To Till and to Tend

I've coined a new term, another Jewish acronym, GKE"T = "Glatt Kosher Eco-Treif". It popped out of me in a conversation with friends Rabbis Arthur Waskow and Phyllis Berman, just back from a remarkable journey to Madrid attending an Interfaith Conference hosted by no less than the King of Saudi Arabia.  There were quite a few Jewish leaders included and we discussed, among deeper issues, how the conference - pulled together on very short notice - handled all the participants' varied food issues.  Phyllis mentioned that many of the Jewish participants, along with Hindus, ate local, vegetarian fare.  Some of the Jewish participants were provided with "airline meals in 4 layers of plastic wrap".  I knew just what they meant, and that's when my new term was invented.  I did find the term Eco-Treif on a fabulous blog, though - SustainableJudaism.
It seems paradoxical to me that food created out of heavily traveled ingredients, wrapped, and then shipped again, generating carbon emissions with each transport, and then packaged in one-use petroleum-based plastic, is nevertheless perfectly kosher, and that fresh local vegetarian food is not.  Not to mention that these catered meals include meat,  possibly sourced from a fairly infamous meat-packing plant known not just for illegal alien labor but also for water pollution issues,  at least in the past.  There generally isn't any indication of where these kosher airline-type meals' ingredients come from, just the info about where the caterer is.
I feel very conflicted about take-out food in general.  Not unique to kosher take-out, of course - any take-away meal generates a huge amount of disposables.  Until kosher (and other purveyors) provide compostable plastics, I avoid buying their products, much as I would like to. To me they're GKE"T if, after a wonderful meal, I need to throw out a whole bag of heavy plastic containers.  Of course they could be washed and reused, but how many chicken rotisserie containers can a family use?
Tonight a friend stopped by a new local Indian take-out here, called Tiffin.  She brought her own containers, and they cheerfully filled them with their wonderful entrees.  The restaurant, needless to say, is not kosher.  Here it's the opposite problem - Glatt Treif Eco-Kosher.  Even if I would eat their vegetarian food, I couldn't do so in my own containers.
I am eager to hear how others address these competing values.  This is not theoretical! This is getting meals on the table....

I heard Al Gore speak two weeks ago.  For someone in my position, this was a bit like seeing Britney Spears or Angelina Jolie.  Only I actually recognize Al Gore.  The presentation was truly inspiring.  In fact, I was moved to tears.  The former Vice President and Nobel Prize laureate challenged the United States to transition to 100 percent carbon-free electricity in 10 years.  And as I walked out of the auditorium, amid a mob of hundreds of other "climate fans," I believed it could be done.

As Gore noted (and the Daily Kos confirms), we have the resources and the technology.  Gore related scientific reports confirming "enough solar energy falls on the surface of the earth every 40 minutes to meet 100 percent of the entire world's energy needs for a full year."  Sure, we'll need to perfect transportation and storage - but the potential is there.  And with the right price on carbon, people will go the extra mile to work out the details.  In 1961 President John F. Kennedy challenged America to land a man on the moon within 10 years.  Eight years and two months later - on July 16, 1969 - the world listened as Apollo 11 lifted into the sky.  Thirty-eight years later (almost to the day), Al Gore established a goal of equal magnitude –  and I believe greater import.  For one could argue that the fate of the Earth rests on accepting his challenge.

And for at least ten minutes, I was confident that America would rise to the challenge.

 

But as the crowd dispersed along the streets of Washington, D.C., I felt my own confidence dispel.  Last December, Congress could not commit to providing 15% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020.  How can that same Congress pass a law requiring 100% renewable electricity by 2018? As Hank Green of "EcoGeek" writes, this is a "football-sized" pill to swallow.  Will Congress actually prescribe such medicine for the American people?  And will the public actually take it? For although this prescription is in the long-term interests of our country, there will be many disenfranchised patients along the way.  As Green notes, the typical coal-fired power plant is designed to last 30-50 years.  Power companies will not dismantle a plant prematurely without compensation.  Sure, Gore acknowledged the need to "guarantee good jobs in the fresh air and sunshine" for all displaced coal miners, but that doesn't account for the disenfranchised factory workers – and the vested interests – in maintaining those factories.

Gore invoked the Apollo mission as an example of American determination and ambition.  Yet, in many ways, landing a man on the moon was an easier goal.  For one, as Climate Progress notes, "the countries [sic] leadership could make landing people on the moon a goal is because there wasn’t a more powerful lobby to make sure that it didn’t happen." And, as Cal Tech Chemistry Professor Nathan Lewis explains, "We already have electricity coming out of everybody's wall socket," whereas no one had ever been to the moon.  Converting the existing electricity system is not like NASA sending a man to the moon for the first time, "It’s like finding a new way to send a man to the moon when Southwest Airlines is already flying there every hour handing out peanuts."

