOVERNOR CULVER (515) 281-5211 should champion these same bills.
Cool Congregations at Dubuque; Last Chance
The last chance to attend a Cool Congregation workshop this year will be March 31 at the Church of the Resurrection, Dubuque. Hundreds of participants have already learned how to organize a congregation-wide stewardship program where congregants can increase energy efficiency, save money and reduce global warming pollution. Participants learn how to help congregants measure their carbon footprint (i.e. their family contribution to global warming) and then determine how to reduce their impact. Contact Paul Schultz, schultzpf@msn.com
National Day of Climate Action April 14
Iowa Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign and Iowa Interfaith Power and Light are among sponsors of a National Day of Climate Action on Saturday, April 14. Des Moines metro residents are invited to walk, bike, ride the bus or carpool to downtown Des Moines for a rally at Nollen Plaza to draw attention to global warming and call on Congress to cut carbon emissions 80% by 2050. The rally will begin at 4:00 p.m. with presentations by Iowa Episcopal Bishop Alan Scarfe and other scientific, religious, and civic speakers focusing on solutions. Free copies of Bill McKibben’s new book, Deep Economy, will be given to the participants who walked the furthest, biked the furthest, and commuted to downtown using the most creative means or had the most interesting experience en route. While downtown, participants are encouraged to get the most out of their carbon-saving commute by enjoying supper at a downtown restaurant and taking-in one of many evening activities, such as Rod Stewart at the Events Center, the Iowa Cubs, live music at Vaudeville Mews or Lewis Black at the Civic Center. Check out the DART (Des Moines Area Regional Transit ) bus schedules at: http://www.dmmta.com/schedules.html The rally is also sponsored by a growing list of concerned organizations including at this moment Iowa Environmental Council, I’M for Iowa, Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, Methodist Federation for Social Action, Des Moines Area Catholic Social Action Committee, and Drake Environmental Action League. Congregations interested in participating should contact Dr. Phil Leino leinop@msn.com, (515) 280-1234.This will be one of more than 1000 such events conducted nationally. Visit www.stepitup2007.org for more.
Full House Hears Carbon Tax Pitch on Capitol Hill
Close to 150 Congressional staffers, policy types and lobbyists jammed a Senate hearing room last week for a briefing on carbon taxes and cap-and-trade systems sponsored by the Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI). Attendance at EESI briefings generally runs between 75 to 100, and the overflow crowd was taken as a sign of surging interest in carbon pricing. The discussion topics included: carbon tax; carbon cap-and-trade; carbon pricing and equity; relative roles of carbon pricing, regulatory standards, and subsidies in reducing carbon emissions; financing R&D for low-carbon energy; price-sensitivity of energy demand and carbon emissions; and political strategies for carbon pricing. For the presenations, visit: http://www.eesi.org/briefings/2007/Energy%20&%20Climate/3.14.07_Carbon_tax/3.14.07_carbon_tax.htm
Interfaith Group Braves Storm in Massachusetts Climate Change Trek
As the world's warmest winter on record drew to an end with a weekend snow storm, a group of religious leaders started walking across the state last week to bring attention to global warming. The religious walkers are part of Religious Witness for the Earth (http://www.religiouswitness.org/), a 6-year-old national interfaith environmental organization. Clergy from the Catholic, Unitarian, Jewish, Episcopalian, and Muslim faiths are included in the supporters list. The leaders are calling for individuals, businesses and government entities to reduce fossil fuel emissions.. Twenty-four clergy members walked the distance from Northampton to Boston (a total of 93 miles), while some 800 people joined for smaller portions and were fed and sheltered by synagogues and churches enroute. "Climate change is a moral issue and it's a collective issue. It transcends the differences of faith and politics and generations. This is something everyone needs to pay attention to." said Rabbi Justin David of Congregation B'Nai Israel in Northampton.
For More Information:
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/03/16/interfaith_group_braves_storm_in_climate_change_trek/
U.S. Automakers and UAW Tell Congress that Proposed Mileage Standards Could be 'Calamitous'.
U.S. automakers and a top union official pledged last week to work with Congress to find new ways of dealing with global warming but declared their industry could not bear the burden alone. The leaders of General Motors, Ford, Toyota and Chrysler, along with the head of the United Auto Workers union, made a joint appearance before a House subcommittee. They stressed that proposed increases in gas mileage standards for new vehicles would be extremely expensive and could have calamitous results.
