To Till and to Tend

We created this blog almost a year ago.  In fact, my first post was about a holiday party.  (click here to read about the “precocious insight” of my (then) three-year old).  Unfortunately, today’s post is my last, as anticipated funding for my work at COEJL did not come through.  I will miss many things about the organization – writing for this blog is certainly among them.  Thank you to each of you for taking the time to read my posts and for helping to create an online community of Jews who care about the environment.  [And for those of you who may have missed a piece or two over the past year, you can find a full collection by simply clicking "Kefer" on the sidebar of our homepage]

While I will certainly miss the work I have done for COEJL, I leave with a sense of optimism.  It is fitting that I write on the heels of Chanukah.  For eight days, I played dreidel and lit the Menorah with my children.  I taught them of the “Great Miracle” that happened so many years ago.  I told them of the miracle of a small vial of oil that was meant to last for only one day, but burned for eight.  I told them of the triumph of a small band of Jews over the much more powerful Syrian army.  These lessons resonate today. 

Through energy conservation and renewables, we can make our limited resources last longer.  As Michael Potts, President of the Rocky Mountain Institute, reports, between 75 and 90 percent of the energy we consume is wasted due to bad design and poor choices.  The International consulting firm McKinsey & Co. recently found that basic, cost-effective improvements in the building sector alone could save up to $33 billion per year by 2030.  And this “great miracle” is not hard to come by.  In fact, as Van Jones, author of Green Collar Economy notes, a “caulk gun and a clip board” are the “high-tech tools” we need to start the transition to a low-carbon economy. 

Like you, I am often frustrated by the climate skeptics and political nay-sayers who question whether we can combat climate change.  Here, too, the story of Chanukah provides an important lesson.  The Jewish people fought against tremendous odds.  And today, we must fight again.  As Margaret Mead once said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Last week, I told my children about the “Great Miracle that Happened There.”  Next year, I hope to teach them about the Great Miracle that is happening in our own country.

[Click here to send a letter to President-Elect Obama asking to help make this dream a reality]

[Click here to read a collection of my posts]

Everyone agrees that our economic crisis is anthropogenic. That is, we brought it on ourselves by living larger than we could afford, taking more than we could return, wanting more than is either reasonable or fair to expect. We loaned more than was just so we could reap more than we sowed; borrowed more than we could replenish with what we can earn; divvied up, spread out, and pawned off the responsibility so that no one truly could be blamed, or could even have been moved to care.

Now we are paying the price.

And the price is very steep. It was forced on us by these regrettable circumstances and we are muddling through. But I can’t help imagining for a moment, what if, way before the crisis, independent of any impending crisis, say two years ago, we had been more generous with our gifts and our tax money. What if we had taken $350 billion dollars and spread it around to invent 98% efficient solar energy conversion panels-, high-mileage electric cars and the infrastructure to support them, fixed all our bridges, roads, schools; built amazing inter- and intra-city public transit; increased teacher salaries; improved our social services to our nation’s most needy. How much good – economic, environmental and social – would have come from that?

Nope. Too expensive. So instead of that money being invested in people, jobs, research and education, we lost it, and more, in the stock market, and are spending billions more to bail out a profligate economy with uncertain returns.

Now, translate all these lessons into the environmental problem. It too is anthropogenic, human-made. Here too we are living larger than we can afford, taking more than we can return, dipping into the principle when we should be living off the interest, forgetting that the atmosphere and sea are finite and not endlessly able to absorb our waste.

But here too, if we do not invest sufficiently now in clean, renewable energy research, waste management, clean manufacturing, healthier products, we will be paying a thousandfold more down the line for scarcer and scarcer resources, and the economic, social and political dislocation scarcity brings.

Scholars, analysts, prophets tell us we do not make radical changes unless faced with crises. But here is the bright side. Perhaps in this one instance, we can use the lessons of the financial crisis to motivate us to respond to an impending yet still avoidable environmental crisis. For the truth is, we will one day soon recover from this economic crisis, hopefully even in the next year or two. But we cannot and will not speedily recover from the crash of the environment, not in our lifetime, or the lifetime of our children, not even in this century.

