Sunday, August 31, 2014

People's Climate March: An invitation to join us on September 21st in NYC

An invitation to South Church and the wider Andover community,

I'm re-posting this article from environmentalist Joe Romm (see below). It's something I wanted to share with everyone, and I would love to hear your thoughts.

It's about the soon-to-be-released summary report from the IPCC, and it's hard to think how things could be more clear. Or scarier. Yet somehow as Americans, and as the whole human race, we haven't started to act on it. There is also something new in his message, and I've started to see this more and more lately. It doesn't have anything to do with the science, but with the moral dimension of our action, or in this case, our inaction
. And what it means to the next generation. To the next many generations. Joe Romm speaks about it below.

There are many things we can do to reduce our carbon impacts as individuals (ask anyone on the Green Team, and we'll be glad to talk about it :) but the biggest most important thing now is something we need to do together. We need to take political action on climate. We need change the laws and programs in this country to move decisively away from fossil fuels to clean, sustainable energy. The energy we need for our lives can't make our world worse with every passing day. And today, it no longer has to. To put it in economic terms, it's no longer cost effective to continue to use fossil fuels. They need to stay safely in the ground.

On September 21st in New York City, the people of America are going to let our leaders know it's time to act on climate. It's the People's Climate March. The Green Team is inviting everyone and their families to join in the march. Besides the church at large, we're making a special invitation to the youth of our church, because it's going to be their world pretty darn soon, and they deserve a say in how livable it will be.

The Massachusetts Chapter of 350.org is organizing buses from Cambridge to NYC for a modest $30/person. Down and back on Sunday. We're thinking of taking the bus together, or possibly car-pooling, depending on the number of people. The bus rides sound like a lot of fun, with some pretty cool people too. (ok, pun intended!) 
Candy & I are coordinating, so any questions can be directed to greenteam@southchurch.com. That email goes to both of us.

Think about it.
If people in the 1960's cared enough to march for civil rights and to end the Vietnam War, or marched in the 1980's to stop nuclear power, isn't this an issue that's worth marching for now?
Peace,
Mark, Candy & Bill for the SC Green Team

by Joe Romm Posted on August 27, 2014 at 4:24 pm
 Humanity's choice

Humanity’s choice (via IPCC): Aggressive climate action ASAP (left figure) minimizes future warming and costs a mere 0.06% of annual growth. Continued inaction (right figure) results in catastrophic and irreversible levels of warming, 9°F over much of U.S.

One word in the latest draft report from the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) sums up why climate inaction is so uniquely immoral: “Irreversible.”

The message from climate scientists about our ongoing failure to cut carbon pollution: The catastrophic changes in climate that we are voluntarily choosing to impose on our children and grandchildren — and countless generations after them — cannot plausibly be undone for hundreds of years or more.

Yes, we can still stop the worst — with virtually no impact on growth, as an earlier IPCC report from April made clear — but future generations will not be able reverse whatever we are too greedy and shortsighted to prevent through immediate action.

The world’s top scientists have finalized their “synthesis” report (of their fifth full scientific Assessment since 1990). It integrates the analysis from their three previous Fifth Assessment reports — ones on climate science, climate impacts, and climate solutions. They have sent a draft of this report to the world’s leading governments, who must sign off on it line by line and will no doubt water it down.

This report was leaked to the AP and others. That means we can see the unvarnished language.

The scientists want to know that “currently observed impacts might already be considered dangerous” — at least if you think more extreme heat waves and more extreme droughts and more extreme deluges and more extreme storm surges are dangerous.

But it’s the future we should be worrying about the most:

Continued emission of greenhouse gases will cause further warming and long-lasting changes in all components of the climate system, increasing the likelihood of severe, pervasive and irreversible impacts for people and ecosystems.

Translation: Continued inaction would be catastrophic and immoral.

The risk of abrupt and irreversible change increases as the magnitude of the warming increases.

Translation: The more we delay, the worse it can get.

Without additional mitigation, and even with adaptation, warming by the end of the 21st century will lead to high to very high risk of severe, widespread and irreversible impacts globally.

Translation: Future generations can’t simply adapt to the ruined climate we are in the process of handing over to them. Either we start cutting carbon pollution ASAP or we should just stop pretending we are a rational, moral species.