I want to believe that Gore's vision is achievable.  After all, mankind has achieved the inconceivable in the past: Noah saved the world from destruction by constructing the ark.  What do you think? Can Gore's vision take flight – or is it simply an impossible dream?

Click here for a link to a video and text of Gore's speech.

Click here for more on Gore's inspirational campaign.

With the rising price of heating oil and gas, we all knew things weren't easy.  According to The Jewish Week, oil prices rose about 60% since last year, going from $2.85/gallon to $5 today.  This did not surprise me considering I always hear talk of the declining economy and the need to adapt to financial instability.  In fact, I find it increasingly impossible to ignore. 

Why is it then, that when I read " New York area rabbis are praying for a warm winter," did I feel a sudden chill, despite the heat of the summer's day? I realize that oftentimes when I hear about the rising cost of living and the necessity to become energy-efficient, I think about effects on individual homes rather than whole Jewish institutions. Perhaps as a young adult, whose parents still pay for her synagogue membership and electricity bills, I needed such a powerfully ominous statement not to forget the financial wellbeing of another type of home, the Jewish communal home.  
 
Inevitably, synagogues will have to respond to higher energy bills. Some, which can, are doing so by installing better programmable thermostats, energy-saving lights, and effective insulation materials. The sad reality is that this not a realistic vision for many synagogues which cannot afford the changes. What the article was referring to in regards to the New York rabbis' worry about the oncoming winter is the consideration of raising membership dues to pay the energy bills.  Their distress also shook my misconceived reality that the Jewish community and the individuals that comprise it do not have today’s significant financial woes. One  Queens synagogue director said that trying to update synagogue infrastructure with new energy-efficient technology is impossible since it comes at a time when members are requesting financial assistance more than ever.

What can be done? 

While the winter season may be approaching fast, there are a bunch of short-term changes everyone can make so that the synagogue remains a place for all to pray, study, and join together - despite the cost. Some synagogues are rightly encouraging committees to meet at members' homes rather than synagogue facilities while others are holding religious services in their smaller chapels. It is also simple to adjust the thermostat manually-raising it a few degrees in the summer and lowering it in the winter.   

Even though I do not pay for my family's synagogue dues nor thankfully need to pay to go to Hillel on my school's campus, I am willing to do what I can to lessen their economic and environmental burdens.  When I think about it, what's losing some leg or arm room during services and actually experiencing temperatures more relevant to their seasons if it can enable our synagogues and Jewish institutions' to reduce energy consumption, and provide membership to the individuals who give our synagogues a meaningful purpose in the first place? 

Although that chill of mine has slowly subsided, I am since strongly motivated to think about the long run and the bigger sacrifices I, together with the rest of the Jewish community, should make to become more energy-efficient, turning to renewable and sustainable sources of energy, so that we do not face such a disaster again.

I looked for a picture of people walking to shul on shabbat, following up on Liore's Eco-Eruv concept.  No photos to be found, since no one takes pictures of people walking to shul, apparently.  Why would they?  Though it's a normal, unexciting thing to do, it does yield important results.
I grew up in walking distance of my Reform temple in Fargo, ND.  No one walked anywhere, except that as a sort of vestigal observance from my parents' Jewish Brooklyn and St. Paul chilhoods, we did walk to Temple on Rosh Hashanah.  I thought that was pretty cool, exotic almost, kind of tribal and arcane and mysterious.  I went to Jewish summer camp where various Shabbat prohibitions were in force, but driving was irrelevant in a camp context.  Only in adult life did I make the decision, with my husband, not to drive on Shabbat.
As a result, we have always lived in walking distance of our various synagogues, though we are not Orthodox.  Occasionally I drive if I am going out alone on Friday night and I don't feel safe walking by myself, but I have walked with my husband to morning Shabbat services for 34 years, in all seasons.  Once we walked 7 miles to our niece's bat mitzvah.  We have at various times been very hot, very cold, and very wet; we are generally very happy to get home after our 1.1 mile walk.  A few times, during snow storms with closed roads, we walked down the middle of the streets.
I have always considered this quality time - when our kids were little, there were many stages and strategies for accomplishing this distance.  One was M&M walks - one M&M was doled out per street crossed.  We told endless stories to keep them distracted and to avoid whining.  Lots of piggy back rides, lots of "sites" along the way that still make me smile.  I know where every flowering tree and bush will blossom, and we have carefully observed the gradual upgrading of our neigborhood, since we notice every paint job and newly cemented sidewalk.  We even pass the police commissioner's house and note his shiny black cars.  None of this is remarkable, but if it weren't for shabbat walks, I doubt I would know the 'hood this initmately.  It gives me a sense of connectedness that driving doesn't match. 
Way back before we were all talking about Peak Oil and global warming, Rabbi Arthur Waskow observed that being shomer shabbat and eschewing driving meant 1/7 less driving per week.  I liked that idea, though resource reduction was not on my mind back then.
There was one exception to shabbat walking, in Salzberg, Germany, where we experienced the proverbial "free streetcar".  Halachically speaking, if a street car is free and stops at every stop, one can take it.  Salzberg actually had such a conveyance.  It was a great novelty for us, but it sure felt like cheating!
Now I think every Jewish community should promote walking.  Unfortunately synagogues have tended to locate themselves on suburban thoroughfares, often without sidewalks.  Hopefully synagogue planners will be more mindful that when they construct "synagogue sprawl" they also minimize any sense of community. 
Any stories to share about your shabbat walking experiences?

