South Church Green Team – meeting notes – 7/23/15

South Church Green Team – meeting notes – 7/23/15

Who’s was there: Mark, Candy, Bill, Steve, Fran

We missed you: Janet, Iric, Terry

(ACTIONS in red)

1)     Discussion Time

• (Candy) Edgewood – Tim Vails, Chair of the Board of Directors, and chair of Andover Economic Development
•  connect Tim to Standard Electric in Wilmington – deal of $2 light bulbs for commercial entities
• (Bill) contact MIPL on additional LED light bulbs for churches
• (Candy) get Dave Standwood’s list of fixtures that need to be changed to use LED light bulbs

2)     Climate change messages in fall service(s)...all

-       Jim Antal's request to UCC churches

-       to connect with Pope Francis' encyclical for calling for action on climate in advance of 

Paris session COP21 (30 Nov-11 Dec). Pope Francis visits US around end of September.

-       Another faith based message: Rabbinical letter from 300+ rabbis:

https://theshalomcenter.org/torah-pope-crisis-inspire-300-rabbis-call-vigorous-climate-action

- find out what Dana’s thoughts are on green content of fall service

- In June, Dana offered the idea of smaller messages in service. 

Get her input now that Alex is onboard.

- post meeting update: Mark and Steve talked with Dana and Alex at church on Sunday, 

and both were interested in discussing ideas for the fall, both in regard to church 

service messages, and a possible Harvest Dinner this fall

- (Steve) propose a meeting time for them in August (when Dana is back)

        - possible messaging around stewardship of the earth or witnessing for the 

             creation messages in services

-       positive messages of things that are happening, things people are doing

-       Thoughts: What green things are people doing? What have people done?

-       Ask for a show of hands at church? Explore ideas of what could  work...

-       How could kids join, contribute?

3)     Idea: Harvest Dinner this year, Steve’s idea of science fair, to bring out what people are doing.

·         International Dinner, Interfaith dinner?  Science fair presented by kids?

·         (Mark Steve) talk to Dana, Alex - done - both were receptive to idea - 

NEXT STEP: schedule meeting in August when Dana back

4)     Idea: Time for another all-member retreat? maybe in Spring? Could this be an opportunity

    for youth/HS to lead?

·         further discussion needed. Talk about this with ministers.

5)     The Second Church in Newton - Environmental Speakers’ Series - Sunday October 4

·         SC Green Team was invited as an example of a green congregation, to speak,

 in conjunction with Jim Antal preaching that Sunday

·   Mark is going and others are interested in going too!

Info here on their website (scroll down to Oct 4^th):

 http://www.2ndchurch.org/news_and_events.htm

6)     Interfaith community garden...Fran gave an update

·         at Rolling Ridge, really doing well, compost added, lots of veggies planted and coming up

7)     Divestment discussion at church...Bill

·         Bill will be talking to Dave Floreen

8)     Lupine Road...Candy gave an update

·         discussion on the project will be ramping up in the fall

·        (Candy) ask Iric - how green could this project be?

9)     Historic mill district...Steve

·         2^nd phase getting started now… 3c503 to be created…the road to a more sustainable 

and livable Andover

10)  update from retreat on cultivating hope in a time of climate change...WS, CD?  Not discussed

11)  Suggestions for monthly email/blurb/newsletter: green good news...all --- Not discussed

    - collect ideas and share with MB

    - (CD) news from Anil on solarize Andover?

South Church Green Team Meeting 2015-01-08

South Church Green Team Meeting 2015-01-08

Attendees: Mark, Steve, Fran, Bill, Candy (phone)

 

Minutes

1. Interfaith Community Garden
• Meetings have been held in town in the past month or so: Cindy Ozirsky, Fran Fink, Linda Zimmerman, Ellen Arvidson, Emily Strong, Dana, Ann Knowles (volunteer at AHS, involved in green interns program, and AHS garden)
• Group looked 2 plots of town conservation land
• Both have parking, would need water installed
• Ann K went to Conservation Commission – got some pushback
• Separate group in town was already working on this to have a town community garden, but not oriented around growing food to donate
• Next steps
• SC community garden group is working with Dana, to see how this could be kicked off in the best way at the church.

 

2. LED light change in SC - sanctuary, parlor, other places - very discounted lights purchased from utility
   
• Propose involving children  - Different age kids could do different things
• Some calculate the savings of LED lights in the average home, things like what will be the age of the kids when the lights next need to be replace (25 years), make a poster about it
• Some swap the light bulbs
• Some clean the globes
• This is moving forward - Candy is coordinating with Dave Stanwood
• May be scheduled for Feb vacation weekend
• Could this be tied to Preach-In Service, or rolled out that Sunday???
• Do before that and a photo opportunity, and announce on Feb 22^nd ??

 

3. Preach-In Service
• Official Sunday is February 15, 2015 (starts Friday February 13^th)
• If we have it on that Sunday
• That weekend is President’s holiday weekend
• ACTION: Mark – Send Dana information / link to Preach-IN
• Propose to postpone it to Feb 22^nd, next Sunday to get better family & children turnout
• We sent postcards, handed them out in the church service bulletin
• Did Hancock do this?
• New element: Noon Feb 14^th 1 minute of silence for the earth
• Sermon topic suggestions:
• Light of the Earth
• In the Garden
• connection to community garden
• connection to church musical “Secret Garden”

 

4. Earth Day / Earth Week – Ideas
• Outdoor/park cleanup activity
• Put up the fence around the community garden!
• Facilitate community building activity
• Do this around a cleanup activity – Lawrence downtown riverfront area
• ACTION: Steve will talk to Chris Cronin, Andover Dir of Muni Svc, Mark Fournier
• See how town can assist
• Idea: have a post-activity dinner for participants at SC

 

 

Parking Lot

1.       Can we start a Carbon Free Pledge? 

·         maybe two levels – 1) home & car, 2) everything (thru offsets)

2.       Make a one sheet handout for the green team & UCC.

·         We have more young families coming into the church that may need an update on the Green team, green energy pointers, and UCC stances.

 

3.       Green Thing of the Month at Fellowship hour - time to activate for this year

- New ideas for encouraging green living and energy efficiency in our church community

 

4.       Harvest Dinner - possibly do in January - would need a new name

 

5.       Discuss possible ideas for the next green retreat

 

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/December – 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 from fossil fuel companies in church investments – time to raise the discussion

-       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?

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

Climate Scientists Spell Out Stark Danger And Immorality Of Inaction In New Leaked Report

by Joe Romm Posted on August 27, 2014 at 4:24 pm

 

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.

2014 Annual Report of the Green Team

2014 Annual Report of the Green Team

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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 23^rd, 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 17^th, 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 11^th, 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

www.southchurch.com/greenteam.htm