How bad can it get? The IPCC already explained that in the science report (see “Alarming IPCC Prognosis: 9°F Warming For U.S., Faster Sea Rise, More Extreme Weather, Permafrost Collapse”). And they expanded on that in the impacts report (see “Conservative Climate Panel Warns World Faces ‘Breakdown Of Food Systems’ And More Violent Conflict”).

As an aside, while the AP has done a great job summarizing this draft, there really is no excuse for quoting climate confusionist John Christy that we will be okay: “Humans are clever. We shall adapt to whatever happens.” The point is the IPCC has explained that conclusion is just B.S. by any useful definition of the phrase “adapt to” — unless you think it means “suffer through.”

As I’ve explained recently, quoting John Christy on climate change is like quoting Dick Cheney on Iraq. Even the AP acknowledges that Christy “is in the tiny minority of scientists who are skeptical of mainstream science’s claim that global warming is a major problem.” Since when does the media have to give any space to a tiny minority?

The IPCC reports are just reviews of the scientific literature, so the focus on the irreversible nature of climate change is no surprise. Indeed, as far back as January 2009 we reported on research led by NOAA scientists titled “Irreversible climate change because of carbon dioxide emissions.” That study had some alarming conclusions.

…the climate change that is taking place because of increases in carbon dioxide concentration is largely irreversible for 1,000 years after emissions stop … Among illustrative irreversible impacts that should be expected if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase from current levels near 385 parts per million by volume (ppmv) to a peak of 450-600 ppmv over the coming century are irreversible dry-season rainfall reductions in several regions comparable to those of the ”dust bowl” era and inexorable sea level rise.

Recent studies strongly support that finding.

It is always important to remember — as RealClimate wrote of the 2009 study — Irreversible Does Not Mean Unstoppable.” This latest draft synthesis report makes clear we can still stop the worst from happening, at a very low cost, but we have to start slashing emissions ASAP.

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

2014 Annual Report of the Green Team



2014 Annual Report of the Green Team

The Green Team is an ad-hoc committee within the Church. Its purpose is to promote good environmental stewardship in the church's facilities, and also in our homes and the wider community. Its activities include reducing energy consumption, and promoting the Three R's (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle).  The committee also works to raise awareness and foster action on Climate Change. We love people to bring new ideas. Everyone is welcome to participate!

On October 19th, we had our 2nd annual Harvest Dinner and Cookoff, a vegetarian/low impact pot-luck dinner and cook-off in fellowship hall. It was preceded by an Indian food cooking demonstration by guest participant Anil Navkal.

On February 23rd, in conjunction with Interfaith Power & Light’s Preach-In on Climate Change, we conducted a green service with Thomas Arnold preaching, and with a number of the children and youth reading and performing.

We hosted a Sustainable House of Worship workshop on May 17th, with presenters from Interfaith Power & Light, for people of all faiths to learn the best ways to reduce energy consumption at their houses of worship. This was attended by more than 30 members from 16 different congregations in the area. In addition to support from the American Baptist Churches of MA, and the MassUCC Conference, it was also supported with a generous grant from South Church’s Seeds of Faith fund.

On May 11th, Terry Ebner and Iric Rex had an outdoor children’s service with a theme and music of sustaining God’s creation.

We created a Climate Reader, a magazine-style collection of articles to serve as a starting point on climate change, what needs to be done, and how it can be be solved. We also created a South Church Green Team blog to share the Climate Reader at http://southchurchgreenteam.blogspot.com

We started the “Green Thing of the Month” this year at fellowship hour on one Sunday each month, where we encouraged one aspect of green living, everything from worm composting at home to affordable LED light bulbs.

We helped make the all-church picnic a “green” event again this year by setting up and demonstrating how throw away trash can be greately reduced by composting food waste, paper products and recycling. And that it’s easy to do once you see how!

We had a “green gifts” table in Fellowship Hall during Christmas season.  The proceeds from this sale went to support South Church's membership in Mass Interfaith Power & Light.

