Community Meeting on Coal Ash - August 28, 2010
Coal Ash 101 - August 23, 2010
Cane Run Coal Ash - August 12, 2010
Winds of Change - July 17, 2010
Louisville Evangelical Speaks Out - July 9, 2010
"We abound in the luxury of the peach" - July 6, 2010
Higher electricity rates are here but not wind power - July 3, 2010
Eight Presidents on Solving the Energy Crisis - June 25, 2010
It's like a heatwave burning in my heart - June 18, 2010
What do we do about the Gulf Oil Disaster? - June 8, 2010
Acclimation - May 23, 2010
Spill, Baby, Spill - May 21, 2010
Earth Day - April 24, 2010
Coal is dead! Long live coal! - April 21, 2010
I Live In A Forest - April 13, 2010
Meet the recycle brothers - March 30, 2010
First multi-family Energy Star rated building in Louisville - March 23, 2010
Farm Ministry - March 13, 2010
"The time for timidity regarding God's creation is no more." - February 28, 2010
Religion Plays a Big Role in Earth Care - February 22, 2010
The Voice of the Church on Earth - February 15, 2010
Living Beyond Our Means - January 27, 2010
A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens - January 21, 2010
Scientists call for an end to MTR - January 9, 2010
New Energy for the New Year - December 30, 2009
Advent is the season for imagination - December 14, 2009
"no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data" - December 14, 2009
Black Friday - November 18, 2009
An Assault on the Image of God - November 14, 2009
Sacred Water - November 7, 2009
Acting on the Side of Justice - October 19, 2009
State-of-the-Art Solar in Louisville - October 5, 2009
October Means Sweet Potatoes - October 2, 2009
A Day on the Bus - September 23, 2009
Has the Pope Lost His Marbles? - September 18, 2009
First Clunkers now Reclunkerators - September 5, 2009
Most Americans think Congress should address Climate Change - August 28, 2009
Local Woman Writes On Creation Care - August 17, 2009
Hurryup, Hurryup, Hurryup! - August 5, 2009
Weather vs Climate - July 21, 2009
Doubting Thomas - July 3, 2009
Yarmuth and Chandler do the right thing - June 28, 2009
Will Ben Chandler do the right thing? - June 25, 2009
Your loved one is sick, what will you do? - June 17, 2009
Jesus, Guns and Green - June 8, 2009
It's a sin to waste - June 2, 2009
What would Jesus do about global warming? - May 22, 2009
Family Re-Union - The Missing Relatives - May 21, 2009
KIPL goes to Washington - May 5, 2009
Solar Installation in Progress - May 5, 2009
Let there be light - May 1, 2009
My morning olfactory walk - April 30, 2009
Vatican Expanding Solar Energy - April 24, 2009
Good Friday Mountains - April 10, 2009
The River of More - April 1, 2009
Earth Hour - March 24, 2009
"A Delicate Balance" - March 17, 2009
First Church in Kentucky to Go Solar - March 1, 2009
Power Outage, Power Gain - February 26, 2009
A Sacred Lent to Care for Creation - February 25, 2009
Idling cars are the devil's workshop - February 19, 2009
Time to Face the Facts - February 13, 2009
Happy New Year - February 8, 2009
Sustainable Neighborhood - January 23, 2009
Coal, Our Ace In The Hole - January 16, 2009
PSC :customers to pay for coal plant - January 6, 2009
Stop Recycling - January 2, 2009
Green Hanukkah - December 26, 2008
Faith and the Environment - December 19, 2008
Coal Ash 101 - August 23, 2010
Cane Run Coal Ash - August 12, 2010
Winds of Change - July 17, 2010
Louisville Evangelical Speaks Out - July 9, 2010
"We abound in the luxury of the peach" - July 6, 2010
Higher electricity rates are here but not wind power - July 3, 2010
Eight Presidents on Solving the Energy Crisis - June 25, 2010
It's like a heatwave burning in my heart - June 18, 2010
What do we do about the Gulf Oil Disaster? - June 8, 2010
Acclimation - May 23, 2010
Spill, Baby, Spill - May 21, 2010
Earth Day - April 24, 2010
Coal is dead! Long live coal! - April 21, 2010
I Live In A Forest - April 13, 2010
Meet the recycle brothers - March 30, 2010
First multi-family Energy Star rated building in Louisville - March 23, 2010
Farm Ministry - March 13, 2010
"The time for timidity regarding God's creation is no more." - February 28, 2010
Religion Plays a Big Role in Earth Care - February 22, 2010
The Voice of the Church on Earth - February 15, 2010
Living Beyond Our Means - January 27, 2010
A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens - January 21, 2010
Scientists call for an end to MTR - January 9, 2010
New Energy for the New Year - December 30, 2009
Advent is the season for imagination - December 14, 2009
"no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data" - December 14, 2009
Black Friday - November 18, 2009
An Assault on the Image of God - November 14, 2009
Sacred Water - November 7, 2009
Acting on the Side of Justice - October 19, 2009
State-of-the-Art Solar in Louisville - October 5, 2009
October Means Sweet Potatoes - October 2, 2009
A Day on the Bus - September 23, 2009
Has the Pope Lost His Marbles? - September 18, 2009
First Clunkers now Reclunkerators - September 5, 2009
Most Americans think Congress should address Climate Change - August 28, 2009
Local Woman Writes On Creation Care - August 17, 2009
Hurryup, Hurryup, Hurryup! - August 5, 2009
Weather vs Climate - July 21, 2009
Doubting Thomas - July 3, 2009
Yarmuth and Chandler do the right thing - June 28, 2009
Will Ben Chandler do the right thing? - June 25, 2009
Your loved one is sick, what will you do? - June 17, 2009
Jesus, Guns and Green - June 8, 2009
It's a sin to waste - June 2, 2009
What would Jesus do about global warming? - May 22, 2009
Family Re-Union - The Missing Relatives - May 21, 2009
KIPL goes to Washington - May 5, 2009
Solar Installation in Progress - May 5, 2009
Let there be light - May 1, 2009
My morning olfactory walk - April 30, 2009
Vatican Expanding Solar Energy - April 24, 2009
Good Friday Mountains - April 10, 2009
The River of More - April 1, 2009
Earth Hour - March 24, 2009
"A Delicate Balance" - March 17, 2009
First Church in Kentucky to Go Solar - March 1, 2009
Power Outage, Power Gain - February 26, 2009
A Sacred Lent to Care for Creation - February 25, 2009
Idling cars are the devil's workshop - February 19, 2009
Time to Face the Facts - February 13, 2009
Happy New Year - February 8, 2009
Sustainable Neighborhood - January 23, 2009
Coal, Our Ace In The Hole - January 16, 2009
PSC :customers to pay for coal plant - January 6, 2009
Stop Recycling - January 2, 2009
Green Hanukkah - December 26, 2008
Faith and the Environment - December 19, 2008
KIPLog
The blog of Kentucky Interfaith Power & Light. This blog can also be found at Courier-Journal.com.
The blog of Kentucky Interfaith Power & Light. This blog can also be found at Courier-Journal.com.
Community Meeting on Coal Ash - August 28, 2010
Coal ash is toxic. It contains mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium. When the coal ash stored in landfills gets rained on, the toxins wash out and down into the soil deeper and deeper until it reaches ground water. The groundwater at the LG&E Cane Run power plant drains to the Ohio River. The landfill there is in the flood plain. The ash that sits atop the landfill is vulnerable to the winds that blow across the river. That ash finds its way to the yards, homes, streams and lungs of the people of the surrounding neighborhoods.
This Tuesday, August 31 there will be a community discussion about the issue of coal ash at 7 pm at the Shively Community Center. Come out and hear stories from residents, wisdom from faith leaders and learn what you can do about this important problem. Call me at (502) 210-8920 for more information.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 28, 2010
Coal Ash 101 - August 23, 2010
Here in Kentucky we get more than 90% of our electricity from coal. Coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. It is full of toxic elements and solid particulates that get stuck in our lungs when we breathe them. The Clean Air Act of 1970 did a lot to take those solids particulates out of the air using scrubbers. The name evokes an image of large brushes attached to smoke stacks, but that's not quite how it works. The scrubbers take what used to come out of the smokestack by mixing it with water and other chemicals to pull many of the solids out. The resulting slurry also contains many of the toxic substances that the original coal had. The good news is that these toxins are not in the air. The bad news is that they are in the slurry and there are not many federal regulations for coal slurry.
Coal slurry is put in ponds to dry out and then land filled in most cases. In many cases the slurry pond grows quite large because the plant produces it at an alarming rate. The ponds are contained by earthen walls that can give out resulting in a catastrophic spill as was the case in Martin County Kentucky in 2000 and Kingston Tennessee in 2008. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently considers coal slurries as non-hazardous wastes under subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and therefore has few rules on how it is contained and disposed of. Because of the spills that have occurred and resulting release of toxins, the EPA is now considering regulating coal slurries as an RCRA subtitle C hazardous waste. This would mean more steps would have to be taken to keep the toxins contained. Opponents of the plan argue that this would increase the cost of our electricity. Proponents feel that a little extra cost is worth it in terms of human health. Louisville has been chosen as one of seven sites for hearings on the subject. You can sign up to speak on the EPA website.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 23, 2010
Cane Run Coal Ash - August 12, 2010
LG&E Cane Run power plant has a coal ash pile that looms over the pauper cemetery on Cane Run Road.
Mercury, Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, Selenium and other toxins blow in the wind that comes across the pile and leaches into the earth and water. LG&E wants to expand their ash pile. In September the EPA is holding a hearing in Louisville to determine if stricter rules need to be used in the storage of coal ash or coal combustion residuals as the EPA calls it.
In a series of blog posts I will try to look at the issues around this
issue. I visited the site of the existing coal ash pond that was many stories tall and sat an an ominous backdrop to the River View Cemetery where many of our poor citizens are buried.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 12, 2010
Winds of Change - July 17, 2010
On a trip to Chicago this week, my wife and I came upon a surreal sight. Over 200 wind turbines scattered across the landscape about 90 miles north of Indianapolis. Their feet stood in the corn, their heads about 40 stories in the air. A little research told me that this was the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm scattered across Benton County Indiana. 
Phase I was started in 2008 and Phase II in 2009. When fully complete it is supposed to be one of the largest wind farms in the world "and will generate enough carbon-free electricity to power more than 200,000 average American homes." Green energy and green jobs for the region. What company is doing this great investment in the future of energy? BP. That's right the same company that is responsible for the Gulf Oil Disaster is doing something right.
Posted by Tim Darst, July 17, 2010
Louisville Evangelical Speaks Out - July 9, 2010
Dr. Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and preacher at Highview Baptist Church, was recently featured in a National Public Radio story titled "An Evangelical Crusade To Go Green With God." It is good to see clergy speaking out about this important moral issue.
His recent blog entry about the Gulf Oil Disaster and its effects on his hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi, Ecological Catastrophe and the Uneasy Evangelical Conscience is powerful and calls into question our compliance with ecological destruction through our support of free markets and lack of corporate accountability.
Posted by Tim Darst, July 6, 2010
"We abound in the luxury of the peach" - July 6, 2010
Thomas Jefferson wrote this to his granddaughter one early summer when his 160 peach trees at Monticello were fruiting. The peach is native to China where local mythology had it that the immortals ate them for their power of conferring longevity. They were brought to the new world by Spanish explorers in the 16th century and they have flourished here ever since. Besides being juicy and delicious, they have vitamin C, potassium and protein. I planted a peach tree in my front yard four years ago with the help of the guys at The Plant Kingdom and have had a bounty of peaches for the last two years. What a better way to care for God's creation than planting a tree to capture the carbon from the air and provide locally grown produce for my family and friends while it keeps my house cooler with its shade. I have already made peach cobbler and preserves and my wife loves it on her cereal now that the raspberries are waning. My neighbor Jaci helps me pick them and eat them too.
This fall would be a good time to get your own peach tree and you too can "abound in the luxury of the peach."
Posted by Tim Darst, July 6, 2010
Higher electricity rates are here but not wind power - July 3, 2010
The Public Service Commission (PSC) made two decisions in Frankfort on Monday regarding Kentucky Power Company (KPC) that may bode ill for the rest of the state. Kentucky Power Company is the utility that provides electricity to 20 eastern Kentucky counties including the cities of Ashland, Pikeville and Hazard. KPC asked the PSC for two things: an increase in electricity rates and permission to buy wind energy.
