New York Interfaith Power & Light

Over more than two decades, thousands of New Yorkers have participated in Earth Day Lobby Day – and we want you to join us for this year’s event!

On May 5, for the 24th year in a row, members of NYIPL and our partners in the environmental community will descend on the state Capitol in Albany to advocate for environmental protections.

Register by April 30^th by emailing jswatkins@nyipl.org or calling (315) 256-0078.

It’s the personal and direct advocacy Earth Day Lobby Day provides that has helped keep fracking at bay, updated New York’s bottle recycling law, protected habitats statewide, advanced renewable energy and green jobs, and much more!

The 2014 agenda includes:

• Child Safe Products Act
• Climate Change
• Fracking Moratorium
• Toxic Waste Cleanups
• GMO Labeling

Politicians have a way of saying one thing to constituents each election year, but doing another once inside Capitol doors. Let’s open those doors to the public and make this Earth Day Lobby Day another great success – register now by emailing jswatkins@nyipl.org or calling (315) 256-0078.

by Rev. Jacob Bolton

Over the midwinter school break, Huguenot Memorial Church in Pelham, New York, held a three-day eco workshop with youth. We screened the film Chasing Ice and learned about global warming; assessed our own eco-footprint and conducted a full eco and energy audit of all properties the church owns including office and worship space, a nursery school, gymnasium and two residences.  Although Huguenot Church now heats and cools the entire church building with geothermal energy, and we’ve achieved recognition as an Earth Care Congregation and, we still found plenty of opportunities to reduce our impacts.  In addition, we’re taking our experience to other faith communities to help them conduct an eco-audit too.

“My favorite part was the waste audit,” said youth participant Thomas Horowitz.  “People threw away so much paper that should have been recycled.”

“If we had better signs and clustered our garbage and recycling bins, it would be easier for people to just put the paper where it should go,” Thomas’s brother Robert noted.

Some of the post audit recommendations included the installation of interior light sensory timers, further expansion of the composting system, turning off large refrigerators when not in use, claiming the parking lot as an “idle free” zone, and enhancing the church green space by fabricating bird houses and creating wildlife habitat.

“There are all kinds of birds all over our town,” said Ben Jones. “Let’s make this their home too.”

Rev. Jacob Bolton is Associate Pastor Huguenot Memorial Church and a graduate of the GreenFaith program.

Additional resources:

• Ecological Footprint. Learn more about the science of ecological footprinting. Did you know that if everyone lived like the average American, we would need five planets to support the world’s population.
• Geothermal heat pumps: Learn more about heating and cooling using the constant temperature of the earth.  Find out about economic incentives in New York.

If you would like to share your congregation’s “green” news, please call (315) 256-0078 or email jswatkins@nyipl.org.

We want to hear from you!

Earth Day is right around the corner. Here is a list of things you can do to call attention to climate change:

• Hold a worship service around climate change. Sample sermons and other materials can be found here www.preachin.org
• Show the film “Chasing Ice.” Get a license to screen the film online here http://www.preachin.org/sermons-by-faith/chasing-ice/, or If you need a physical copy of the film, (or if you have a copy of the film to share) call (315) 256-0078.
• Attend Earth Day Lobby Day – this will be held in Albany on May 5th. No lobbying experience needed! Come talk to your state Assembly Members and Senators about climate change and hydrofracking. Call (315) 256-0078 for more information
• Add your name to a full-page ad on climate change that will appear on Earth Day in the Syracuse Post Standard. www.greeningusa.org/climate-change-action
• Climate Action Across America: From April 21st to 25th citizens across the country are asked to speak up as part of “Climate Action Across America.” If you can, please try to meet with your Member of Congress or Senators (or their staff) during this week.

The annual ‘Green Khutbah Campaign’ is Friday, April 18 2014, in advance of Earth Day 2014.  The organizers of this event invite Muslims to devote their Friday Khutbah on this day to acknowledge the blessings, graces and beauty of all of Allah’s creation and to raise awareness on the environmental challenges facing humanity.  Please visit the website where you can sign up, get more information and find links to resources.

Two of the most respected scientific organizations worldwide, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), recently released reports that warn of dire consequences for people and the environment across the globe if we don’t make significant changes very soon.  These reports show that climate change is already here and generating negative impacts on every continent.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has come out with a new initiative, entitled “What We Know” focused on raising awareness across the U.S. about the need to take action on climate.  Check out their informative webpage, along with numerous videos. (We especially like Brake for Climate.)