"This could include the closing of additional facilities and the loss of tens of thousand of automotive jobs," UAW President Ron Gettelfinger said. But all of the industry leaders, under questioning from House Energy and Commerce Chairman John Dingell, D-Mich., vowed to work with the committee to produce regulations to address climate change and consider 'new regulatory regimes' beyond the fuel economy program. "Inaction will not work, and telling us what doesn't work is useful but no longer sufficient," Dingell said. The committee was exploring alternatives to the fuel economy program, possibly through the regulation of a vehicle's carbon dioxide emissions.
In the Senate, meanwhile, Democrat Byron Dorgan of North Dakota and Republican Sen. Larry Craig of Idaho introduced legislation that would raise the fuel economy requirements by 4 percent a year for all new vehicles from 2012 to 2030. Their bill would offer also tax incentives to manufacturers.
For testimony of UAW Gettelfinger, visit: http://www.uaw.org/news/newsarticle.cfm?ArtId=440
Living Day to Day by a Gospel of Green
The Rev. Jim Ball is an evangelical Christian minister whose pulpit is parked in front of his townhouse. It's a deep blue hybrid Toyota Prius, but it is not just any Toyota Prius. It is the original What Would Jesus Drive? car. Four years ago Mr. Ball, the executive director of the nonprofit Evangelical Environmental Network (www.creationcare.org), and his wife, Kara, drove the Prius from Texas east across the Bible Belt in a provocative stunt that, in keeping with the core mission of his organization, awakened evangelical churches to the threat of global warming.
It also awakened Americans to the existence of the human hybrid known as a Green Evangelical. It turns out that Jim and Kara Ball spend a lot of time thinking not just about what Jesus would drive, but also about how his people should wash their clothes, light their bathrooms, clean their windows, shop for groceries and furnish their living rooms. In the last year he has led an effort that has persuaded more than 100 influential evangelical pastors, theologians and organizational leaders, many of them political conservatives, to sign an Evangelical Call to Action on climate change.
For More Information:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/08/garden/08ball.html?ex=1175054400&en=351a6663f14b422f&ei=5070
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/10/AR2007031001175.html
To read Evangelical Call to Action, visit: http://www.christiansandclimate.org/
Global 'Sunscreen' Has Likely Thinned, Report NASA Scientists
A new NASA study has found that an important counter-balance to the warming of our planet by greenhouse gases -- sunlight blocked by dust, pollution and other aerosol particles -- appears to have lost ground. The thinning of Earth's 'sunscreen' of aerosols since the early 1990s could have given an extra push to the rise in global surface temperatures.
The finding, published in the journal Science, may lead to an improved understanding of recent climate change. In a related study published last week, scientists found that the opposing forces of global warming and the cooling from aerosol-induced 'global dimming' can occur at the same time. "When more sunlight can get through the atmosphere and warm Earth's surface, you're going to have an effect on climate and temperature," said lead author Michael Mishchenko of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York.
For More Information: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2007/aerosol_dimming.html
Congregations Called to Register Earth Day Activities
In Iowa, congregations are being asked to register their Earth day events with the Earth day Network. This will give many interested people an idea of what events are going on around them and also help to promote those events to various areas around the state. The Earth Day Network is also collecting sermons that are about climate change. This will help spread the word about global warming and perhaps inspire individuals to do more in their own daily lives to act out against the injustice being done to our Earth.
To post your events or for more information: http://www.earthday.net/involved/network/joinEarthdayNetwork.aspx
Send sermons to Helen Rose at Rose@earthday.net
Winter Was Warmest on Record
This winter was the warmest on record worldwide, the government said in the latest report on changing climate. The report comes just over a month after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said global warming is very likely caused by human actions and is so severe it will continue for centuries. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said the combined land and ocean temperatures for December through February were 1.3 degrees Fahrenheit above average for the period since record keeping began in 1880.
During the past century, global temperatures have increased at about 0.11 degrees per decade. But that increase has been three times larger since 1976. Contributing to this winter's record warmth was an El Nino. It was particularly strong in January, but the ocean surface has since begun to cool. The report noted that in the Northern Hemisphere the combined land and water temperature was the warmest ever at 1.64 degrees above average. For the United States, meanwhile, the winter temperature was near average. The season got off to a late start and spring-like temperatures covered most of the eastern half of the country in January, but cold conditions set in in February, which was the third coldest on record.