Rate Increase
Asking the PSC to approve rate increases is nothing new, utilities do it all the time. Earlier this year LG&E asked for a 12.1% increase to 8.3 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh). KPC asked for an increase from 8.03 cents per kwh to 10.84 cents per kwh - a 34.95% rate increase! The company cited "increased costs of doing business" as the need for the increase, including the cost of storm damage. This is the future of energy in the United States. The cost of supplying energy is going up and exacerbating that is stronger storms and more storm damage due to climate change. We can all expect increases in electricity rates in the near future. KPC did not get their requested increase but did get a 12.5% increase. We will be seeing more of these scale rate increase throughout the state in the coming months.
Wind Energy
KPC also asked for permission to buy wind energy from the Lee-DeKalb Wind Energy Center, a 155-turbine wind farm being built just west of Chicago. The farm, a project of Florida Power & Light, would provide clean "green" energy for 67,500 homes. KPC wants to sign a 20-year contract for the wind and lock in the price because they see renewable energy as the way of the future and want to get in early when the prices are low. They see a mandated Renewable Portfolio Standard on the horizon and want to be ready (See "New Energy for the New Year", December 30 2009). The PSC denied their request for buying clean energy, but the decision was not unanimous. Vice Chairman Jim Gardner said the wind power contract should be approved because the cost of wind power is comparable to other power purchases made by KPC, requirements for renewable power are likely and purchasing wind power now would lead to cost savings over the long term.
Let us hope that the PSC uses better judgment in the future as other Kentucky utilities try to move towards renewable sources of energy.
Posted by Tim Darst, July 3, 2010
Eight Presidents on Solving the Energy Crisis - June 25, 2010
June 15, 2010, President Obama, "Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America's innovation and seize control of our own destiny...The transition away from fossil fuels is going to take some time, but over the last year and a half, we've already taken unprecedented action to jumpstart the clean energy industry."
January 31, 2006, President Bush, "This country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle-Eastern oil a thing of the past."
June 28, 2000, President Clinton, "We need a long-term energy strategy to maximize conservation and maximize the development of alternative sources of energy."
August 18, 1988, President Bush, "There is no security for the United States in further dependence on foreign oil."
February 18, 1981, President Reagan, "We will continue supportive research leading to the development of new technologies and more independence from foreign oil."
July 15, 1979, President Carter, "Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?"
January 15, 1975, President Ford, "A massive program must be initiated to increase energy supply to cut demand, and provide new standby emergency programs to achieve the independence we want by 1985."
January 30, 1974, President Nixon, "We will break the back of the energy crisis. We will lay the foundation for our energy capacity to meet America's energy needs from Americas own sources."
Presidents have been pushing for meaningful energy legislation for decades. The House of Representatives passed an energy bill in June of last year (American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) and now it's up to the Senate. They have a bill (the American Power Act) introduced by Senators Kerry and Lieberman. They simply need to strengthen the bill and pass it this year. Let's all pressure our Senators to make it happen.
Posted by Tim Darst, June 25, 2010
It's like a heatwave burning in my heart - June 18, 2010
Martha and the Vandellas sang these words in their 1963 hit song "Heatwave" and they have been on my mind as meteorologists predict more consecutive days above 90 degrees this coming week. The other day NASA proclaimed this spring as the hottest since we began keeping records in 1861. The National Weather Service says there have already been ten days this year that have topped 90 degrees. There were only 13 in all of 2009. Things have been heating up in Washington also. President Obama pointed to the Gulf Oil Disaster as a good reason to pass new energy legislation to move us towards more sustainable energy solutions. Senator McConnell accused the president of taking us on an "ideological tour of the far-left to-do list."
Rev. Robert L. Jeffrey Sr., the senior pastor at New Hope Baptist Church in Seattle wrote an op-ed piece in The Seattle Times offering a long view and sound advise in these hotter and hotter days, as we witness the horrible environmental damages from the oil spill.
Posted by Tim Darst, June 18, 2010
What do we do about the Gulf Oil Disaster? - June 8, 2010
That is the question I keep hearing lately. Some want BP to move faster and fix it once and for far all. Others have given up on BP and want the US Government to take over. Some have said that they want to drive down to the Gulf Coast and volunteer to help out, but others have said that locals should be paid to help since they are the ones who will bear the economic burden. Whatever we do, it won't be enough to prevent more destruction of countless organisms as the oil continues to spill and we continue to drill. Whatever we do won't be a long-term solution to the problems of the toxicity of oil and the dangers of drilling so deep and for it and in so many places.
What do we do to prevent more disasters? How can we reduce our dependence on oil in general? These are questions we should be asking as well. Reducing our dependence is something many of us have been working on for decades. Here are some things you can do to lighten your oily footprint.
First steps
Reduce your driving overall is a good start. Combining trips rather than taking many short trips throughout the week makes sense. Try riding the bus, just once. Even if it this means driving your car to the nearest bus stop. Making that first trip is a big step towards riding more regularly. Stay at home more often. Eat at home, watch movies at home, wherever you felt you needed to drive to tonight, don't. Walk to restaurants, movies theaters or stores every once in a while, it's good for you. When you do drive, make sure your tires are inflated and don't speed.
Bigger steps
Buy a more efficient car next time you need a new one. Ride your bike to work on Bike-to-Work Day. Buy a bike if you don't have one. Trade your gas-powered lawnmower in for an electric or manual one. Don't fly so many places. A full plane uses almost triple the fuel per person that a full car uses. Vacation closer to home this summer. Try going one day without your car every so often.
Huge steps
Take Greyhound or Amtrak (from Cincinnati or Indy) on your next vacation. Buy an electric car and solar panels for your garage. You will never worry about the price of gas again. Divorce your car altogether. This may sound crazy, but one of five households in Louisville doesn't have a car and they seem to make it work. Move closer to town so you don't have such a long commute and are within walking distance of store and restaurants.
Simply getting mad and not making a change in your own life isn't a long-term solution. Boycotting BP and simply supporting other big oil companies isn't either. Something needs to be done in response to this disaster. What are you going to do?
Posted by Tim Darst, June 8, 2010
Acclimation - May 23, 2010
We don't like change. When the weather turns warm our first instinct is to turn on the air conditioner. Our bodies have been accustomed to cooler weather, not temperatures in the mid to upper 80s. What about a different approach? What if we let our bodies acclimate to the weather a little before turning on the AC. Sure, it will be a little uncomfortable at first, but moving out of our comfort zone can be a good thing.
A little acclimation will allow our bodies to tolerate the weather more and allow us to set our thermostats at a higher setting. For every one degree you raise your thermostat setting you can save 2% on electricity costs and reducing electricity use reduces carbon emissions.
Try a little acclimation this summer and be more in tune with the seasons.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 23, 2010
Spill, Baby, Spill - May 21, 2010
For the last 20 days oil has gushed from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 210,000 gallons per day. That comes to 4.2 million gallons of crude into a marine ecosystem that is already hurting from dead zones and over fishing. The Gulf is home to hundreds of species of fish, at least 28 mammals including the endangered sperm whale and dolphins, reptiles including a number of threatened and endangered turtles, and many endangered corals. Even if the oil never comes ashore the destruction is going to me horrendous and mostly unseen by us.
Why are we drilling offshore?
Our appetite for oil has been steadily growing since the 1850's when we started using it to light our homes. Most recently, our use of oil to fuel our vehicles has skyrocketed as we drive, fly and transport more people and goods than ever before. President and former oil man George W. Bush said in 2006 that "we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil." Most of the easy oil is gone. We are now drilling at great depths in sensitive places like the Gulf of Mexico to feed our oil appetite and in an attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
The Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded on April 20 was drilling in 5,000 feet of water and 13,000 feet under the seabed.
Is there a better option?
Moving away from petroleum to electric vehicles would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and the need to endanger off-shore ecosystems. Electric vehicles could be made in Kentucky where we already have four automotive plants and low electricity rates for manufacturing. But wait, 95% of our electricity in Kentucky comes from coal. So in addition to electric vehicles, Kentucky needs to diversify its electricity sources by adding more renewable sources like solar, wind and hydro power. The combination of the electricity storage capacity of the vehicles and the renewable energy sources would move this nation to a more sustainable energy system. Increasing energy efficiency in our homes and businesses is also crucial. Kentuckians are some of the most wasteful electricity customers in the nation.
The Kerry-Lieberman energy bill introduced today will help level the playing field for renewable energy sources. It is not a perfect bill, but will show the world that the US is serious about making changes. China is already ahead of us in renewable production. Hopefully the Senate and President Obama will take a leadership role in passing this law.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 21, 2010
Earth Day - April 24, 2010
Genesis 2:7 says "then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth" the Hebrew word for man is Adam or a-DAM and the word for earth is Ada-MAH. Adam from Adamah, like humans from humus. We are of the earth. We depend upon it. We would die without it.
Genesis 2:15 says God placed Adam in the garden to till and keep it. The Hebrew word for keep is shamMAR which means "to care for and protect." This is one of the first jobs that God gave to humans - to protect the earth. Are you doing that? How's that going?
Genesis 1:26 says that we "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth." The Hebrew word for dominion raDAH means "higher on the root of a plant." It doesn't mean ownership or unrestricted use. We are given dominion because we have a special place in creation. We have the job of to protecting creation but we also have the ability to destroy it. No other species has such an awesome power. With that awesome power comes awesome responsibility. I look at responsibility as: the ability to respond.
The people who live in the mountain communities of Appalachia need us to respond
The polar bears need us to respond.
All endangered species need us to respond.
Elderly with COPD need us to respond.
Children with asthma need us to respond.
Parents have dominion over their children. I have two daughters and, when they were young, my wife and I had dominion over them. Our job was to protect them and provide them with their basic needs. When we dropped them off as school, their teachers had dominion over them and we expected them to returned to us unharmed. We did not have the right to abuse our dominion.
If a neighbor were to lend you their car, you would have dominion over their car. You could use it but would be expected to return it in the same condition to your neighbor; presumably with the same amount of gas in it.
Genesis 1:28 tells us to "be fruitful and multiply." Okay, we've done that. We can check that off our list. We have in fact an overpopulation problem. One way to look at population growth from the last 10,000 years to is to condense it into a 12-month calendar. So, January 1st would represent the year 8000BC and December 31st would represent the year 2000. Each day would represent about 27 years. Do you follow me? In July, people start writing, using iron tools, and building libraries. In October, Jesus lives, dies and is resurrected. December 24 is a big day, humanity reaches the one billion mark. On December 29 just 5 days later, we reach 2 billion. We add another billion on the 30th and on the 31st, we add a billion in the morning, another in the afternoon and another before midnight. That is how we have gotten to almost 7 billion people today. If we continue growing at this rate and add a check mark on the calendar for each billion we hit. We will have 60 million check marks on January 1st.
All of the nearly 7 billion people on the planet need food, clothing, housing, clean water. They want electricity and cars and all those things we Americans all have. It would take five earths to accomplish that.
This past Thursday marked the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day. If nothing else, Earth Day is a good opportunity for us to look at how we are caring for the earth. Are we using our resources wisely? Are we only using our fair share? While Americans make up only 5% of the world population, we use 25% of its resources.
The good news is that we still have time to change this and it's not about sacrifice. It's about making choices that are more joyful and life giving. Sure we all have a problem with change, but it's easier to change voluntarily now than to be forced to change later.
My wife and I took a good look at our life about 8 years ago. First we looked at our electricity use. Mainly because we knew that 95% of Kentucky's electricity comes from coal and coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, and we blow up mountains and fill in streams to get to it. So, we replaced our incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent ones. You know the ones I'm talking about - the curly ones.
We replaced our old refrigerator with an EnergyStar model because it was wasting energy 24/7.
We turned off lights when we left a room and the tv when we weren't watching it.
We bought an EnergyStar washer and dryer and I quit using the dryer all together. I now use what I call a solar-powered clothes dryer that my wife reminds me is simply a clothes line.
We installed ceiling fans and reduced our air conditioning use.
We also found that many appliances use electricity even when turned off. We now plug them into power strips and turn off the power strips to stop those "phantom loads." We didn't do all this overnight we did it slowly over four years. By the end of the four years we had reduced our energy use by 70%!
