To Till and to Tend

When I was 12, I joined my friend for a daring swim in the beautiful, albeit jellyfish infested waters of the Mediterranean.  Back then, the Israeli coast would get an annual, two-week bout of jellyfish.  I wasn’t there long enough to wait it out, so my friend and I jumped in and were undeterred by the mild stings on our bodies.  Then, I had an encounter with a jellyfish that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy – it and I met as I dove under a wave.  It, and more importantly, its tentacles, hit my face, leaving a scar that lasted years.  (Fortunately, the family I was with knew not to pee on me.)  Though painful beyond words, it was a reality of sharing an ecosystem. 

But the tides have turned – more and more people are sharing my story.  And we have climate change to thank.

As mentioned in a recent NY Times article, “(jellyfish) are the cockroaches of the open waters.”  Jellyfish thrive in weakened environments.  Scientists say that, thanks to climate change and overfishing of jellyfish predators (like tuna), populations of jellyfish are proliferating.  Not only are beaches around the world closing, but the New York City Triathletes had to deal with (and one maybe died from) the stings of this maritime beast.

Jellyfish aren’t the only living creatures that are enjoying the CO₂ filled, warming planet that humans are creating.  Already, populations of poison ivy, superweeds and disease-carrying mosquitoes are increasing, yielding greater incidences of itchy children, resistant weeds and malaria.  I am lucky enough to be non-allergic to poison ivy’s oils (so far) and the organic “farm” on which I “work” has minimal weed problems.  Still, the spread of malaria scares me – more than half the world’s population lives in malaria infested regions – and you may have gathered that I don’t like jellyfish?

Each of us will undoubtedly feel the ramifications of climate change differently.  I am fortunate that I have few to mitigate.  Yet, the global poisons of climate change exceed the stings of jellyfish, and it is for those reasons we need to act.

This Guest Blogger was Rabbi Warren Stone. He is known nationally for his leadership on religion and the environment. He is the founding and current chair of the Central Conference of American Rabbis’ Committee on the Environment and serves on COEJL’s board. Rabbi Stone has served as rabbi of Temple Emanuel in the Washington metropolitan area in Kensington, Maryland since 1988.

“In a world where matters of faith seem so often and so tragically to divide us, there is no issue which aligns us more deeply than our shared dependence upon and sacred responsibility to this tiny planet, enfolded within its fragile atmosphere, spinning in the vastness of time and space.”

Kyoto and Bali agreements calling for worldwide reductions in CO₂emissions are a critical step in the world challenge to reduce our dependence on our diminishing world oil supplies. Yet according to current research, even if the nations of the world adopt the protocols, they will be insufficient to counter the growing impact of climate change in the current century. (Pew Foundation: Beyond Kyoto: Advancing the International Effort Against Climate Change).

It is time to start thinking outside of the diplomatic box.

With all due respect to the Lieberman-Warner Climate Bill in the U.S. Senate and the hoped-for policy change it would bring, it is time to challenge both our country and world populations to take steps beyond legislation and diplomacy to begin to transform our daily lives in ways that can impact this rise in CO₂.

I recently spoke at the British Embassy at a panel on Faith and Climate Change. It was part of a Washington, DC symposium on Climate Change and Security for all the US British consulates around the country. I applaud them for seeking leaders of faith communities to voice their concerns with diplomats. I served on a panel with a Christian Evangelical environmental leader, Rev. Richard Cizik and a young Muslim woman known as “Sanjana,” who started a “DC Green Muslims blog.” The British consulates sought voices from the faith community because they realize that the issue of climate change will demand a populist response beyond diplomacy. Faith leaders can and must inspire and mobilize their communities on this urgent issue.

People of faith on this planet number in the billions. Teaching people of faith basic environmental values and practices can have an immense impact. Perhaps we need an 11th Commandment of walking gently upon this earth of ours and being aware of our own carbon footprint as a religious mandate. Our religious traditions all share a spiritual mandate for caring for a Godly creation. Reaching religious leaders and their communities on this issue could not be more critical. Indeed, responding to climate change has become the most significant moral and spiritual issue facing humanity today. Our ancient religious traditions are concerned with protecting life and creation in the broadest sense. In a world where matters of faith seem so often and so tragically to divide us, there is no issue which aligns us more deeply than our shared dependence upon and sacred responsibility to this tiny planet, enfolded within its fragile atmosphere, spinning in the vastness of time and space.