The AAAS warns that as global temperatures rise, there is a real risk that parts of the Earth’s climate system will experience abrupt, unpredictable and potentially irreversible changes.  These scientists are now recognizing the social and moral responsibility they have to raise awareness about what we already know and the need to act now.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published a draft of a new report urging the world community and governments to make significant changes soon, if we are to keep the average global temperature from warming more than 2 degrees Celsius.  The global scientific community agrees that we should not exceed this 2 degree Celsius number, yet we are on track to warm the earth by an average of more than 4 degrees.

Take a bite out of global warming: Go meatless once a week

How much do you know about the link between meat and climate change? Here’s a great resource:  The Environmental Working Group’s “Meat Eater’s Guide to Climate Change and Health.”

Eating less meat is one simple way you and your community can significantly reduce your carbon footprint.

Did you know that if everyone in the U.S. ate no meat or cheese just one day a week, it would be like not driving 91 billion miles – or taking 7.6 million cars off the road?

By eating less meat, especially from livestock raised in concentrated animal feedlot operations, you can help reduce the use of fossil fuels and greenhouse gas emissions generated by our industrial food system. Reducing meat consumption helps the environment in other ways including a reduction in the use of water, and the use of toxic pesticides used to raise the corn and soybeans fed to livestock.

Learn more at the Environmental Working Group.

Update April 30, 2014: Thanks to all who joined us for the webinar. If you missed it, you can still watch a recording of it here. You can also view the slides here.

On Tuesday, April 29, 2014, from 1:00 – 2:00 pm (EDT), the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership (GPP) will host a webinar on “Green Power Use and Opportunities for Congregations.” The webinar will examine how congregations can capture economic, environmental, and educational benefits by using renewable energy.

For most congregations, electricity usage is the single-largest source of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Thus, using green power can play a significant role in reducing a congregation’s carbon footprint. This webinar will examine how and why congregations and other organizations use green power, including a review of available product options, benefits of procuring renewable energy, and the positive role congregations can play in encouraging green power use by congregants and others.

Webinar participants will also learn about:

• Green power product and procurement options, and associated costs and benefits.
• Overview of EPA’s Green Power Partnership, including how the Partnership can help congregations leverage their green power use to bring positive attention to an organization.

Register here.

Earth Day is just around the corner. Looking for a hands-on way to care for creation? Whether you have a small patio garden, a vacant lot, or a patch of soil at the edge of your parking lot, your faith community can use your outdoor space to help conserve and restore wildlife habitat.

The website of the National Wildlife Federation offers specific guidelines on providing for the four key elements that wildlife need – food, water, cover, and a place to raise their young.

Find out how you can create a garden that not only provides a haven for birds and butterflies but also qualifies to become an official Certified Wildlife Habitat.

That’s just what one member of New York Interfaith Power & Light did in downtown New Rochelle. The members of the Empty Hand Zen Center transformed a small, fenced-in parking lot (just big enough for two cars) from lifeless gray to a flourishing beautiful garden that changes with the seasons.

Tended with love by the members of this community and led by their teacher, Jion Susan Postal, they created this garden – bucket by bucket of soil – on top of the asphalt along with a diverse array of evergreens and willows in pots, bird feeders, a bird bath, a compost bin, and a small table and chairs for tea.

They created what Susan lovingly called a “wild garden,” a place of refuge for people and wildlife alike.

The sign on the gate makes this transformation official: this is a Certified Wildlife Habitat.

People of faith are called to protect Creation and to serve one another. The Keystone XL Pipeline would facilitate the extraction and marketing of the world’s dirtiest oil, expedite destruction of old growth forest and First Nations land in Canada, and endanger farms, water, and homes in the states through which it would travel. There is no justification for allowing this project to go forward.

The Keystone XL Pipeline is once again in the national news, as the State Department released a “massive” environmental review on the project Friday. The study concluded that neither blocking nor approving the northern section of the pipeline would have a “significant” impact on greenhouse gas emissions, because the tar sands oil will be mined, it says, with or without the pipeline.

Even though this seems to be very bad news for those of us who care about the earth and climate change, it’s not over yet. The White House has made it clear that they are still considering all options.

In an interview with CBS news on Sunday, White House Chief of Staff Denis McDonough reiterated the President’s position that he will make the decision on Keystone dependent upon whether or not it would “significantly exacerbate what is a significant climate change crisis we face in this country.”

In the President’s State of the Union address last week we were glad to hear him say “The debate is settled: Climate change is a fact; and when our children’s children look us in the eye and ask if we did all we could to leave them a safer, more stable world with new sources of energy I want to be able to say ‘yes, we did!’”

New York Interfaith Power and Light will encourage people of faith to participate in the upcoming public comment period on the Keystone Pipeline. And our national IPL has already asked the President, in a letter signed by 150 clergy leaders, to reject this pipeline on moral grounds. We will continue to oppose this pipeline because mining tar sands oil will drastically worsen climate change. Click here to tell the President to oppose this dangerous project.