Other things we did include buying much of our food from local sources and growing some of our own because the average food item travels 1500 miles before it reaches our table. We visit the farmers' market and look for local products at the grocery.
We try not to buy things with a lot of packaging. We try to reduce what we buy, period. We try to buy reusable items and not disposables. We now buy our milk in returnable glass bottles and don't buy bottled water.
All of these changes we have made we made slowly. We made these changes voluntarily and joyfully. We made these changes in order to live more simply and tread lightly on the earth. We made these choices to be more loving to our neighbors by not polluting our neighbor's air or water. You too can make choices that bring you closer to caring for creation. Start small, move slowly. The important thing is to keep moving, keep growing keep improving keep moving closer to the life that God wants us to live.
Environmental degradation is a social problem like slavery was and racism and sexism and child labor. People of faith led the country away from those social problems and people of faith will lead us out of this problem.
The Rev. Sally Bingham of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco said, "I believe that folks who sit in the pew, who profess a love for God are the ones who should be leading this movement." Remember, in Genesis, God asks us to protect the earth. How are you going to do that?
Posted by Tim Darst, April 21, 2010
Coal is dead! Long live coal! - April 21, 2010
Depending upon who you talk to, coal is either dead or still has a long life ahead of it. Getting to the truth in these matters is difficult because as Jedi Master Yoda said, "Impossible to see the future is."
Here I will try to give both sides of the issue:
Coal is dead: The EPA's restrictions and fights by environmentalists have made it nearly impossible to build new coal-fired power plants. No new plants were built in 2009.
Long live coal: Even if we don't build any more coal plants (LG&E's Trimble plant being built as you read this) the existing plants will be in production for decades to come.
Coal is dead: Coal emits carbon dioxide that causes global warming and must be stopped.
Long live coal: Efforts are underway to find a way to sequester carbon from coal on a large scale. If this is achieved then we don't have to worry about carbon emissions from coal.
Coal is dead: Most of the easy coal is gone. Coal is harder to get to now and will become more expensive as this continues.
Long live coal: We have "200 years of coal" left and it is still the cheapest source of energy.
Coal is dead: Wind and solar are sources that will replace coal and provide green jobs.
Long live coal: We need the coal industry jobs here in Kentucky and not at some solar plant in China.
Coal is dead: Coal is the dirtiest source of energy. Wind and solar are the cleanest.
Long live coal: Coal is the most reliable source of energy. Wind and solar are only available when the wind blows and the sun shines.
It seems to me that both sides are correct. We need new, cleaner, affordable, dependable forms of energy. We also need jobs here in Kentucky. The long-term outlook for coal is bleak. Whether coal is gone in 200 years or 50 years depends upon how fast we use it up. Our rate of consumption is rising as the easier, cleaner coal is disappearing. A good long-term plan would be to start now on a transition away from coal while making sure Kentucky benefits from a new energy paradigm. With some of the lowest energy rates in the country, Kentucky is an ideal location for manufacturing jobs in the wind and solar industry. Meanwhile the coal plants we have on-line now will provide a demand for coal that will support the existing coal workers. The next generation of coal miners should be the first ones to start making wind turbines and solar panels. We already make the Tedlar polyvinyl fluoride film as backsheets for the solar industry at the DuPont plant in Louisville. Solar installation can't be outsourced to China. Incentives from Frankfort can save the jobs that Kentucky will need. Coal companies should diversify now and help transition to the new energy of the future. It won't happen overnight. It will take decades, but we need start now.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 21, 2010
I Live In A Forest - April 13, 2010
I live in a forest of thousands of trees - Oak, Maple, Ash, Pine and Golden Rain Tree. Below the trees flourish a plethora of plants: ferns, flowers, bushes and grass. Within the trees there teems birds, squirrels, opossum and raccoon. While beneath, the groundhogs, chipmunks, mice and rats are plentiful. I take from the forest, firewood to heat my house and food to eat, including cherries, apples, mulberries and greens. I walk below the boughs and watch the denizens of world above as the forage or fight or flirt with one another. I watch the smallest plants as they push through the soil and stretch towards the sun.
I live in a forest that others can't see. I live in a forest with thousands of other people who drive their cars down the streets below the trees and close themselves in the houses between the trunks. They see it only as a neighborhood. How sad that many cannot see the forest at all.
Photo by Michael Jastremski from openphoto.net.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 13, 2010
Meet the recycle brothers - March 30, 2010
Meet the two recycle brothers: Recycle-Able and Recycle-Ed. Recycle-Able looks good and sounds good, but he's more about show than substance. Sure he has potential, but he's a little light when it comes to actualization. He's all talk and no action. Recycle-Ed on the other hand, he's the real thing! Ed puts his money where his mouth is. Don't be fooled by Able and his chasing-arrows symbol. He just wants you to buy him without guilt. He's more about marketing than anything else. Ed, well, now he's been there. He's post-consumer and making a real difference. Sure, he may be a little more expensive, but it's not always about money is it? Guys like Able are a dime a dozen. They are just another broken promise. They use virgin resources and don't think twice. Sure Ed's been around the block a few times, but experience counts in these matters. He's best when he's 100%. So tell me now, who will you be friends with next time you buy something? Ed or Able?
Posted by Tim Darst, March 30, 2010
First multi-family Energy Star rated building in Louisville - March 23, 2010
Housing Partnership, Inc. (HPI) and Catholic Charities have teamed up to convert the old St. Denis parochial school into 34 apartments for low-income seniors. Reusing an old building and providing affordable housing for seniors is a great cause to be sure, but they took extra steps to be more sustainable in the tear-out and construction. According to HPI they recycled 20 tons of metals, 296 tons of concrete and 692 tons of asphalt when they tore out portions of the building, sidewalks and parking lot. The concrete is reduced to gravel in the recycling process and used as fill on construction sites. The asphalt will be used as fill or in asphalt design mix.
In addition to the recycling efforts these two non-profit organizations hired SunWind Power Systems of Floyds Knobs to install a solar-powered water heating system. The system is on the roof and uses the heat of the sun to warm the water that the residents need. The $67,000 system is expected to save each resident about $160 per year on their gas bill and pay for itself in 12.4 years. Lowering the cost of utilities was important for the residents that are on a fixed income.
The Energy Star designation for multifamily projects is a rather new program. This project was an unusually large project for getting such a designation and that is quite an achievement according to Gabe Fritz, Project Manager.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 23, 2010
Farm Ministry - March 13, 2010
Joel Salatin, self described "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist farmer" spoke to about 300 people at the Clifton Center last night about the importance of building a local food system to rescue us from the current system that is failing. He sees the "need to go to a sacred moral high ground" in the production of food, something that is lacking in our current system.
The current system is failing on many levels, Salatin pointed out. The current system is producing food that is unhealthy, in a way that is unsustainable, and that bases its decisions on economics rather than spirituality and morals. The Agrarian Age has been replaced by the Industrial Age in our creation of food. A Restorative Age is needed that will return us to a more environmentally and morally responsible system at all five levels: farming, processing, marketing, accounting and patronage.
He promotes the production of food within local foodsheds to reduce the use of fossil fuels in transportation. Growing many types of food on smaller farms rather than large farms that produce only one crop. Raising and slaughtering animals in a humane manner rather than using large CAFO (confined animal feeding operations) and huge factory-like slaughter houses that are bad for the animals, workers, help the spread of disease and are environmentally unsustainable. His Wikipedia entry says he "considers his farming a ministry." When speaking of the unbearable conditions of slaughterhouse workers, he even made a reference to scripture recalling that the Levites drew straws and took turns at sacrificing animals thus avoiding the problems that workers today suffer from repetitive motion occupations.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 13, 2010
"The time for timidity regarding God's creation is no more." - February 28, 2010
This quote from the Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change calls us to more beyond our hesitations and fears. Many naysayers have pushed back so much that those who know about climate change are shy about bringing the topic up. But we must speak the truth about climate change now more than ever. The US Senate is due to move forward on a bill to answer the House of Representatives Waxman-Markey bill that passed last June. The General Assembly in Frankfort continues to be in denial about global warming and pushes bills that promote coal mining and burning. Talking about global warming at family functions is getting harder because the conservative radio hosts have spread misinformation on the issue. The Republican Party that once supported a presidential candidate (Sen. John McCain) that promised to pass a climate change bill during his campaign, seems to have amnesia all of the sudden and have labeled climate change an Obama issue.
Rev. Sally Bingham has called climate change the most important issue facing the world today. The effects are already being seen around the world and the window of time that we have to slow its progress is closing. People of faith must take a leadership role in this important moral issue. Throughout history social sins like this have been confronted by people of faith: slavery, child labor, sexism, racism, to name a few.
Arguments that the economy will be destroyed were used against the abolition of slavery, child labor and tobacco and they have proved to be unfounded. The time for timidity is no more. We must all act to combat climate change for the good of the whole human family.
Posted by Tim Darst, February 28, 2010
Religion Plays a Big Role in Earth Care - February 22, 2010
About 100 participants at the Interfaith Dialogue on Earth Care in Bowling Green on Saturday discussed whether we can answer the questions of Earth care without religion. The consensus seemed to be that yes, we can, but it would make more sense to include religion. Representative of Islam, Judiasm, Christianity and Buddhism met at Christ Episcopal Church for the all-day conference and share what their faith tradition taught about caring for God's creation. Making policy decisions without a moral compass would not be wise, and where better to look for moral guidance than religion.
"Religion is a very powerful motivator. Religion can be very useful, but it can also stand in the way unless we find our common ground," said Scott Aikin, professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University who proposes an asset-based approach to finding the best of each faith tradition when seeking solutions to the problems we face today.
In addition to Christ Episcopal Church the other faith community sponsors of the event included the Bowling Green Islamic Center, Holy Spirit Catholic Church, The Presbyterian Church (of Bowling Green), State Street United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Church of Bowling Green, State Street Baptist Church and First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
See more coverage at the Bowling Green Daily News.
Posted by Tim Darst, February 22, 2010
The Voice of the Church on Earth - February 15, 2010
IPL National Preach-In
On the Sunday of February 14th (falling on Valentine's Day), the national organization Interfaith Power and Light, invited the churches of the land to participate in a special Preach-In to call attention to the need to be loving in a particular way - loving the earth. The preach-in invited speakers on Sunday morning to speak from the pulpits about global climate change.
Interfaith Power and Light is an organization dedicated to mobilizing a religious response to global climate change. They believe that the religious communities of the world are crucial voice in the work of changing our path and behavior. People are increasingly realizing that religious belief and motivation (or the lack of it) plays a large part of both the problem and the solution. So, even though Interfaith Power and Light is an interfaith organization, I am an Episcopal priest, and so want to address the Christian tradition in particular with this.
Just what does the world need from the church in our day? Is it primarily political action and volunteer activity? It certainly involves those things. But I think in addition, and perhaps more importantly, what the world needs from the church is a Word from God about the earth and a model of how to live rightly upon it. There are many who point to Christianity as part of the problem -- with some good reason. Some Christians feel the need to turn outside the church, to science or more earth-centered religions for a clear message. But I want to say that the Christian church does have in our faith and worship life the right and needed words to speak to the world on behalf of the earth and all living things. I want for the church to claim what we already have in our faith the knowledge of how to live rightly on this planet in this time.
Reverence, Holiness and Justice
Let me share with you three great, Christian traditions that the earth needs to hear from right now: (1) worship and reverence, (2) for holiness and right living, and (3) justice and right relations with others. [With thanks to Dr. Elizabeth A. Johnson, Professor of Theology at Fordham University.]
Worship and Reverence
First, we have, as a gift to the world, the language of worship, reverence and sacredness of all things. We have, in God's covenants with Israel, the word that tells us that God makes covenants not just with Noah and his human descendants, but with the whole created order and every living thing in it. We have in the Psalms, the words that tell us that trees can skip, and mountains can clap their hands, and the sun and moon can speak of God and can bow down. Our Gospels tell us that God personally feeds each bird, and that stones can cry out with Hosannas in recognition of God presence. We know that the land itself is responsive to both sin and righteousness, and that it has the capacity for groaning in pain as it waits for us (the Apostle Paul says) to reveal the righteousness of God.
These things the church can say with strength and conviction, to help not only the church, but also society, business, governments and schools -- see the natural world as God does -- as holy, loved and good in its own right. We can help the world to attune to worship, to feel awe, and to expand the boundaries of their love to all things which are holy and beautiful and worthy of kindness and grace.
