To Till and to Tend

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?

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.

Describing old-fashioned normal utensils - silverware, plates, glasses - as "reusables" does tell us something about our material culture.  Last week I wrote about my minyan's low-tech efforts to be more sustainable, buying kiddush glasses and plates and creating a volunteer rotation for washing them.  Nevei Kodesh in Boulder, Colorado, shares that they purchased metal "sauce cups" which are very distinctive, non-breakable, and easy to clean.  They cost less than $1 a cup in bulk. 
There is a third way between "washables" and disposables, and that's compostables, a product with expanding choices, some of which are pictured.  They are more expensive that petroleum based plastics, but are made from vegetable products, so they decompose.  Fortunately they don't decompose when you use them; they take a month or so to accomplish this task.  Their first major advantage over conventional plastic is that they are manufactured from a renewable source.  Their second advantage is that they decompose, but of course this advantage is only achieved if a community actually composts.  Throwing them in the garbage, as a friend reported was the norm in an eco-concerned, non-composting institution where she works, only addresses half of the environmental equation.  Throwing compostables in a landfill has no environmental virtue, since they won't break down.
If there's no on-site composting, one solution is to collect the compostables and find a volunteer who does compost and is willing to take them.  (Of course starting a composting system at the synagogue is an even better idea.)
While this is all important, both actually and symbolically, we are missing the forest for the trees here.  One commenter points out that the carbon footprint of driving to shul is bigger than the kiddush cup.  So the real campaign is to encourage folks to walk, carpool, or take public transit to synagogue.  Here are the numbers provided by our commenter who didn't include a name, unfortunately:

The analysis below was done for Congregation Tifereth Israel . We have 320 member units, a 57,000 sqft 60 year old building. While the numbers are specific to us, the should hold in general for other congregations. [it looks like there are 0 added heating costs in winter; I would question that, but that's a minor point]

I have made some rough estimates on the energy cost of a typical Shabbat, and translated them into pounds of carbon dioxide (lbs CO2).

Extra building heating costs winter -- minimal
Summer cooling for the sanctuary 600 lbs CO2

6 lbs of plastic plates and utensils. -- 30 lbs CO2
1 pound of unrecycled aluminum pans 25 lbs CO2

A typical car emits about 1lb CO2 per mile (Prius owners stop smirking ).
I estimate that on each Shabbat about 70 cars travel 14 round-trip miles to take us to the service. -1000 lbs CO2

Summary. We can recycle the aluminum pans, wash dishes instead of using disposables -- but these are are semi-symbolic. If we want to do something that counts, carpool, walk or bicycle to Shabbat service. Maybe we can teledaven?

So let's brainstorm about the transport of the dovveners.  Orthodox congregations win the prize here, big time, for zero to very light Kehillah-wide carbon foot prints on shabbos.  In the liberal world, what can we do to promote less driving, especially in the face of inaccessible suburban synagogue locations ?  I have only heard of one synagogue policy which addresses this, at Adat Shalom in Rockville, MD.  They are short on parking, so hybrids get parking spot preference.  Please share any ideas or policies!