I hold the environment in high regard. I have even chosen to focus my undergraduate education, and hopefully future career around this topic. I try my best to ‘live and learn’ sustainability. I am quite occupied with concerns such as greenhouse gases, global warming, rising sea levels, the environmental potential of our presidential candidates, and the struggles of the food economy as corn continues to be sourced for ethanol. Since so many of my gemilut hasadim, acts of loving kindness, are for the land that we live on, it is not absurd that I had forgotten to sustain the people who live on it.

I never thought that Starbucks would be the place to remind me:

The other day I was with Ilana, the other intern at COEJL, at Starbucks. The drink that Ilana ordered was not what the barista gave her. He kindly offered it to me, and said he had to throw it out if no one wanted it. Never to be the person to turn down a free beverage (because it goes so well with a free cookie) I happily accepted. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t like that particular iced-sweetened-frothy concoction. As I almost put what probably cost close to $5 in the trash can, I looked up and saw a man with sad eyes staring at me. It became clear he was hungry when he wouldn’t stop staring at the soon to be disposed drink. I went up to him and asked him if he wanted it. His eyes quickly twinkled with happiness as he offered to trade me his cup of water. While I let him keep both drinks, I took away something much more worthwhile from the proposition, that special feeling when realize you just did a good deed. The only thing I could say to Ilana was “If I were still in religious school that would be a leaf on mitzvah tree.”

One of the most important things I can do as an environmentalist is to think about the people who live on the earth I am working to protect. And while I didn’t expect anything but a gracious thank you from this sad-eyed man, I hope that my deed will inspire someone else to do a mitzvah. Soon, just one kind gesture, can spread and bring a smile to many. As I “hug another tree,” I must be responsible to nurture every branch of the most special tree of them all, my very own mitzvah tree.

Jews - especially observant ones - are particular. Dietary laws of kashrut require that we eat certain foods prepared in certain ways, we require a quorum of ten adult Jews when we pray, and we send our children to special schools to receive Jewish education. This requires a lot from a community. As a result, Jews moved to live near Jews so that all of life’s essentials could be nearby. The shtetl was born.

Beyond the convenience, the rabbis understood the value of shared physical space. To this end (or so that’s how I’m interpreting it), they formed laws that essentially required Jews to settle within established communities. According to the 39 law of Shabbat, Jews are not supposed to carry outside their homes. For a variety of reasons, the rabbis established the eruv, a physical enclosure that extends the marks the entire community as “home.” Though challenging in a modern lifestyle, this rule can be understood to reinforce the spiritual community with physical proximity.

When I was younger, I observed the laws surrounding eruv - even when my family went camping over Shabbat, we enclosed our campsites with twine. Since, finding an apartment within an eruv has not been my priority. Rather than searching for a kosher butcher, I sought the local health food store. Rather than worrying about a mikva (ritual bath), I found a home close to Central Park. Still, I think the rabbis were on to something and they’re not the only ones.

Realtors, city planners and environmentalists are examining the “walkability” of a city. Walkscore.com just came out with a report that rates cities and neighborhoods by how easy it is to walk to the basic necessities of life. In other words, they’re rating whether a neighborhood’s eruv can sustain the community within. Though it’s so “easy” to hop in a car to drive the 10 miles to the grocery store or movie theater, functioning within a walkable eruv provides wonderful spiritual, environmental and health results.