Holiness and Right Living
Second, the church has a millennia-long tradition of repentance, self control and holiness. These are words and actions desperately needed in these days of endless cycles of consumption, isolation, anxiety and hurry that keep our blinders in place and underlie our need for more and more things. These are words and practices that can help heal us of addictions, the distractions of noise and busyness, the disconnection and the rage that lies so close to the surface for so many. The church can take a role in helping themselves and others learn to love simplicity and virtue, to practice contentment and moderation; to prefer community over consumption and genuine peace over security through violence. The church has these tools, and the time has well past come to apply them to our present ecological and social realities.
Justice and Right Relations
And third -- the church has a long and established bent toward justice, attention to the least among us, care for the weak and the poor and the marginal. From the very earliest Hebrew Scriptures, the land, the animals, the strangers and the servants were all granted Sabbath rest from the very foundations of creation. Every seventh year was to be an entire Sabbath year, when Israel was not to plant or harvest anything -- neither grapes, grain, nor olives. And what was the reason given in the law? So that the land could rest, the poor could eat, and what the poor left behind, the wild animals could eat.
From its very earliest words, the Judeo-Christian faith has reminded the people that the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it. From its very beginnings the covenant of God has always extended beyond human beings. The Sabbath was for and about all creation. God's feeding and clothing has always included more than human beings. There is nothing in the faith, rightly understood, that supports the right of the human animal to consume the earth at the expense of the rest of God's created order.
It is time the church began to raise a confident voice on behalf of the new poor -- the natural world which, like so many others before it, is now being hunted and exploited to extinction. Its time the church raised its voice to extend the love of neighbor to include the whole community of life -- to be neighbor to the drowning polar bear, the disappearing whooping crane, the fading forests, the eroding soil and all that depend upon it.
The Opportunity
In this struggle is a great religious adventure, because it is God's will that all creatures be fruitful and multiply, as they, like us humans, were originally created to be. Its past time the church clearly said so.
Posted by Fr. Jerry Cappel, February 15, 2010
Living Beyond Our Means - January 27, 2010
When we say that someone is living beyond their means, we usually mean that they are spending more money than they earn. They are borrowing from their future earnings to pay today's bills. As we all know, this is unwise because future income may not be enough to pay future expenses much less the debts we are accumulating. The recent financial crisis showed us what can happen when we borrow too much from our future.
Living beyond our means, I propose, can also be applied to our natural resources. When we use more resources than we are entitled, then we borrow from future generations. We assume that future generations will find a way to live more sustainably than we are. We fear that changing the way we use our resources will cause other problems. These assumptions and fears only make the situation worse.
If you divide the total land available on the Earth into the total number of people on the Earth, you get 4.5 acres per person. That is our fair share. The average U.S. citizen uses 24 acres. If you have three kids in your household and you bake a dozen cookies, then there are four cookies for each child. But if one of them grabs eight cookies and crams them in their mouth, the others would scream "Unfair!".
When we use coal, oil and natural gas at the levels of consumption that we do today, we are being unfair to other countries and to future generations. We only have a limited amount of these fossil fuels. We need to find new solutions to our energy problems, NOW! We can't wait until our current energy sources run out before we find an alternative. The stone age didn't end when they ran out of stones.
We are living beyond our means when it comes to using our natural resources and if we don't wise up soon, an energy crisis will soon make us forget about the financial crisis we saw.
Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
Posted by Tim Darst, January 27, 2010
A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens - January 21, 2010
We are all familiar with the famous quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead that goes: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." That quote came to mind this week as a small group of citizens made their stand on the sidewalk along a busy stretch of Bardstown Road in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville.
They decided to make their stand when a section of the walk was closed for construction. Why is this a problem you may ask? Aren't there bigger fish to fry? Well, let's look at the stats. In 2008, 4,378 pedestrians were killed and 69,000 were injured because they were struck by a car according to walkinginfo.org. Louisville is ranked 7th in the nation in pedestrian safety by Transportation for America. One of the many causes of pedestrian casualties is when sidewalks are closed and pedestrians are faced the choice of walking back several blocks or walking in the street. Additionally, obstructions like this discourage people from walking, the most sustainable mode of transportation.
The Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation (a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens also known as CART) has footage on their website (cartky.org) showing that this particular sidewalk closing has indeed encouraged pedestrians to put their lives on the line and step off the curb to get where they are going.
At issue here is a decision by the construction company not to provide safe passage for walkers during construction. Covered scaffolding would be one option that would allow for foot traffic and at the same time not hinder automobile traffic. "Maintain pedestrian-ways during construction and special events" was actually listed as a major short-term objective (4.3) of the Louisville Community Walkability Plan of 2008. After making calls to Metro Council members, city government and the media, this group decided to bring attention to the problem when it was most needed - rush hour. They stood on the side of the road, one of them in a chicken suit (begging the question - why did the chicken have to cross the road?), and alerted drivers that there were pedestrians in the roadway.
The media showed up and so did Metro police and this small group of people got the attention of the community. Cars were honking in support and just simply honking. People were sticking their heads out of businesses and drivers took notice.
The next day, the construction company moved their fence back four feet to allow for safe passage of pedestrians. Many people were alerted to problem and this small action will undoubtedly have an effect when other sidewalks are considered for closing. They have changed the system, ever so slightly, but moving the world toward greater environmental sustainability and more social justice.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 21, 2010
Scientists call for an end to MTR - January 9, 2010
Mountaintop removal coal mining "needs to be stopped" according to University of Maryland professor, Margaret Palmer who is quoted in a recent Washington Post article and lead author of a new study published Thursday in the journal Science.
The steams below the mining sites, have experienced increased flooding and toxic chemicals that have led to a decrease in biodiversity and increase in human health problems. Selenium levels alone are 800-2000 times higher than normal.
Even many years after the sites are reclaimed by the coal companies, the soil that normally filters out impurities is failing to do so. These streams are home to many species of animals that are low on the food chain and the toxic chemicals slowly work their way up the chain. Drinking water in the area is also adversely affected.
These problems will not be fixed by the recent agreement that the state of Kentucky has made with coal companies as highlighted in an article in yesterday's Courier-Journal.
Fr. John Rausch of Glenmary Home Ministries in Stanton, Kentucky spoke at the Festival of Faiths this last November and said, "We are exposing people to a health hurting situation." (See prior blog post.) This new study confirms Rausch's statement.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 9, 2010
New Energy for the New Year - December 30, 2009
A group of diverse organizations has come together to advocate for cleaner energy for Kentucky. Their agenda calls for changes in the General Assembly to make the Commonwealth more sustainable in its energy use and production.
They are the Kentucky Sustainable Energy Alliance and some of the changes they seek are:
A renewable energy portfolio standard that will require Kentucky utilities to get 12.5% of their electricity from renewable sources. They currently produce only about 3%.
The creation of a Clean Energy Trust Fund that would pay for energy efficiency improvements for low income Kentuckians who are expected to be hit hard by rising energy costs. This would be paid for through a rate increase that would amount to only about $1.22 more per month for the average household.
The creation of feed-in tariffs that would require utilities to pay a more fair rate for the electricity it buys from solar energy installations. This would be a real boost to solar energy in Kentucky as it would greatly increase the payback period.
Pass a resolution that streamlines the permitting process for hydroelectric installations on existing dams.
Require utilities to exhaust all cost-effective demand-side management options prior to granting new facility permits.
Allow local governments to finance up-front costs of energy effciency improvements and renewable energy installations.
Create tax credits for low-impact hydroelectric power and other renewables generated within or near Kentucky that are equal to the coal tax credit.
Support the development of on-bill financing and require utilities to participate once developed. This will allow people to borrow money from the utilities and pay it back through energy savings.
Create a voluntary time-of-day pricing model to encourage us to use our electricity at off-peak hours.
Often times I'm told by people that it is too hard to conserve energy or use renewable sources because our laws don't encourage that. Well here's our chance to see meaningful changes. Look for more from the Kentucky Sustainable Energy Alliance and ask your Kentucky lawmaker about new sustainable energy for the new year.
Posted by Tim Darst, December 30, 2009
"no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data" - December 14, 2009
The Associated Press has completed their examination of the 1,073 emails that were stolen from climate scientists and found "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data." They did find a hesitancy on the part of scientists to release data because of the war waged against them from the climate skeptics. Skeptics have been relentless in their assault on the scientific community but now is the time to work together for a solution. Making reductions in our emissions of greenhouse gases make sense for many reasons, including the promotion of green jobs that are needed in these economic times. Being more efficient and less wasteful always makes sense. Now that the economy has put a pinch on most people's finances, reducing our energy usage makes even more sense. Dwindling resources points to rising prices for coal, oil and natural gas as it is. Now is the time for us to reduce. Now is the time for the world to make progress in reaching a consensus at Copenhagen.
Posted by Tim Darst, December 14, 2009
Advent is the season for imagination - December 14, 2009
Christians are now celebrating Advent, the season that leads up to Christmas. This it typically a time of preparation and waiting. Jack Jezreel, Executive Director of Just Faith Ministries, recently spoke at St. William Church about Advent. "Advent, by definition, is the season of imagination," says Jezreel. What are we waiting and hoping for in Advent? he asks. Not merely Christmas he concludes but for the coming of a more just world. For Christians it is the Reign of God; for Jews, the coming of the Christ; for Muslims the coming of Mahdi. The Pachamamma Alliance says we await a world that it more "socially just, environmentally sustainable and spiritually fulfilling." The imagination is necessary for us to be able to see the world we hope for. We must all have the vision in order to have hope for future.
But waiting does not mean being passive, says Jezreel. "To say that we wait and hope for peace on earth, for justice, for reconciliation and restoration is to claim what we live for and work for." This is a call to action. A call to "be the change you want to see in the world" as Gandhi said. So in this season of Advent and in these trying times, use your imagination and dream a new dream. A dream of hope for a better world.
Posted by Tim Darst, December 14, 2009
BlackFriday - November 18, 2009
As Black Friday approaches it is time to think about our holiday shopping decisions. How will those decisions affect others? What ripple effects are there? Activist and journalist, Shannon Service said "how I lead my life speaks a prayer for the world I want to create," calling us to vote with our dollars. In other words, we should spend our money to support the world we wish to see. Do we want to support sweat shops or fair-trade? Do we want to buy local or send our money overseas? Do we buy material things that require resources and energy (and therefore cause pollution) or do we buy non-material things.
Author, pastor, speaker Brian McLaren said that our current economic system cannot keep "growing beyond the environmental limits" without "resulting in a multifaceted environmental crisis." He says,"It's a delicate balance." "Our lifestyle demands more than the planet can keep giving." Instead he calls for a new form of capitalism that includes a "moral core of concern for the common good." (See "A Delicate Balance" March 17, 2009)
William Gibson, a Presbyterian Minister and author, says "consumerism itself is the substitute, a most unsatisfactory, though addictive, substitute for that which makes human life meaningful and fulfilling." This holiday shopping season let us instead concentrate on loving, caring relationships and not so much on things.
Posted by Tim Darst, November 18, 2009
An Assault on the Image of God - November 14, 2009
Posted by Tim Darst, November 14, 2009
Sacred Water - November 7, 2009
This week, while we take a short break from the rain, we have been looking at water and how if affects us. At the Festival of Faiths (www.interfaithrelations.org) in downtown Louisville, people of faith are studying the sacredness of water and what it means for life on earth. Local activists and the Kentucky Division of Water on Thursday met to discuss whether we should allow LG&E to build another coal-burning plant up river from Louisville in Trimble County. See November 3 C-J article.
Water is something we clearly take for granted, we turn the faucet and we get clean water. We pay little thought to where it comes from or where it goes once we are finished using it. Taking time to consider our relationship with water and how water ties us to the rest of creation is a good exercise for our physical and spiritual health as a people.
At the Festival of Faiths, there are many events that can help us in our contemplation of water. Everything from the sacred traditions around water, to stories from Tori Murden McClure about traveling on water, to ways to provide water to developing nations, and how mountaintop removal coal mining is hurting our water supply.