I experienced this common faith when I served as a UN delegate representing many Jewish organizations at the Kyoto talks in 1997. At that time I spoke along with eight other religious leaders at the largest Buddhist Temple in Kyoto as a part of the conference. We concurred that people of diverse faith traditions have a spiritual and moral responsibility to act now.

As a religious leader involved in climate change issues now for many years I believe we need a gradual paradigm shift in our very way of life. In an article in The New York Times, “What’s Your Consumption Factor?” January 2, 2008, Jared Diamond pointed out that world consumption is growing at an unsustainable rate in the face of a growing world population, particularly in India and China. China has a population of 1.3 billion and growing. Our forests and natural resources will not be able to sustain this demographic explosion. Perhaps we might be able to sustain 9 billion people but multiply that in our century and you can see we are facing a consumption doomsday.

The western ethic which continually encourages more growth, more cars, more computers and media tools is fostering a road leading to disaster. Not only are we using up the world’s diminishing resources, but we are also contributing to climate change and threatening the world’s species in a silent genocide. We are all imperiled by climate change — a rise in water-borne illness, the devastation of coastal lands, frequently inhabited by some of the neediest populations –with world refugees with nowhere to go. We must act now. We must listen to Hillel, who chastised: “If not now, when?”

If diplomacy is not enough, what can we do and do now?

• Let us begin by greening our government and its diverse institutions. Let the Capitol, the White House and Congress become green examples to the nation. So too, our state and local governments need to become actively engaged in greening.

• Let us support bold initiatives for alternative energies and their rapid development to wean us from our fossil fuel dependency.

• Let us follow with our schools and universities. Let the state, county and local fleets and buses become hybrid or new fuel cell vehicles.

• Let us devote resources to public transportation and bicycle paths in all our cities.

• Let all our country’s religious institutions become models of environmental possibilities with green architecture, use of solar and wind power, community recycling and gardening and a true application of the spiritual teachings and truths of the earth.

• Let us also support a green paradigm shift by encouraging awards in environmental activism to architects, engineers, artists, statesmen and people of faith who set the highest and most outstanding standards.

• Let us encourage artists, musicians and writers to adopt this greening mandate and use their tools of music, drama, art and poetry to further environmental vision and activism.

• Let us support a new green foods movement which encourages a more vegetarian diet — not only healthier and more just, but far more sustainable for the people of our world.

• Let us learn from examples abroad. Last year, London had a “Sustainability Week,” with 350 green events for the public attended by tens of thousands of people. Holland and Austria created a “Green Wave 21st Century” festival throughout their countries and awarded prizes for ecological leadership.

Paradigm shifts start from the grassroots up. The US civil rights movement, which gained momentum from the faith and labor communities, is an apt analogy to guide our response to today’s demands of world climate change. The civil rights movement gained momentum not via legislation but rather by a populist participation throughout the South and across the country. Faith communities, those involved in labor and community leadership, as well as artists and activists of all stripes and visions, can now help lead the kind of political change and bold action necessary to preserve and protect life and all creation on this sacred home of ours.

Let’s focus on the positive and the doable. We don’t want our children and future generations to inherit a sense of doom and gloom, but rather to feel in full measure the innate and infinite capacity of the human spirit to arise and overcome the most demanding challenges humanity may face. We want them to see all life, including their own, as a miracle worthy of celebration. We want them to see the preservation of life on our planet as a mission worthy of their greatest passions and energies and to feel the joy that comes from joining in common cause for greater good.

Let me end with a prayer by a visionary poet, e.e. cummings:

i thank You God for most this amazing

day: for the leaping greenly spirits of tress

and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

Inspired by Shavuot and the celebration of receiving the 10 commandments, my mind drifted to all of those other 10 commandments out there.  Lists of “10 Actions to Save the Planet” abound – but do they really matter?