Check the score for your neighborhood by putting in your address - I hope you “do well.” It’s ok if you didn’t - America wasn’t built with eruvs in mind. Still, that doesn’t mean we can’t start thinking about the wonders of 21^st century eco-shtetl.

COEJL's How Many Jews Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb campaign was referenced in this great post by Simran Sehti about compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). Through this initiative, which began during Hanukkah, 80,000 energy-saving CFLs were purchased, keeping over 29,000 tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of our atmosphere.

A few days ago, I purchased a sandwich from a local deli. As an afterthought, I asked for an extra piece of cheese for the baby. Before I could take the slice, the counterperson smiled brightly and immediately placed the two-by-two inch square into a 16-ounce cup with a plastic lid. "Is that for here or to go?" she queried, stuffing a three-inch stack of napkins into a plastic bag. As she rang up my order, I surreptitiously returned the napkins to a receptacle on the counter. The cup, unfortunately, would have to be "recycled" into a blog post.

Last week, the G8 announced that they would (with, as the Daily Grist reports, a number of caveats) aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by fifty percent from current levels by mid-century. An ambitious goal, to be sure – yet, the scientific community has told us we need to reduce emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels to avoid the most catastrophic effects of global warming. Whether the right number is fifty percent or eighty percent – the numbers are high enough to make your stomach sink and your head spin. What does it mean to cut emissions by more than half? And how can we possibly accomplish this? Certainly, how can we accomplish this when we live in a society that finds it necessary to cover a single slice of cheese with a cup and a lid?

The answer is we can't.

As long as we live in a society where a sandwich is accompanied by its weight in napkins; where a container of yogurt is served with a plastic knife, fork and spoon; and a single gallon of milk is placed inside two plastic grocery bags, we will not win the battle against climate change. Solving the climate crisis is going to require a fundamental change in our national consciousness. We must learn to rethink consumption and redefine our "needs." And we cannot simply defer to the government to make these changes.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed when I think of the enormity of our needed reductions. But the Styrofoam cup is half full: with so much excess, the initial cuts will be easy. In fact, a report released earlier this month by Environment America announced that simple building efficiency measures could reduce US energy consumption by 11%. A December 2007 report by McKinsey and Company identified more than 250 existing technologies and strategies that could reduce US emissions by 28% in 2030. And imagine how we can each augment these numbers with countless changes in our own lives – from taking our own grocery bags to the market to riding public transportation to work.

Indeed, America will come a long way toward addressing the climate crisis when cashiers begin to serve fries without a side of plastic. And tomorrow when I take my kids for icecream, I'll be sure to ask for it in a cone – hold the cup and spoon.

[I'd love to hear your stories about waste – and ways to get to 80 percent. Please share both your experiences with excess and helpful tips for reducing consumption in the comments below]

The list of concerns when food shopping just keeps lengthening. Once upon a time, I simply bought on the basis of price, kashrut, and perceived quality but over time, my definition of quality has evolved. Price is actually much lower on the list of consideration.
Some of the concerns are:
1) ingredients. If there are too many, or I don't recognize them as actual food, I don't buy the product.
2) packaging. Is the packaging recyclable? If not (hello, hummus!), is it at least minimized?
3) extra points if the product is organic.
4) deduction of points if the product is from too far away. In many cases you can't telll where the product is from, of course, but now we have to pay attention to food miles, how far the product has shipped.
5) extra points if the product has a hashgachah. But since I'm primarily vegetarian, I'll go with a vegan or reliable vegetarian designation. (Obviously there is a wide range of observance on this issue.)
6) cost. It's hard, but not impossible, to find extremely expensive vegetarian food.
7) size. It's more resource efficient to buy a larger size of a product, providing you can use up the contents. (Like a plastic half gallon vs. a quart - they each have one cap, so buy the bigger one. Unless the milk will sour before you finish it.)
8) is the product Israeli? This used to be a big plus, since I felt like buying Israeli was virtuous. Now I'm coming around to it being a minus, since it's shipped such a long distance.
Like I said, oy vey. This is hard. My personal compromise is that I buy light weight items from Israel, such as tea. (Which is only packaged in Israel; the tea is imported from Asia, I presume.) And Israeli wine. The studies that came out awhile back about wine showed that wine miles are counterintuitive. East coasters are better off, ecologically, by buying wine from Europe than California. In any event, I don't buy that much wine, so have permitted myself to indulge in Israeli wines. My favorite was one we found last summer, organic wine from the Galil, named "Barn Owl" in honor of the barn owls which eat so many of the critters that do wine in that the vineyard can eschew pesticides. I wasn't able to find it on line for this post, so perhaps it was a special edition wine.
How do you work your way through the food purchasing decision tree?