With regards to the Trimble County coal plant, there are issues about what would happen if the coal slurry broke loose and got into the Ohio River like it did last year in Kingston, TN. What happens when it rains on the large piles of coal sitting next to the plant and heavy metals wash into the river? What about the mercury and arsenic that drift down from the plume and land in waterways? More questions we need to ponder if we plan to keep building coal-fired power plants to meet our rising demand for electricity.
Since the scientists predict more rainfall in Kentucky in the coming years due to climate change, we will have many rainy days to think about water.
Posted by Tim Darst, November 7, 2009
Acting on the Side of Justice - October 19, 2009
Working for social justice means working towards a world where all peoples are treated fairly. It means that we all consider our actions in light of the consequences they may have on others. It means that when 5% of the world population (US) consumes 33% of the world resources it has a responsibility for the consequences. Desmond Tutu, Joanna Macy, Bill McKibben, Mary Evelyn Tucker and others are asking all people of faith to act on the side of justice this Saturday.
Join other folks from the area on Saturday at Waterfront Park to show your support for a socially just world.
Posted by Tim Darst, October 19, 2009
State-of-the-Art Solar in Louisville - October 5, 2009
Over 100 people attended this past Saturday's Louisville Solar Tour, a part of the National Solar Tour held each year. This year's local tour included a dozen sites that included solar water heating, solar electric and passive solar heating. The most exciting project on the tour was an installation by RegenEn Solar on a home in the Highlands that used two newer innovations in solar electricity - thin film panels and Enphase micro inverters. Thin film was featured in Time Magazine's Best Innovations of 2008. Time says: "Unlike the bulky silicon panels that dominate the solar market, Nanosolar thin-film technology is light and extremely cheap to make. The key is the manufacturing process: while silicon panels need to be baked in batches, Nanosolar's thin-film panels roll off the assembly line, as if from a printing press."
Solar panels need inverters, devices that convert the DC energy from the panels to AC energy that most of our household appliances require. In the past, you hooked your array of solar panels to one inverter. The company Enphase Energy makes micro inverters that connect to each panel independently. Among the advantages is the ability to track the performance of each panel and see if one is not performing as it should. Another advantage is that you can buy fewer panels at the onset and add to your array as time goes on, thus making solar more affordable for most homeowners.
Posted by Tim Darst,October 5, 2009
October Means Sweet Potatoes - October 2, 2009
October, to me, means sweet potatoes. Every Spring we plant the short, thin sticks with a few leaves on them that we buy from Bunton Seed Company and by Summer the ground is covered by flowing vines of green. When October comes, we dive in with our hands and a pitchfork, being careful not to skewer a tuber. It's like opening presents wrapped in the soft brown loam. We don't buy sweet potatoes out of season from across the country or around the globe. We wait until October and eat them in season. The anticipation makes the experience all the better. It's part of trying to become a locavore. It also keeps us closer to the earth and more in touch with the seasons. It is one of the reasons that I cherish Fall.
Posted by Tim Darst, October 2, 2009
A Day on the Bus - September 23, 2009
Yesterday was World Car Free Day, celebrated in over 1,000 cities in 40 counties across the globe as a day to fast from your car. With transportation accounting for 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, giving the planet a break for one day isn't such a bad idea.
I planned my World Car Free Day to cross 120 miles and 13 buses in order to meet people for prayer around the city. We prayed for those affected most by climate change and air pollution. I prayed with eight wonderful nuns on the sidewalk in front of the Ursuline Motherhouse on Lexington Road. I met with a Tibetan Buddhist Geshela who chanted prayers with us and two representatives from the Drepung Gomang Instititute. Terry Taylor of Interfaith Paths to Peace shared with me an interfaith prayer at Fourth and Broadway. I prayed in the West End, East End and South End. On the bus, I heard many languages that I assume to be, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and maybe Arabic. I met many folks on the bus including Mormon Missionaries, a Sundanese Lost Boy, and many local folks simply trying to make it to work and back. I was reminded that 20% of the households in Louisville don't have a car and must depend on public transportation. There was excitement when our bus was rear-ended at Sixth and Broadway and we all got out and walked to the next stop.
All in all it was a prayerful day that may or may not have made a difference in the world, but when my great-grandchildren ask me what I did to try to stop global warming, I will tell them.
Posted by Tim Darst, September 23, 2009
Has the Pope Lost His Marbles? - September 18, 2009
This month, the Vatican announced the installation of high-tech solar collectors to help heat and cool its buildings. Last year it installed a huge solar array on the Pope Paul VI Auditorium. Earlier this year the Pope put solar panels on his home in Germany. What gives? Utility companies in Kentucky have been saying that solar energy is a bad investment and that it doesn't pay for itself. Has the Pope lost it?
In his last papal encyclical, Caritas In Veritate, he says, "the environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole." Oh, so maybe he hasn't lost it, he's simply making decisions based on the future and based on moral reasons. So often we only look at things from a short-term financial basis. When you look at things from a long-term perspective and taking into account the effects of your decision on others, maybe it's the Kentucky utility companies that have lost their marbles.
Posted by Tim Darst, September 18, 2009
First Clunkers now Reclunkerators - September 5, 2009
We are all familiar with the wildly popular Cash for Clunkers program that took inefficient automobiles off the streets and replaced them with new more efficient ones while stimulating the economy through auto sales. Well get ready for the next program that I like to call - Cash for Reclunkerators. Cash for Refrigerators just doesn't sound as fun. The program starts next month and will pay consumers with rebates of $50 to $200 to buy a new EnergyStar refrigerator. There is only $300 million available for the program so start looking for a new energy efficient model to replace your old inefficient one. Refrigerators run 24/7 so running one that wastes energy is like throwing money away. With more than 90% of our electricity in Kentucky coming from coal, it is creating a lot more pollution than it needs to. Unlike the clunkers program, the government doesn't require the buyer to trade in their old refrigerator. They trust you to dispose of it on your own. Don't be tempted to put it in the garage to keep that six-pack cold for when you don't want to walk all the way to the kitchen. An energy waster will keep on costing you in the garage like it did in the kitchen.
Photo courtesy of photos.com
Posted by Tim Darst, September 5, 2009
Most Americans think Congress should address Climate Change - August 28, 2009
A recent Zogby poll shows that 67% of Americans feel that Congress is doing enough or should do more to address climate change. Only 28% felt Congress was doing too little. 71% supported the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) that the House of Representatives passed in July. Fifth-four percent believe that the Senate should pass climate change legislation because:
Photo courtesy of photos.com
Posted by Tim Darst, August 28, 2009
Local Woman Writes On Creation Care! - August 17, 2009
Rebecca Barnes-Davies is currently a student at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Her book, 50 Ways to Help Save the Earth, includes practical steps as well as a spiritual perspective to caring for God's creation. Some of the ways will even surprise those seasoned environmentalists.
When asked why creation care is an important issue for people of faith, Rebecca responds, "I think creation care is a vital part of faith. Speaking from my own tradition, it is essential that Christians care for God's world as evidenced throughout our scriptures, tradition, ethical statements (from various denominations), and our experience with the world around us. We cannot ignore the scriptural mandates or the long history of theological, ethical grounding in our tradition that say that we cannot be in covenant with God apart from the covenant God has with all of creation."
I read the book immediately and was impressed by how comprehensive it is as well as how useful. The book is available online at Cokesbury or ask your local bookseller to order it for you.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 17, 2009
Hurryup, Hurryup, Hurryup! - August 8, 2009
My mother-in-law, bless her heart, has Terminal Restlessness Syndrome. It affects many dementia patients making them want to go ... anywhere. They don't recognize where they are so they think they should be somewhere else.
Our society today seems to have a similar syndrome. We all seem to be in a hurry to go somewhere, do something. We can't simply be, we must do. Multitasking is the norm. It is not enough to simply drive our cars, we must talk on the phone, text message, read the paper, eat our meals or any combination of these.
This isn't a new phenomenon either. Henry David Thoreau addressed it in Walden:
We fill our lives with labor saving devices and electronics that keep us busy but don't enhance our lives. The effects of such a lifestyle are unsustainable.
When my mother-in-law gets restless, we take her on slow walks around the neighborhood and talk to her reassuringly. When all of get too busy in our lives we should all take a slow walk and talk to each other reassuringly.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 5, 2009
Weather vs Climate - July 21, 2009
According to Merriam-Webster.com, weather is the state of the atmosphere with respect to heat or cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness. Climate (again Merriam-Webster.com) is the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation. Why the vocab lesson? I have heard a lot of statements lately about climate now that we are having a mild summer. The other day I heard, "I don't see any global warming around here."
Weather, as we all know, is not the same every year, or even every hour for that matter. It changes constantly. Sure there are patterns to weather where we have dry spells and warm spells, but these are all short term compared to climate. Climate is long term. There are trends to climate and have been for as long as the earth has existed. We are currently in a long-term warming trend that scientists tell us is mainly due to the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There will be cool years and warm years, but the overall trend points to warming. When the Wall Street is experiencing a bear market (long-term downward trend) there are still days that the market goes up.
So don't be fooled by the mild summer of 2009. We are still in the midst of global warming. Enjoy the cool days while they last.
Posted by Tim Darst, July 21, 2009
Doubting Thomas - July 3, 2009
Today is the feast day for St. Thomas. Christians will remember him as the doubter. The one who was not in the room when Jesus appeared to his disciples after his death. When Thomas returned to the room he heard the story of Jesus' appearance, but would not believe. He had to see to believe. He wanted to touch the holes in Jesus' hands and stick his finger in the hole in Jesus' chest before he would believe that it truly was Jesus.
Many of us today are like Thomas. We want proof before we believe in something. We want to see before we can believe. Global warming and the scientific evidence for it is not readily visible. Even after tangible events like Hurricane Ike and the ice storm, people want more. Will we have to wait until sea levels rise so much that millions are displaced? Will we have to wait until droughts and flooding reach biblical proportions? Let us pray not.
"Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed" (John 20:29)
Posted by Tim Darst, July 3, 2009
Yarmuth and Chandler do the right thing - June 28, 2009
We at Kentucky IPL are grateful to Congressmen Yarmuth and Chandler for doing the right thing and standing up for God's Creation," said Tim Darst , Executive Director . "Congregations and people of faith throughout Kentucky are working to be good stewards of energy in our homes and houses of worship, but we know we can't do it alone. We need a public policy shift to help us avert the worst impacts of climate change and move our nation to a clean energy economy. That's why word of the passage of this historic legislation is such good news."
Late Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on "The American Clean Energy and Security Act," a historic bill that will help build a new clean energy economy and launch the first national plan of action to address the growing threat of climate change. It combines a declining cap on global warming pollution with support for renewable energy and standards and incentives for improving energy efficiency.
"This is a moral issue and one that should concern all people who believe we have a responsibility to be good stewards of Creation," said The Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, President of the Interfaith Power and Light national campaign. "Each of us must take action and show personal responsibility, but we also need national legislation to address the climate crisis and build a clean energy economy that will create American jobs and reduce global warming pollution."
Posted by Tim Darst, June 28, 2009
Will Ben Chandler do the right thing? - June 25, 2009
Being a Member of Congress is a tough job. You are chosen by the people to lead. To make decisions on behalf of the people you represent and sometimes you have to make difficult choices. There are some issues that you can't make based on opinion polls or corporate lobbyists. For instance, we can't decide on civil rights based on polls, otherwise minorities would always be oppressed by the majority. Congressman Ben Chandler is facing a decision tomorrow about whether to vote for the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The Act will put a limit on carbon emissions and promote cleaner forms of energy. The Act will be the first step in confronting global warming and its devastating effects on millions of people around the world.
The energy lobbyists are spending millions to fight the bill (see ads in Courier-Journal and on television) by spreading fear of rising utility bills. Even though the bill calls for huge payments to utility companies to keep costs down, the lobbyists are being persuasive. In a discussion with a Chandler Washington aide yesterday, the majority of the calls coming in are in opposition to the bill. The aide tells me that the Congressman is "still looking at the bill." All people of faith should call Ben Chandler's offices (Lexington 859-219-1366, Washington 202-225-4706) and let him know that you support the bill and want him to vote for this most important piece of legislation.
As Republican Texas State Representative Charles "Doc" Anderson said about moving away from coal energy, "It's not about Democrat or Republican. It's not about moving left or moving right. It's about moving forward instead of moving backward."