During a time when global environmental catastrophes loom large, clear and real, we may debate the impact of our individual actions.  When China is opening a new coal-based power plant every week, does my switching to an energy efficient compact fluorescent light (CFL) matter?
COEJL challenged the American Jewish community to start fighting climate change with that simple act.  During our How Many Jews Does it Take to Change a Light Bulb? campaign, Jews across America heeded the call and switched out their energy inefficient incandescent bulbs for CFLs.  From changes in homes, offices, schools and synagogues, over 80,000 CFLs were purchased, keeping approximately 29,000 tons of CO₂ out of our atmosphere.

Yes, our independent acts of environmental conservation matter.  Below is my list (I dare not call them commandments) of 10 actions with a range of required effort that will help you and your community reduce our impact on global warming.

1.  Change 5 light bulbs to energy efficient and cost effective compact CFLs ( if all American Jews did this it would be the same as taking 1.76 million cars off the road for a year)
2.  Switch out a meat meal for a vegetarian one (global livestock is responsible for 18% of CO₂ emissions and 37% of methane emissions – a greenhouse gas that is twenty times more potent than CO₂)
3.  Eat local (in the US, conventional food travels an average of 1,500 miles to reach our markets)
4.  Find new meaning in old traditions: walk or bike to synagogue (only 6% of all trips made in the US are by bike or foot)
5.  Recycle ½ of your household waste (saves 2,400 pounds of CO₂ a year)
6.  Install a programmable thermostat and drop it 2 degrees in the winter and raise it 2 degrees in the summer (saves 2,000 pounds of CO₂ a year)
7.  Eliminate “phantom loads” by unplugging unused electronics, shutting off power strips, or buying smart ones that will shut it off for you (if all phantom loads in US homes were stopped, we could shut down 17 power plants)
8.  Fully inflate your tires and improve mpg efficiency (Saves 347 lbs of CO₂ a year)
9.  Plant a tree – in your own backyard or Israel (if all Jews in America did this it, 6 million tons of CO₂ absorbed over its life)
10.  Due to the fact that CO₂ is a global gas, when you’ve taken all the actions you can, buy carbon credits to offset the rest.

As with the biblical 10 commandments, this list is only the beginning. Though it may be scary, it’s also empowering.  We – in our houses with our family, offices with our colleagues and community with our friends – can be part of the solution.

Sometimes we hear crazy facts, so crazy that we say, “I have to see it to believe it.” What happens then, when we do see it? Do we always believe it? Are we then willing to alter the way we see ourselves and the world?

We’ve all heard of global warming. Many people even understand the basic science behind it, admit that it is human caused, and realize potential consequences. But how many people truly believe it? Would it help if we saw it?

Images of climate change abound: rising waters erode coastal communities, drought dries the land, water floods it. But these images are rarely in our proverbial backyard and rarely provide lasting inspiration.

Google Earth has attempted to show us the realities of climate change in our backyard, favorite vacation spot and dream destination. For years, it has been a site of incredible amusement (in doing research for this post, I “hiked” up the Rocky Mountains and “waded” across rivers in Glacier National Park). Using scientific data with its projections of a warming planet, Google Earth has become a tool to view the global climate changes that will affect us all. If you don’t already have it, download it for free here. Then, see the images of a warming globe (note that the numbers here are given in degrees Celsius), sea ice content and the spread of disease (calculated by the range of the disease vector/mosquito).

Though this isn’t the key to environmental enlightenment, maybe these tools will enable us to connect the climate-related dots in our personal lives. If you’ve had this eerie sense that local climate has changed since you were a kid – you can look at this map, zoom into your zip code and see just how much it has warmed, and how much it is forecasted to warm. Or, if it seems that you know more people (and, in my case, family) who’ve contracted malaria and dengue fever, with these tools, you begin to understand why.

There isn’t a miracle image or fact that will provide environmental enlightenment. Still, having one more tool under our belt surely won’t hurt and may inspire people to see, believe, and maybe even act.