These dual crises we face are not only similar in their structure, but gratefully and blessedly also in their solutions. By using green technology to fuel economic health; producing goods in a cyclical, no waste, cradle-to-cradle style; living wisely – consuming only what we can appropriately replenish – we can build an enduring, sustainable economy and environment. Tending more to service – being with, educating, doing for and tending to each other – can build an economy pegged to human welfare and not collection of stuff.

The economy should not be a reason not to invest in green programs. It should be the reason we do.

I fly.  I fly a lot.  There.  I said it, I’ve admitted my problem.  This year has been a crazy year of flying – I averaged close to a flight a month. I had weddings in Los Angeles, Chicago and Israel; my baby nephew and his parents moved out to San Francisco; I had work conferences in various states in the US and delegations abroad.

The problem you ask?

The flights were really expensive.  Not that kind of expensive – many of the flights were frequent flier tickets, gifts or for work, so I didn’t pay very much in dollars.  But those are not the costs I’m referring to.  It’s the costs that don’t come with a dollar sign attached – the environmental externalities. My 11 flights emitted approximately 22 tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere.  To put the 22 tons in context, excluding flying, my carbon footprint is an impressive 7 tons (the global average is 5.5).  Including flying, I become worse than the average American (27 tons) [note, you can see those stats after you complete the carbon calculator].

As aware as I am, I don’t regret a single flight.  Because I flew, I danced wildly in celebration, connected regularly with my nephew (and other relatives) and furthered the mission of the Jewish environmental movement.  In the rare occasion that I’m not willing to alter my behavior for the benefit of the environment, what am I to do?

For now, I offset these emissions. Because carbon dioxide is a global pollutant, if I contribute CO₂ here in America and reduce it anywhere else around the world, the net effect on the globe is zero. This is how people become “carbon neutral.” I am not offsetting everything – I generally tread lightly on the earth (through wind power, public transportation and farmers markets) and feel comfortable with emissions that are produced by those actions.

For my work flights, COEJL is offsetting through the Heschel Center’s Good Energy Initiative based in Israel (like this blogger).  One of my cross-country trips was offset through a generous gift from my interns and the rest I’m in the process of offsetting by buying carbon credits sold through the cap and trade programs set up through volunteer and state regulated initiatives in the Chicago Climate Exchange (and if that doesn’t work out, through carbonfund.org).

It’s hard to understand and even harder to calculate the externalities of our actions.  Though the carbon calculator and offset science remains imperfect, it’s a method to take responsibility for our actions.  At this time, it’s the most I can hope to do.

For further information:

A piece by Rabbi Julian Sinclair about the Jewish meaning behind carbon offsetting

Over the past few weeks, I have had the pleasure of meeting over 500 high school students from across the country at the Religious Action Center’s Bernard and Audre Rapoport L’Taken social justice seminars. Each four-day intensive learning program brings students from across the country to D.C. to learn about social justice and Jewish values (read what some of the participants had to say about their experience). The program culminates with a visit to Capitol Hill, where students meet with their Senators, Representatives and their staff to discuss the issues that matter most to them. As my fellow RAC staff and I led the participants past the Capitol and Supreme Court to their meetings, I got several interesting questions about my experiences on the Hill: “Oh, you must be here all the time, what’s your favorite place to go eat?; Who is the most famous Senator/Member of Congress you have ever met?; Do you ever see the President??”

I answer honestly that visiting the Hill is only one of the many activities included in my job description. Even as full-time advocates, walking the halls of Congress and hobnobbing with the Hill crowd is not something I do on a daily basis. However, lately I’ve gotten to travel to the House and Senate more often, meeting with Hill staffers and members of the Obama transition team along with our partners at other faith groups. While these meetings are interesting and informative, it is often a challenge to translate our visits into the change we want (and need) to see on the issues that matter most to us.

During the holiday season we are often focused on spending time with friends and family, and intentionally disconnect from our ‘everyday’ lives. While this break is important and often necessary, we cannot forget our long-term goals and the steps we must take to achieve them. As the new administration and Congress prepare to take office in January, we have a unique opportunity to shape the agenda by making our voices heard on the climate and energy issues that matter so much to our community. We have an opportunity to act now, and must continue to raise our voices to keep the environment on the agenda, especially during these hard economic times. I encourage you to take break from your break this Chanukah and take action by urging the President-elect to make climate change a priority in the first 100 days of his administration, calling on Congress to pass a real, green stimulus, advocating for clean water, and more. It may be the best gift you can give to your loved ones this holiday season, and you don’t even have to travel to the Hill to do it.