Posted by Tim Darst, June 25, 2009
Your loved one is sick, what will you do? - June 17, 2009
Many of us have faced the situation of a loved one who is ill. We have had children, spouses and parents who suffer from some illness or the other and we want to help them get well. My mother-in-law lives with us because she is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). My wife and I spend a lot of time helping her to feel better. A friend from church is having an operation today for an aneurysm near his heart. We all prayed for him and blessed him on Sunday and the medical team is working diligently to cure him. His wife and three children are very concerned and will doing everything they can to help him get better in the coming weeks after surgery. This is what most of us do when a loved one is sick.
We all have another loved one that is sick, the earth. The earth is not a dead rock, but a living ecosystem that is comprised of billions of life forms tied together with air, water and soil. We can see the symptoms of the illness. The air, water and soil are toxic in many parts of our world. Species are going extinct at the rate of 50,000 per year. Asthma and cancer rates in humans are accelerating. The earth has a fever and is getting warmer. (See June 16 C-J article.
Our loved one is sick and some people are debating whether we should do something about it. Politicians and utilities are saying it will hurt us financially to reduce carbon emissions. Instead of using the most aggressive treatment available, Congress is watering down the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Many of us are continuing to consume energy and resources as if nothing is wrong. We only have one earth and the sicker it gets the sicker we will get. Our loved one is sick, what will you do about it?
Posted by Tim Darst, June 17, 2009
Jesus, Guns and Green - June 8, 2009
I received a phone call last week from one of the religion reporters for our local paper (Louisville's Courier Journal). He was about to make a reporting trip to the Bethel Community Church, where they were planning to host an "Open Carry" church service later this month. Although it was not being held at the normal Sunday worship hour, it was a church sponsored event clearly in favor of the right to own and carry firearms. (For the whole story, click here.)
He (Peter Smith) was wondering if I had any comment. Of course I did. Even though I currently possessed three guns (inherited from my childhood) it seemed pretty clear to me that using the name of Jesus to endorse the right to carry a weapon was plainly and patently wrong. How much clearer does Jesus have to be? In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night before he was to be tortured to death, Jesus rejected the use of weapons as a solution for anything. In that Garden, Peter drew his weapon in defense of himself, his friend, his teacher and his people. If ever there was a right moment to use deadly force in self defense, that was it. The most innocent man on the planet was being taken, in the dark, against the law, and by the force of lies and betrayal. As in any good movie, it was a moment for heroic decision. Peter thought he knew what that heroism should look like (Rambo?). He was wrong.
A couple of years earlier, Peter had left his livelihood, his town and his own family to cast his lot with the One who seemed to be the one who would finally set the Jewish nation in order and deal with the injustice and corruption of the current day. Peter raised his weapon in defense of that conviction. He raised his weapon against injustice and oppression. As citizens we honor and celebrate those who have the courage to rise up as Peter did. A a citizen I can appreciate that. But not Jesus in this moment. "Put away your weapon," Jesus told Peter. "If you live that way, you will die that way." That truth was more than Peter could take in. He ran off into the night, and denied three separate times that he even knew Jesus. I am sure that night Peter felt like he really didn't know Jesus.
Who's Cross? Which Sword?
What is the lesson for us? Was it that God wanted Jesus to die and therefore was not to be defended? Was that then but this is now, and now we disciples should be packing heat? Was his choice to take up a cross the one-time choice to be made by him alone? Or was the choice he made a model for the choice we are all to make? I think the scriptures are pretty clear on this score. "Follow me" is a message delivered by Jesus throughout the gospels. And dying in Christ is a message continued throughout all the epistles. The message of Gethsemane was not that those disciples were to put away their weapons so Jesus could finish his work. The message was that the world will be redeemed only as we take up our crosses for each other rather than weapons against each other. When Peter put his weapon away that night, he never got it out again. Tradition has it he also ended up crucified - upside down. Jesus meant his life to be not just a one-time sacrifice to be accepted by us. He meant his life to be a model to be followed by us. The One who calls us to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, put down our swords and take up our crosses still calls us to that path today.
The Rest of the Planet
Now to make a "green" connection with this. Here it is. Just as the way of redeeming the human violence and abuse in the world is through the way of the cross, so it is with redeeming the violence and abuse of the rest of the planet. The root of both is the same. We are violent to each other because in our fear of loss and of each other we reach for our weapons. We are violent to the rest of created order for the same reason. We grasp and accumulate because we are afraid of coming up short. We will kill the whale and the mountain and even our children's future if by doing so we think we secure the present. We will draw our sword against the present earth as long as we think it will keep life's crosses at bay. Jesus taught us not to run from crosses, but to pick them up. The paradox is, Jesus also said, if we follow, we will find that the yoke is easy and the burden is light. And so will the rest of the world.
Posted by Jerry Cappel, June 8, 2009
It's a sin to waste - June 2, 2009
We heard this growing up. Our parents always told us it was a sin to waste. Usually we heard it when we were trying to get out of eating something we didn't like. Jewish tradition teaches that psolet (Hebrew for waste) is a sin and bal tashchit means "thou shalt not destroy." The Pope recently stated that environmental pollution is a sin.
Congress is taking on waste with the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The bill aims to set minimum standards for energy efficiency for new buildings and appliances. It makes you wonder why we were making inefficient buildings and appliances in the first place. Some hate government mandates, but we used lead paint and leaded gasoline for years despite the health effects and it took a government mandate to get us to change. Let's hope Congress has the courage to make the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 good and strong.
Posted by Tim Darst, June 2, 2009
What would Jesus do about global warming? - May 22, 2009
Faced with the decision of what to do about climate change, the House Energy Commerce Committee voted 33-25 last night to make sweeping changes in our nation's energy use. The bill (HR 2454), called the Waxman-Markey bill or the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) is 932 pages long and calls for an auction of air pollution permits. To the consternation of many environmental groups, some permits will be given away free. The amount of carbon dioxide allowed by the permits will be limited (a carbon cap) and that number will decrease every year. The amount of reduction (18% below 1990 levels by 2020) is well below what most scientists have called for.
The money from the auction will be split into many pieces, with 25% going to oil refineries, coal plants and energy intensive industries. 56% will go to utilities to help keep energy prices low, and provide rebates to low-income consumers. Renewable energy and green job initiatives only get 10%, while another 7% goes to international sources to help prevent tropical deforestation and help people adapt to climate change. The remaining 2% goes to deficit reduction.
There are three other major parts of the bill. The first requires a minimum efficiency standard for all new buildings built. The second calls for a minimum amount of electricity to come from renewable sources and the third deals will the coal industry, specifically a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants.
More details in future blog entries.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 22, 2009
Family Re-Union - The Missing Relatives - May 21, 2009
I was in Maryland last week attending a major family event. Two of them, actually. One was a wedding and one a baby shower (note: not the same couple and not a shotgun wedding). Of course there was much gathering going on - gathering people from long distances, gathering food in abundance, and gathering news and gossip.
It was a weekend full of cousins and grandparents and children and friends. The children ran freely among relatives and family eccentricities were tolerated (for the most part). Differences in lifestyle and viewpoint were smoothed over enough for the event to function. All this was as it should have been.
But as I enjoyed the gathered family, I also felt there were a number of relatives missing from the festivities. I don't mean by this a number of aunts and uncles who just couldn't make it. I don't mean by this some marginal cousins we neglected to invite. And I don't mean they were missing because people missed them. Rather, these were kin that we excluded from us by neglect and forgetfulness as we celebrated among ourselves. These were kin we could have invited in and celebrated with and whose joy could have been added to ours, if only we had thought to include them.
Next of Kin
I am talking about our very extended kin. I am talking about the flora and fauna around us. I am talking about the watershed we drew from and the food chain we ate from. I am talking about those who participate in the economy with us. I am talking about those yet unborn who will inherit from our lives.
They were, of course, included in our festivities - invited or not. You cannot un-invite them, because you cannot separate yourself from them. This family was made up of those related to us by our eating and drinking, traveling and consuming, and just plain living. They participated with us in everything we did. They breathed the same air we did and drank the same water. They flourished or diminished in concert with the choices we were making. We were, consciously or not, blessing or cursing these kin of ours.
Now, do not hear me say that we were all neglectful, selfish and greedy people. We were just folks - lovers of others, protectors and providers for our children and contributors to society. It would do no good to disparage the cars we drove or the food we ate or the trash we created (I flew there myself). I don't think a guilt trip or a good scare is what will bring us to remembrance. I think what we all need is to expand our family circle. We need to gather all our kin into our lives and invite them all to our celebrations. We need a re-union of extended family. We need to re-unite with all our kin.
Extra Chairs
Perhaps here is a way to call this to our minds. During the Passover Seder, an empty chair is set at the table for Elijah. It reminds those gathered that the expectation for Elijah's return keeps him present at the feast. It is said that Elijah visits every Seder gathering. We too could set extra chairs. Perhaps three: one for the poor, one for the children, and one for the rest of creation. That way, these next of kin will be with us and remembered by us. That way, as we ate and drank, travelled to and fro and collected our trash, our remembrance might help us to behave more broadly, kindly and carefully. The empty chairs might move us to this, not by fear or guilt, but by love, joy and generosity. After all, who doesn't love a house full of celebration with lots of happy children and kin?
Posted by Jerry Cappel, May 21, 2009
KIPL goes to Washington - May 6, 2009
I am blogging from Washington DC today because Fr. Jerry Cappel and I are meeting with members of congress to talk about the proposed climate change legislation also known as the Waxman-Markey bill. We found the Kentucky Congressmen that we talked to pretty much split along party lines. Here's what our Senators and Representatives told us:
We met with Sen. Mitch McConnell's aide on energy and she said that the Senator is against a Renewable Portfolio Standard calling it a "draconian mandate."
Sen. Bunning's aide said that they would like to see equal incentives for coal as for renewables.
Congressman John Yarmuth was very supportive of caps on carbon emissions but wanted to make sure that utility rates did not skyrocket during these economic hard times.
Congressman Brett Guthrie, the freshman Republican, "had issues with the current Waxman-Markey bill, but did say that he would support incentives for renewables. He was also concerned about rising utility costs and it's possible adverse effect on businesses, particularly manufacturer's that have chosen Kentucky because if our low electricity rates.
Congressman Ben Chandler is in support of climate change legislation but his aide unable to give specifics what aspects of the bill the congressman supported and didn't support.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 5, 2009
Solar Installation in Progress - May 5, 2009
Earthwell Energy Management employees are busy at it on the roof of Jeff Street Baptist Community at Liberty. The panels are a gift to the community from ASHRAE, the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers. For more information go to www.kentuckyipl.org
Posted by Tim Darst, May 5, 2009
Let there be light - May 1, 2009
Yes, less than two weeks after St. William Church installed solar panels, Jeff Street Baptist Community at Liberty is doing the same. With a donation from ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers) to purchase the panels and installation donated by Earthwell Energy Management, Inc., the congregation is ready to start installation the Monday after Derby.
ASHRAE is paying for the materials as a part of their 2009 sustainable footprint project. They hope to help offset their environmental impact caused by having their conference in Louisville in June. Ken Peet, chair of the Sustainability Subcommittee and President of local LSE Engineering, Inc. says with the help of Kentucky Interfaith Power & Light, "we selected the church due to its existing efforts to save energy."
Check back for updates as the project progresses.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 1, 2009
My morning olfactory walk - April 30, 2009
Leaving home this morning and walking to the bus, I made it a point to be mindful of the smells I encountered. The first smell was the cool, but humid morning air that hit me when I stepped out the door onto my porch. Walking down my street, I caught the aroma of the lilac bush in the front yard of Calvin and Lang's house (my neighbors). The aroma hit me some fifty feet before I got to the bush and peaked as I was passing it.
As I approached the busy Eastern Parkway and Bardstown Road a new smell burned in my nostrils. I could detect a combination of unburned diesel fuel and the burnt carbon smell of the internal combustion engine. After boarding my bus, the smell went away. Even with the windows open on the bus, the smell stayed outside. Questions came to my mind. If everyone smelled what I smelled would we make changes? Does "out of smell out of mind" allow is to keep doing what we are doing? I wondered what it would look like if exhaust were purple? Would we have clouds of purple haze along our streets? If we could see the effects of our behavior would we would do things differently?
Next time you walk out your door be mindful of what you can smell.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 30, 2009
Vatican Expanding Solar Energy - April 24, 2009
In 2007, the Vatican started "using solar energy, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI's concern about conserving the earth's resources" according to this Boston Globe article and this BBC article.