Co-chairs Mark Bohrer and Candy Dann

Saturday, April 12, 2014

South Church Green Team - Meeting Notes 2014-04-10



South Church Green Team Meeting  2014-04-10              regular meetings 2nd Thursday of the month
Attendees: Mark Bohrer, Candy Dann, Bill Schroeder, Steve Fink, Fran Fink, Iric Rex, Terry Ebner

1) Green Children’s Service - theme of sustaining God’s creation –  Sunday May 11th
-       Terry Ebner & Iric Rex to lead
-       This is the next regularly planned children’s service
-       To be held in Fellowship Hall or possibly outside
-       Lots of good ideas gathered re: songs, asking each kid to think of places to love & protect
-       Iric & Terry have notes
-       Other Green Team members ready to help

2) Sustainable House of Worship (SHOW) Saturday, May 17
SHOW stands for Sustainable House of Worship, and it's a program put on by Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light.  It's a workshop with presentations and Q&A focused on helping faith groups reduce their energy consumption, hence living out their faith, saving money and operating more sustainably.

The cost of the program from MIP&L is $700. Seeds of Faith at South Church agreed to underwrite. Our goal is to recoup as much of this cost as possible from other supporting organizations. We already have commitment from American Baptist for $100; a few other churches may also commit. We're trying to line up a couple of appropriate corporate sponsors. There will be an admission fee of $10 per attendee.

Fellowship hall – signup & coffee at 8:30, program from 9AM to 12:30 PM, optional lunch to follow

See Latest Flyer attached

ACTION: all – see list below - the main effort is to contact local houses of worship to signup attendees
ACTION: Fran – Lunch - investigate inexpensive good options for food

Church Contact List
Who – and who to call
Temple Emmanuel
Steve
contact Brian Major & Greg Sebasky to find out their church connections
Steve F
Grace Chapel
Steve - Andover Baptist – Steve – will call minister
Greek Orthodox
Steve
Grace Chapel
Steve – call Steve and Jan Hathaway
West Parish Andover
Bill – contact Art, Fran to contact Suetta
St. Michaels  North Andover
– Candy
Trinitarian Church North Andover
Candy – call Vickie Keane
Hindu Temple
Candy – call Karuthiga
Faith Lutheran
Fran
St. Augustine
Fran – contact Suzy
Ballardvale UCC
Fran
Free Christian Church
Fran – Dave Dargy
Methuen Mosque
Fran – Imam
Rolling Ridge  Conf Center Rev. Larry Peacock
Iric will contact
UU – North Andover
Mark – contact Charles Leinbach, ask Debbie
UU – Andover 
Mark – start with Heather Bond
Church?
Bill – Christopher Jenkins
New England Bible Church Andover

Korean Church Andover

Christian Science Church Andover

St. Patrick’s Lawrence





3) Watch Party for Years of Living Dangerously
Series starts on Showtime & YouTube 4/13 – tabled until next time
            ACTION: Mark to notify SC Green Team mailing list
Watch party - Tabled - talk at next meeting for possibly next month
           

4) "Green opportunities" on the horizon for both the parsonage and the church - Candy
Energy audit at the parsonage and a lead inspection.  There are items under discussion that would warm our hearts as well as warm the parsonage such as:
-       replacement windows, attic insulation, blocking off the ceiling fan, installing more efficient heating for a room over the garage, renovating a bathroom which will allow for full wall insulation for that room at least, and some minor cosmetic improvements. 
The Trustees will be asking the congregation as a whole to raise the money to do this work but there are some groups (Trustees, Financial Summit participants) in the church being asked to take a leadership role and get the ball rolling with early commitments.  I would like to ask our Green Team to be one of those groups. 


5) Ongoing Topics

Monthly themes – “Green Thing of the Month” at Fellowship hour << tabled – no event planned for April
-       Monthly Green themes
·   August – re-usable lunchboxes
·   September – local and garden harvests, composting, local farms, CSA’s
·   October – weatherizing / energy sealing, energy programmable thermostats
·   November – Green Xmas decorations, living trees
·   Jan – lighting, LED’s CFLs, timers, alternatives to salt & ice control
·   Feb – appliances, Energy Star
·   Mar – spring cleaning products
·   Apr – Green lawn care & gardening
·   May – plant trees to takeup C, shade house, invasive species
·   Jun – water conservation, farmers markets, water bottles, rain barrels
·   Jul – vacation offsets



Divestiture discussion < last discussed in October 2013
-       Candy invited Janet to talk about UCC Divestiture
o   Will invite Trustees of Trust Funds
-       Can this lead to a church-wide discussion on divestiture for each household?
-       Postpone until February

Witnessing for Creation
- include MACUCC program "Witnessing for Creation" in services on a regular basis
See how kids can be involved
Plan to discuss with new minister