Rachel is an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant working on environment and energy issues at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC. She will be a regular guest blogger on To Till and To Tend this year, posting entries every other Thursday. This, and all of Rachel’s entries, can also be found on the Religious Action Center blog.

You know it’s December when the Christmas Carols begin.  In the car. At the mall. In the grocery store. The music is unavoidable.  At least the lyrics are generally upbeat and the message is uplifting.  But this December, the coal industry co-opted Christmas.  In an unparalleled green-washing ploy (worse, even than Chevron and Dixie), the coal industry (through a front group dubbed “America’s Power”) has sunk to a new low: an interactive video in which inane chunks of coal sing parodies of familiar Christmas songs.  As a Jew, I may not believe in Jesus as my Savior and King, but I certainly would not suggest that coal should hold that title in his stead.  And I certainly cannot condone the sacrilegious ad campaign of an industry that is the leading cause of climate change.

Viewers of the ad are invited to select a background and dress the coal bits in a variety of hats and scarves before selecting from a menu of songs, like “Clean Coal Night” and “Frosty the Coalman,” in which the chunks exclaim:

“Frosty the Coalman is getting cleaner everyday
He’s affordable and adorable and helps workers keep their pay
There must have some magic in Clean Coal technology
For when they looked for pollutants, there was nearly none to see.”

But the hats and scarves can’t disguise the truth: clean coal is a myth.

 First, there isn’t a clear definition.  In fact, to some, clean coal simply means that the coal was bathed before burning.  Generally, when I hear people refer to “clean coal,” I assume they mean that the power plant captures the carbon emissions and injects it deep into the earth’s surface.  An interesting concept, to be sure.  However, at this point, it’s as fanciful as Rudolph.  Sure, we can invest billions of dollars into exploring clean coal – as our leaders on both sides of the aisle suggest – but wouldn’t our money be better spent investing in alternatives to coal?  As Larry Schweiger, President and CEO of the National Wildlife Federation, said in the launch for a coal reality campaign, “It’s time to build a better energy future with existing clean sources like wind and solar that will create jobs, boost our economy and confront the climate crisis head-on.”  After all, no matter how clean it may eventually be to burn coal, we’re still blowing off the tops of mountains to get it. 

 

It turns out, clean coal caroling is too low – even for the coal industry.  After being subject to scorn by environmental groups, bloggers and Rachel Maddow on MSNBC, America’s Power pulled the carolers from its website and took down its Facebook page – but not before “Asthma Al” and “Black Lung Billy” joined the Group.

 

…And next year, if dirty power still hopes to alter Christmas music to hock its wares, perhaps it should turn to NRDC Blogger Rob Perks for a collection with more accurate lyrics. 

 

[Click here to view "This is Reality," a commercial that tells the truth about coal today]

[Though the coal industry pulled its ad, you can still view "Frosty the Coal Man" here]
[When you're done viewing, click here to tell America's Power to clean up its act]

Religious leaders, both Christian and Jewish, get a lot of sermon mileage at this time of year out of urging their congregants to discover the underlying values of the winter holidays and place less priority on the major way we Americans tend to mark them – the buying and giving of lots of stuff.  This year, with the downturn in the economy and the sudden unavailability of additional credit, this message might actually be heard. 

 

Although the same commercials are on TV as every other year – giftwrapped luxury cars and all the rest – this year feels different.  This may finally be the year when Hanukah can be – may have to be – about more than the presents. 

 

But how can we make it so?  With a little creativity, each of the eight nights of Hanukkah can be a chance to explore our creativity, fulfill Jewish values, and express our love for our family and friends in ways that do not require the spending of lots of money. 

 

One night of Hanukkah can be tzedakah night, when the worth of the gifts that aren’t given is donated to a charity of your or your children’s choice.  This being a COEJL site, perhaps spending some money to offset some of your family’s carbon usage also would be appropriate! 