In 2008, the Vatican expanded their solar energy capacity and "announced its intention to become the world's first carbon-neutral state" according to treehugger.com.
Now the Vatican is building "the biggest solar plant in Europe." "It?s a wise investment in every way we look at it," said Umberto Bertele, chairman of the management school at Politecnico di Milano, in an interview with Bloomberg.com.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 24, 2009
Good Friday Mountains - April 10, 2009
This is Holy Week in the Christian tradition. This is a week where the faithful make some attempts to follow Jesus through the dark and difficult events leading up to his crucifixion and burial. It is the main time, I believe, for the church to focus on the shadows of life.
I spent the first part of this week in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, with a group of people trying to raise their own consciousness about the horrors of mountaintop removal coal mining. Mountaintop removal coal mining is a radical form of strip mining where entire tops of mountains are blasted away, the material dumped into the valley (and streams) below, and the coal extracted. It is far less expensive (to the coal companies that is) to extract coal this way than deep mining and other less extreme methods. But it has all sorts of associated costs related to it - flooding, poisoned water supplies, coal dust and cracked foundations from blasting. Oh, yes. And the fact that the mountains are no longer there.
So, we came to do flyovers and hear the stories of land owners and miners in the area. The stories were horrible. Not just for the land, but for the people. It was surprising to me, though, that my most visceral reaction was not so much for damage to the land itself, but for the stories of damage to the people of the land. The stolen land, the broken health and the continued poverty is outrageous. The impunity of the coal companies and the collusion of the civic authorities is shocking. It seemed like we were in some third-world country without the rule of law, where the dictator and his cronies could do whatever they wished without consequence.
There were moments this week where I felt embarrassed to be human. There were moments when I wished that fire would come down and consume the enemies of God. There were times when I just wanted to turn away from the sorrow and loss of a helpless people. And then there is that dull ache and paralysis of grief and my own complicity in the problems. What do we do with all that? How do we continue to be willing to feel all that without turning away? How do we keep our eyes and hearts open in it?
That is where Holy Week comes in. The dark and grieving Psalms, the reminder of deep sin from the prophets, the story of incredible violence in the gospels - there is a gift there if we will have it. It can give us life if we can receive it. This week I felt it open my heart. It opened my heart because I recognized that the faith is not unaware of the depth of our brokenness and the darkness of our shadows. It gave me strength because I knew I was not the first or the last to see and endure such darkness. It empowered me to not turn my face away from the mountains because the faith does not turn its face away either.
Without Holy Week and its unblinking look at sin and darkness, I would have nothing to draw from to help me keep my own eyes open. Without Holy Week and its open-hearted confession of sin, I would not be able to join with the people of the mountains and confess our sins together. Without the cross, Easter Sunday would be a celebration only for those who will not look and do not see. Without Holy Week, we could not have an Easter service on a mountain top removal site. We could only have communion in clean, bright and polite spaces.
So I do not want to rush to Easter. I want to travel the dark road to the cross and the tomb. That road offers the gift of repentance. That road offers the strength to awaken to the places of ignorance, grief, violence and greed. Then I might have it when I encounter my own ignorance, grief, violence and greed. Then I might be more ready for Easter morning, wherever I may be.
Posted by Fr. Jerry Cappel, April 10, 2009
The River of More - April 1, 2009
She was standing on the Bank of Simplicity as the River of More flowed by. I was caught in the current of More and happened to notice her. Her peacefulness caught my eye, for peaceful I was not. Flowing with the river, I had been, looking for happiness always feeling that happiness was just up ahead. The river was full of others wallowing it her fullness. Many had no inking to look to the bank, I was lucky to have done so. She looked me in the eye and made a calm gesture to reach for me. I frantically reached back not knowing what it was that impelled me. The river was swift and getting to the bank was difficult. The lure of the River of More still held sway to my desires. I grabbed onto her hand and she helped me to hold on to the bank. I kept looking back at the others in the river. They looked happy. What was I doing! Nobody else was leaving the river, yet her face standing there on the bank assured me that there is happiness without the river. She helped me up and helped me to see. Those in the river weren't happy at all, just busy searching and hoping in the river. The bank was where true happiness was all the time. There I stood on the Bank of Simplicity watching the River of More flow by.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 1, 2009
Earth Hour - March 24, 2009
Interfaith Power & Light is participating in Earth Hour. You can join us by turning off non-essential lighting in your homes at 8:30 PM local time on March 28th. Your congregation can send a strong message by turning off steeple lights and other outdoor decorative lighting. We are partnering with Earth Hour to send the message that the faith community is concerned about global warming and to demonstrate commitment to finding solutions. Last year, 50 million people representing 400 cities on all seven continents turned out their lights in the largest climate event of all time.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 24, 2009
"A Delicate Balance" - March 17, 2009
Author, pastor, speaker Brian McLaren, speaking to a packed Highland Baptist Church on Sunday night, said that the current economic system cannot keep "growing beyond the environmental limits" without "resulting in a multifaceted environmental crisis." He says,"It's a delicate balance." "Our lifestyle demands more than the planet can keep giving." Instead he calls for a new form of capitalism that includes a "moral core of concern for the common good." McLaren's message resounded well in light of the current financial crisis and climate change that are both facing this country right now. In the past, actions of corporate executives have not been questioned as much as they are now. People are looking more closely when taxpayer dollars are being used. The ethical consequences of global warming are becoming more of a concern as well. Few are ready to throw out capitalism, but many are looking for a newer more ethical form of capitalism for the future.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 17, 2009
First Church in Kentucky to Go Solar - March 1, 2009
St. William Catholic Church will install 15 solar panels on the roof of their church this Saturday, March 7 at 10 am. Sun Wind Power Systems, Inc of Floyd's Knobs, Indiana is donating their time to install the panels with the assistance of the parishioners of this small Catholic community. The panels will generate about 30% of the church's annual electricity needs and are expected to pay for themselves in less than 20 years, but the purpose of the installation is not financial. "Caring for God's creation is one of the themes of Catholic Social Teaching and in line with the social justice focus of our community," said Sharan Benton, Pastoral Administrator of the community. The panels will prevent the emission of over 8,000 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution each year. With the help of Kentucky Interfaith Power & Light, the purchase of the panels were made possible through donations from individual parishioners that were matched by the church. Sacramental Minister, Fr. John Burke, Pastoral Administrator Sharan Benton, and Formation Minister Anne Walter will perform a blessing of the panels before they are hoisted onto the roof.
The 3 kilowatt solar array will be connected to the electrical grid using a net-metering arrangement with LG&E. The net-metering arrangement allows the utility to "buy back" the excess energy produced and eliminates the need to store the energy on-site.
In the past year, St. William Community has been working to be more efficient and conserve energy. They installed compact fluorescent lighting, programmable thermostats, and sealed the building from the cold. For years they have used ceiling fans to cool the sanctuary instead of air conditioning.
Since more than 90% of Kentucky's electricity comes from coal, and much of Kentucky's coal comes from removing mountain tops in Appalachia, reducing electricity usage is important for faith communities. Burning coal releases not only carbon dioxide, but also mercury, sulfur dioxide and other toxins into the air and water. Mountaintop removal coal mining is destructive to ecosystems, streams and lives of the people of Appalachia.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 1, 2009
Power Outage, Power Gain - February 26, 2009
I have heard it said several times over the last few weeks. "It's been a hard year for trees." Indeed it has. First it was the wind storm last fall and then the ice storm this winter. And when it is hard on the trees, it is hard on our electricity.
My wife and I first survived the wind storm with only a few hours of the electric being out at our house. But then the ice storm sent us into darkness and cold for four days. I know that for many people, a loss of electricity like that can be more than inconvenient. It can be dangerous. It can leave people without access to oxygen or medications. It can also prompt some people to make some desperate and foolish mistakes while trying to stay warm.
But I also noticed that in our house, the loss of power was not all bad. For while we lost control over some things (like the encroaching darkness in the evening), some mobility (bound by ice and downed tree limbs), and some connections (no phone or internet), there were some good things as well. And it is those good things that carry a lesson for us.
First, we gained some time. Now, I know that you can't really gain or lose time, but you sure can gain or lose a healthy sense of what time is for. That loss of power suspended a whole set of expectations that we tend to let run our lives. That set is all those things we tell ourselves we just "have to get done." Since we could not drive and could not email and could not make phone calls, we decided we might was well just read or talk or tend to some of those quieter, less urgent (but just as important) things in our lives.
Second, we gained some community. My daughter, now free of phone and internet, first went into a period of shock and paralysis. Eventually, however, as the shock wore off, she came around for some actual conversation. And we all, without a thousand little things to distract us, actually spent some nice time in the same space, at the same time, talking and being with each other. Creating a meal became a community challenge, and we enjoyed them as community victories.
Third, we regained a piece of ourselves. Without the demanding clamor of expectations and the chatter of television, we were able to take the time to hear ourselves think. We were allowed the time to notice how we feel. That always brings some kind of clarity. Sometimes it simply brings the realization of how tired we really are.
All this is nothing new, of course. These are the reasons we take vacations and retreats to reconnect and gain some perspective. These are the things various spiritual disciplines through the ages have admonished us to do - to separate ourselves from the daily routine and take time for our souls.
Here lies the lesson as we face the challenges our environmental crisis is bringing. We must keep before us and before others that the sacrifices being asked of us (living simpler, smaller, slower and closer to home) may well be more gain than sacrifice. Like the graces found in a power outage, we may come to prefer the grace over the power. As we learn to release our grasp, our pace and our distractions, the reconnections we gain will be more than recompense.
The hard question is - will we learn to turn off the lights before they are turned of for us?
Posted by Fr. Jerry Cappel, February 26, 2009
A Sacred Lent to Care for Creation - February 25, 2009
Giving up things for Lent has long been a tradition for Christians. Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the forty days that lead up to the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Making sacrifices may not sound fun, but sacrifice is related to the word sacred. To sacrifice something is to make it holy. The Rev. Sally Bingham of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco has five suggestions of thing we can make sacred this lent:
1. Buy more locally produced food. You can reduce emissions from transportation by buying from farmers markets and eating foods in season rather than foods shipped in from around the globe.
2. Use alternative transportation to work, school, or your place of worship. This is a good way to slow down and find a few extra minutes for contemplation during Lent.
3. Eat less meat. Reducing the amount of meat you consume, even just one day a week, will make a difference in your carbon footprint.
4. Turn down your thermostat. Grab a blanket and add an extra layer of clothing. Even one degree lower will add up to big energy savings.
5. Try a media fast. It can be very rewarding to turn off televisions, computers, and radios a few nights a week and sit down to a board game with your family
Here's your chance to make a change in your life by caring for God's creation and at the same time making Lent meaningful.
Posted by Tim Darst, February 25, 2009
Idling cars are the devil's workshop - February 19, 2009
Why do we idle our cars so much? We idle them in on cold mornings so they are nice an toasty when we start our drive. We idle them when we run into the store to grab a gallon of milk. We idle them as we sit and talk on the cell phone. This time of year, we idle our cars quite a bit. So what's wrong with that?
Metro Louisville Ordinance 72.032 makes it illegal to leave your car running while unattended. The ordinance was adopted after the police were swamped by reports of vehicles being stolen while left running.
There are 114 laws in state, county and local jurisdictions across the country that make it illegal to leave a vehicle idling, many because of the pollution it causes. Pollution from moving vehicles is understandable since you need your car to get to many places, but to pollute for warmth, that's another matter.
The Car Talk guys on public radio have said repeatedly that our modern cars do not need to be warmed up more that 60 seconds before driven.
Some police officers were criticized for using their government-owned vehicles while doing traffic duty "on the side" and leaving the engine running the whole time. The taxpayers were paying the fuel bill! Many other government vehicles run all day long when the drivers are in them or not, moving or not. With the budget problems at the state and local level does it make sense to be so wasteful? Jefferson County Public Schools already have a policy to limit idling of their school buses. Shouldn't all government agencies follow suit?
When we idle our vehicles we pollute our neighbors air. We are polluting God's creation.