For More Information: http://www.physorg.com/news93199867.html
For the NOAA report, visit:
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/oa/climate/research/2007/feb/feb07.html
Carbon Trading Won't Stop Climate Change
Carbon trading is touted by many as the solution to our climate crisis, but David Morris, Institute for Local Self Reliance, doubts the effectiveness of the strategy. Among his concerns …
1. Buying carbon offsets encourages complacency.
2. Carbon trading is inherently susceptible to fraud and manipulation.
3. Carbon trading rewards low-cost cosmetic changes while undermining higher cost innovation.
4. Carbon trading separates authority and responsibility, undermining coherent, holistic community-based efforts.
Morris contends that a better alternative is "good old" regulation which, contrary to the popular wisdom, has worked very well, especially when the regulations are performance-based. Offsets should be allowed, but only if they occur on the local level and do not involve long-distance trading. But unlike carbon trading, investing to reduce local carbon emissions strengthens the local economy, encourages real innovation, and is a long-term, durable strategy. For More Information: http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/49025/
Pelosi and Boxer Aim to Green Capitol Hill
U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Barbara Boxer are aiming to green Capitol Hill. Earlier this month, Pelosi wrote a letter directing the House chief administrative officer to look into implementing on Capitol Hill "the most up-to-date industry and government standards for green building and green operating procedures".
Preliminary recommendations are due by the end of April, and may include thoughts on parking-lot materials, public transportation, and recycling. Boxer has set up a pilot program encouraging energy-efficient lighting in Senate offices, and is pushing legislation to similarly retrofit lighting in federal buildings nationwide. The 200-year-old Hill facilities are already heading in a sustainable direction -- energy consumption is down 6 percent since 2003. "The Capitol complex should lead the nation in preserving our planet for future generations," said Pelosi's letter. For More Information: http://www.grist.org/news/daily/2007/03/06/1/
Help Support Iowa Interfaith Power & Light
This electronic newsletter now reaches more than 700 Iowans; religious leaders, people of most every faith, readers, and activists concerned about global warming and the resulting impacts of global climate change on creation and poor and vulnerable people. We receive kudos weekly from many who are pleased to receive the newsletter and who praise the work of our two organizations. Iowa Interfaith Power & Light is a membership organization. Congregational membership (church, syn agogue, mosque, center, school, hospital, or organization) is $50. You can become a member with any contribution you feel is appropriate. Contributions can be sent and made payable to IIP&L, 4625 Beaver Ave., Des Moines, IA 50310-2145. Fo r more about membership, visit http://www.ncrlc.com/1-pfd-files/IIPL_Brochure_final.pdf Your support is greatly appreciated and and will help maintain the integrity of God's sacred creation, Earth.
Earth Day Dinner Kicks Off Series on Sustainable Living
Prairiewoods Franciscan Spirituality Center near Cedar Rapids will host an Earth Day Dinner, Sunday, April 22 from 5-7 p.m. The dinner will be followed by a presentation by Michael Richards, on "Local Solutions for a Global Challenge: Building a Sustainable Society in Iowa." Richards lives in Cedar Rapids and is the founder of the Life Academy, an educational center dedicated to teaching sustainable living. He will host a series of seven sessions based on his book on how to build a sustainable society. Each session will offer a presentation followed by an opportunity to ask questions. They will be held from 6-8 p.m. at Prairiewoods on the following dates:
| April 29 |
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Topic: Sustainable Food and Health Support Systems
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| May 6 |
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Topic: Integrating BioShelter with the Environment
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| May 13 |
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Topic: The Age of Innovation: Real Renewable Energy
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| May 20 |
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Topic: Home Planet Economics, The Ecology of Trade
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| May 27 |
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Topic: Post Petrol Politics: By the People, For the People
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| June 3 |
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Topic: Community, Culture & Education for a New Reality
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| June 10 |
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Topic: Spiritual Consciousness as the Source of a New
Paradigm
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Cost for the meal and presentation is $15. It will be held at Prairiewoods, 120 E. Boyson Rd., Hiawatha. Cost for the entire series is $55 or $10 per session. Please pre-register for the Earth Day event and for the Sustainable Living Series by calling Prairiewoods at 319-395-6700.
Prospectus Health Consequences of Global Warming: Exploring the Links, Breaking the Chains
The UI Center for Human Rights and the Center for Global Regional and Environmental Research in conjunction with Physicians for Social Responsibility will hold an international conference on the human health consequence of global warming September 14-16, 2007. This assembly along with a series of related events will connect the scientific dots and shed light on the links between the factors accelerating the deterioration of the natural environment, climate change, and threats to our health with particular attention on the links between our consumption of energy and how it is affecting global warming. The conference will conclude by highlighting successful interventions and alternatives being implemented in other areas of the United States and/or in other parts of the globe allowing participants to learn about tools available to assist in efforts to restore earth’s health.
For More Information watch this bulletin or contact Maureen McCue mickiq@earthlink.net
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