 

Another night might be book night, when a book of particular interest or meaning is given to each family member.  (And remember:  Used books save money and resources!)  “Homemade gifts night” can allow everyone’s craftiness and individual creativity to be realized (and there are lots of books with ideas for simple homemade items for those who don’t think they’re crafty enough), and “cheap gifts night” can be thoughtful or funny – or both! 

 

In our family, we like to give each other coupons for a service or favor we are sure to want sometime later in the year, like the ability to sleep in, get out of a chore, or even a “get out of an argument free” card. 

 

Be sure to have some friends over for a night of latkes and song, fulfilling the mitzvah of haknassat orchim – the welcoming of guests.  Or bring some latkes over to an elder or ill shut in, which is the mitzvah of gemillut hasadim – acts of lovingkindness. 

 

One night of Hanukkah, of course, is Shabbat, and foregoing gifts on that night is an opportunity to remind ourselves that, even on Hanukkah, the best things in life are free.

 

And one night can (and probably should) still be “big gift” night, if resources allow.  This year our family is getting a gaming system, which the whole family will enjoy and which will hopefully add a lot to “family game night” the rest of the year. 

 

With a little effort, your Hanukkah can be about a lot more than the unwrapping of presents – it can be a holiday that is truly creative, participatory, and memorable.  Happy Hanukkah!    

 

Additional resources:  Some of these ideas are similar to those in an article that Rabbi Cherie Koller-Fox posted on the Jewish Family & Life website some years ago.  Also, for more great ideas check out the Simplify the Holidays section of the Center for a New American Dream website. 

 

 

I love winter – cold days call for hot chocolate, roaring fires, cozy sweaters and snowball fights.  But the short days get to me. Sunlight, even when it’s 20 degrees, warms me, but leaving the office in the dark hurts. The rabbis must have shared some of this sentiment – I doubt it’s chance that our Festival of Lights, Hanukkah, falls during the darkest days of the year.

This year, the first night of Hanukkah actually falls on the darkest day of the year – the Winter Solstice.  Which is coincidence of course, because the Jewish calendar functions off the lunar cycle, right? True, except for a once-every-twenty-eight year holiday called Birkat HaHammah – Blessing of the Sun.  On this day, the Jewish community celebrates the tradition-based return of the sun to its original place in the heavens at the precise time and day of its creation.  Tradition states that this happens when the Vernal Equinox falls out on a Wednesday morning (for more detail, click here) – rabbinically speaking, the next time this happens is April 8, 2009. 

This year of 5769, it seems too marvelous that the solar occurrences of Winter Solstice and Vernal Equinox are celebrated on the Jewish calendar. In response, COEJL has created a 1^st night of Hanukkah ceremony that acknowledges the wonders and sustenance of the sun.

This year of 2008, it also seems impossible to celebrate the “birth of the sun” without acknowledging its full potential. At a time when we all understand the disastrous consequences of uninhibited fossil fuel consumption (e.g. global warming), along with the incredible fact that the Sun provides Earth with as much energy every hour as human civilization uses every year – Birkat HaHammah must be a time of energy awareness and action. To this effect, a coalition of Jewish groups has come together to make sure this happens.  To read more, go to www.blessthesun.org.

Happy Hanukkah!

p.s. for more Hanukkah tips check out the new Green Gift guide and our CFL Hanukkah campaign.   

This week, hundreds of world leaders gather in Poznan, Poland to discuss the ongoing global response to the imminent threat of climate change at the UN Climate Change Conference.  The meeting will set the stage for next year’s Conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the successor treaty to the Kyoto Protocol will be drafted. Poznan presents yet another critical opportunity for the U.S. to step up to the plate on climate issues and make amends for our failure to take a meaningful role in past international negotiations. As a global superpower and the historic leader in CO2 emissions, we have responsibility to come to the table prepared to act.

The good news is that Senator Kerry (D-MA), incoming Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, will lead the U.S. delegation to Poznan, joined by Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and others. Kerry’s decision to make the trek to Poland is critical because the Foreign Relations Committee will be the first to pour over any international treaties that come out of Copenhagen. As Kerry and others outside the Committees that typically address environment issues (Energy and Commerce in the House, Environment and Public Works in the Senate) become active on climate and energy, the opportunity expands for robust debate in Washington, and U.S. leadership on this issue.

Less encouraging is the decision of the Obama transition team not to send anyone to Poland, despite repeated promises to make this a priority issue when the President-elect takes office in January. Disappointing to me, on a personal level, is the lack of Jewish presence at the Conference; while several Christian denominations and other faith groups sent representatives to monitor the negotiations and hold faith events on climate, there is no formal Jewish participation in the event. The Jewish voice on climate is steadily becoming louder and more articulate but we as a community, like our nation as a whole, are still far from leaders on this issue.

While no new treaties are expected to emerge by the time the conference closes next week, Poznan is a critical step along the path to global action to confront the climate crisis. Without serious U.S. engagement and leadership, the possibilities for a meaningful global response to climate change are severely limited. And without participating in these conferences, our Jewish voice on this issue will be dampened as well.  Politicians and faith leaders alike deserve praise for braving the cold and making the trip, and leaders who are not participating need to hear from their constituents (read: all of us!), urging them to keep climate change in the forefront.

Rachel is an Eisendrath Legislative Assistant working on environment and energy issues at the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism in Washington, DC. She will be a regular guest blogger on To Till and To Tend this year, posting entries every other Thursday. This, and all of Rachel’s entries, can also be found on the Religious Action Center blog.

After more than two decades as a vegetarian, I scarcely think about meat. We have a kosher home and I do most of the cooking. My husband (to his great regret) is a “vegetarian by marriage.” But last week, he kindly offered to cook dinner. To my dismay, my four-year old loved Daddy’s grilled chicken breasts. Gone was the child we typically cajole to eat two bites of his veggie burger or tofu curry. 

He paused from eating only long enough to query, “Mommy, where does chicken come from?”

“Where do you think chicken comes from, dear?”

My son paused for at least 20 seconds before retorting, “…Pigs?”

I had clearly failed as a Jewish mother: my kosher, near-vegetarian child was eating something he thought was a pig. And he’d asked for seconds.

I recovered from this double affront and launched into a thoughtful discussion about why mommy doesn’t eat meat. I chose my words with care. I hope my son eventually chooses to become a vegetarian. But I also don’t want him to condemn his father. I had little to fear. At the close of my careful monologue, my son declared, “I’m a T-Rex. You’re a stegosaurus.” And he took another bite.

Last Thursday, millions of Americans celebrated Thanksgiving—no doubt consuming a significant share of the roughly 270 million turkeys raised in the United States this year. And while turkey is far less energy-intensive than other forms of meat, it is, nonetheless, still responsible for significant carbon emissions. A British analysis found that a “typical” holiday meal for a group of eight produces the equivalent of 20 kg of carbon dioxide emissions—with the life cycle of the turkey alone credited for 60 percent. [Reader: take some comfort in the fact that British imports of cranberry sauce from the U.S. account for roughly .5 kg.] Combined, British revelers consume the carbon equivalent of 6,000 car trips around the world or 300 return car journeys to the moon in a single holiday. I hesitate to do the math for the U.S.

Of course, turkey is not the worst offender. Nonetheless, the UN reports that meat production (of all kinds) accounts for nearly one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, raising cattle is worse for the environment than driving cars. And global meat consumption is poised to double by mid-century.

Unfortunately, according to Scientific American, keeping kosher doesn’t necessarily help. While Jews don’t traditionally eat pork (despite the perceptions of my four-year old), we don’t necessarily replace these calories with “low-carbon” veggies. And, replacing pork and shellfish with beef will only increase emissions.

This year, I was spared the angst of witnessing my son’s rapture for turkey. We shared Thanksgiving with our dear friends in Boston—who don’t keep kosher. And so, it was wild rice and brussel sprouts for Kefer and kin.

[For low-carbon vegetarian alternatives, visit Gentle Thanksgiving.]

[If you do choose to eat meat this holiday season, visit www.kolfoods.com to learn why you needn’t choose between keeping your values and keeping kosher.]

[Click here to determine the carbon emissions of your meals.]