Posted by Tim Darst, February 19, 2009
Time to Face the Facts - February 13, 2009
We simply have to face facts, the era of low electricity rates is about to end. LG&E's annoncement that they will request an increase in rates to pay for the cost of storm related repairs ("Ice storm drains cold cash," Courier-Journal, February 12, 2009) is only the beginning. There are a number of factors that point to increases in electricity changes in the coming years-increasing demand for coal, cap and trade regulations for carbon emissions, increasing demand for electricity and climate change. Climatologists tell us that we will experience more severe weather events like the ones we have seen recently. China is building one coal-fired power plant every two weeks and their increasing demand is driving up the cost of coal. Bill Caylor, the President of the Kentucky Coal Association was on WFPL's State of Affairs last week and he claims that the cost of coal will increase by 4 or 5 fold in the near future. Congress has promised legislation to limit and then reduce carbon emissions. A cap and trade system is most likely, though carbon charges (read "carbon tax") is possible too. Either way, new power plants (and Kentucky has six in the works) will have to buy credits or pay the charges for new generating capacity. Finally, we're part of the problem. Kentuckians are some of the most wasteful electricity users in the country, mostly because we have the some of the lowest rates. It took $4.00-per-gallon gasoline to get us out of our SUV's so it will probably take 14 cents per kilowatt hour (it's less than 7 cents now) to get us to change our electricity habits. Not only will this cause us to be more efficient, we will also need to do more for those less fortunate. Many households in Louisville do without a car (20%), but doing without electicity is another thing. Many of our most vulnerable citizens require oxygen, breathing treatments and air conditioning. It's time we face the facts and step up to the challenges that the near future brings.
For more information go to:
http://www.purdue.edu/dp/energy/pdfs/SUFG/publications/SUFG-PCCRC-CO2-Report.pdf
http://www.kaec.org/info/archive08/dialogue.htm
http://www.kaec.org/stand/rates.htm
Posted by Tim Darst, February 13, 2009
Happy New Year - February 8, 2009
Monday, February 9 is Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for Trees. When Rabbi Rapport of the Temple mentioned it to me I was intrigued. Being an uninformed Gentile, I went to Wikipedia and found that Tu B'Shevat "customs include planting trees and eating dried fruits and nuts, especially figs, dates, raisins, carob, and almonds." Remembering the importance of trees is a good tradition that we can all follow. A quick search of the bible at BibleGateway.com gave me 277 instances of the word tree. The bible starts with God creating trees (Genesis 1:11) and ends with the two trees in the the holy city (Revelation 22:19) that have leaves "for the healing of the nations." Knowing that trees have the ability to capture and sequester carbon dioxide makes them more valuable now than ever before. This ability is one that humans are scrambling to replicate in the face of global climate change. Across the state of Kentucky we are confronted with the limbs and trunks of thousands of trees that fell in the wake of the worst ice storm in the state's history. Let's commemorate the New Year of Trees by planting new trees and caring for the ones we still have.
For more information on Tu B'Shevat from Rabbi Rapport, check out www.kentuckyipl.org/TuB'Shevat.pdf
Posted by Tim Darst, February 8, 2009
Building a sustainable neighborhood - January 23, 2009
Louisville has great neighborhoods. Those of us who grew up here sometimes take them for granted, but when you talk to people from out of state they will tell you. Many of the aspects that they mention include: walkability, Mom and Pop businesses, old trees, neighbors caring about neighbors, just to name a few. Sustainability is a concept that has emerged recently. Sustainability is the ability of a system to maintain state or condition. This is often used in terms of maintaining the condition of the environment. The application of sustainability to a neighborhood is an even newer concept. A group of folks in the Clifton neighborhood have been working "ways a neighborhood can function like an ecovillage." Some of the things they are promoting is "farming and permaculture, bioremediation...local food movements, and any organic farming." In Cincinnati, there is a group that has started the Enright Ridge Ecovillage "a community fostering a sustainable urban neighborhood, who promotes preserving the planet through social, economic, and healthy lifestyles and demonstrate urban revitalization using these principals." Some of Louisville's Deer Park neighbors had a meeting the other night to determine if there are ideas that could apply to their neighborhood. I think we will be hearing more about sustainable neighborhoods in the coming years.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 23, 2009
Coal, Our Ace in the Hole - December 16, 2009
Coal, has been Kentucky's ace in the hole for many decades. According to the US Department of Mines and Minerals, there are less than 13,000 Kentucky coal industry jobs today.[1] 2006 Department of Energy data shows that we get 92.3 percent of our electricity from coal in Kentucky.[2] But, the Brookings Institute has ranked Louisville and Lexington among the worst polluted of the 100 largest cites in the US because of our coal pollution. The American Cancer Society has linked coal pollution to premature deaths.[3]
"It is better to act on the prevention (of sickness and environmental problems resulting from coal plants) rather than on the cure," says Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. Environmental groups and the Catholic Church are opposing a plan to build a coal-fired power plant in the Philippines. [5]
It makes sense for Kentucky to not have all of our eggs in one basket and start looking for a new ace in the hole. By diversifying our energy portfolio to say 30% from renewables like hydro, solar and wind, we can give our economy a boost and our lungs a break. Promoting these green jobs by increasing demand and luring a manufacturer to build wind turbines or solar panels is a must. Calling for a moratorium on coal fired power plants will be good for Kentucky. But what about those 13,000 jobs? Well, 80% of the coal mined in Kentucky is exported [4] so moving to other sources of energy production does not mean we will lose all of our coal jobs. What about mountain-top removal? More on that issue, stay tuned.
Sources:
[1] www.mountainjusticesummer.org [2] www.eia.doe.gov [3] www.nrdc.org [4] www.kycoalblog.org [5]newsinfo.inquirer.net
Posted by Tim Darst, January 16, 2009
PSC wants customers to pay for new coal plant - January 6, 2009
Last night, the Public Service Commission held hearings in Louisville and Madisonville in order to get input from the public before approving a rate hike requested by LG&E. Part of the rate increase goes to pay for a new Timble County coal plant according to a press release from parent company E.On. LG&E already receives about $26 million each year from its customers to promote conservation and efficiency. Why isn't E.On doing more with the $26 million to reduce consumption? If it did, then they wouldn't need to construct a new coal-fired power plant.
Cathy Hinko of the Metropolitan Housing Coalition pointed out the impact this rate hike will have on low-income folks in a WHAS-11 story last night. "Many people cite utility costs as part of the reason they become homeless," says Hinko.
"Arrogance, insufferable arrogance on the part of E.On and LG&E," says Rev. Jerome Sutton of the African American Think Tank.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 6, 2009
New Year's Resolution - Stop Recycling - January 2, 2009
As the new year begins many Americans will make resolutions to start doing something that is good for them or stop doing something that is harmful. I would like to propose not recycling for the good of creation. How can this be good for the earth?
Let's start with the mantra of the environmentalist - reduce, reuse, recycle. We see it so often that we hardly even pay attention to it. We should focus on those first two words - reduce and reuse. You probably didn't notice that those words are in order of priority. It is more important to reuse something than it is to recycle it. By the same token, it is better if we don't buy it at all. For example, instead of recycling those magazines of yours, you should be passing them on to someone else to use. Maybe a neighbor, business or charity could use them. Give pet magazines to the Veterinarian office, Readers Digest to a nursing home and the others to a homeless shelter. But don't stop there, you should probably cancel some of those subscriptions and save the trees they were printed on in the first place.
Packaging takes up most of the space in our recycle bins. Those boxes, jars and cans can often times be reused. Use cereal boxes to mail gifts in, glass jars for storing leftovers, milk cartons to plant seeds ... you get the picture. Once again reducing the packaging is the best. Buy in bulk. Get cereal in bags instead of boxes. Refill you laundry detergent jug at the health food store. As a last resort, if you can't find another way, then recycle.
Paper or plastic has long been posed as the moral question when it comes to taking you groceries home. This is the wrong question though, since we shouldn't be putting ourselves in the position of recycling. Using reusable cloth bags is the much preferred option.
Make 2009 the year that we begin not needing to recycle.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 2, 2009
Green Hanukkah - December 26, 2008
As Hanukkah ends this weekend, Jews and Gentiles alike should reflect on what environmental meaning this sacred holiday has for all of us. One family in Texas is doing just that. "Hanukkah is a good time to think about petroleum and oil and resources and scarcity and miracles," Sadeh said. "It's a good new focus for this time of year." See the full story here at HoustonBelief.com
Posted by Tim Darst, December 26, 2008
Faith and the Environment - December 19, 2008
Since environmental issues are seen by many as political issues, and it has often been said that the two topics you shouldn't discuss in public are religion and politics, you may question why anyone would want to blog about faith and the environment. There is a growing awareness that many of the environmental issues we face are moral issues and therefore directly connected to religion. The three Abrahamic religions, and indeed most of the world religions, call on us to care for each other. This call to love your neighbor is found in the Hebrew Scriptures (Leviticus 19:18), the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the Quran (4:36) and in Bhuddism's bodhisattva - the message is universal. Moving beyond our own selfish needs is not only a religious obligation, but also, many feel, an essential need if we are to survive as a people, into the future. Selfishness leads to resentment, anger and violence. Selfishness comes out in many places.
What does this have to do with the environment. If you have ever been camping and arrive at the most beautiful site only to find it littered with remnants of the group that came before you, or if you have been hiking in the woods and come upon trash that someone else didn't bother to carry to the trash can, then you understand. More complex examples include living in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant only to find that the smoke carries mercury with it, poisoning the fish in the nearby lake. Likewise, the people of Appalachia have found that the water they have been drinking from their well or mountain stream for generations is now laced with arsenic from the mountaintop removal operation upstream. It is easy to blame the coal and utility companies for these selfish acts, but you really need to connect the dots to realize that we are the ones to blame. Demand for cheap electricity is increasing. We as consumers are buying more and more electronic devices and consequently using more and more electricity. This complex problem is one of many similar problems to be addressed in this blog, stay tuned for more.
Posted by Tim Darst, December 19, 2008
Coal ash is toxic. It contains mercury, zinc, lead, arsenic and selenium. When the coal ash stored in landfills gets rained on, the toxins wash out and down into the soil deeper and deeper until it reaches ground water. The groundwater at the LG&E Cane Run power plant drains to the Ohio River. The landfill there is in the flood plain. The ash that sits atop the landfill is vulnerable to the winds that blow across the river. That ash finds its way to the yards, homes, streams and lungs of the people of the surrounding neighborhoods.
This Tuesday, August 31 there will be a community discussion about the issue of coal ash at 7 pm at the Shively Community Center. Come out and hear stories from residents, wisdom from faith leaders and learn what you can do about this important problem. Call me at (502) 210-8920 for more information.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 28, 2010
Coal Ash 101 - August 23, 2010
Here in Kentucky we get more than 90% of our electricity from coal. Coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. It is full of toxic elements and solid particulates that get stuck in our lungs when we breathe them. The Clean Air Act of 1970 did a lot to take those solids particulates out of the air using scrubbers. The name evokes an image of large brushes attached to smoke stacks, but that's not quite how it works. The scrubbers take what used to come out of the smokestack by mixing it with water and other chemicals to pull many of the solids out. The resulting slurry also contains many of the toxic substances that the original coal had. The good news is that these toxins are not in the air. The bad news is that they are in the slurry and there are not many federal regulations for coal slurry.
Coal slurry is put in ponds to dry out and then land filled in most cases. In many cases the slurry pond grows quite large because the plant produces it at an alarming rate. The ponds are contained by earthen walls that can give out resulting in a catastrophic spill as was the case in Martin County Kentucky in 2000 and Kingston Tennessee in 2008. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) currently considers coal slurries as non-hazardous wastes under subtitle D of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and therefore has few rules on how it is contained and disposed of. Because of the spills that have occurred and resulting release of toxins, the EPA is now considering regulating coal slurries as an RCRA subtitle C hazardous waste. This would mean more steps would have to be taken to keep the toxins contained. Opponents of the plan argue that this would increase the cost of our electricity. Proponents feel that a little extra cost is worth it in terms of human health. Louisville has been chosen as one of seven sites for hearings on the subject. You can sign up to speak on the EPA website.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 23, 2010
Cane Run Coal Ash - August 12, 2010
LG&E Cane Run power plant has a coal ash pile that looms over the pauper cemetery on Cane Run Road.
Mercury, Arsenic, Lead, Cadmium, Selenium and other toxins blow in the wind that comes across the pile and leaches into the earth and water. LG&E wants to expand their ash pile. In September the EPA is holding a hearing in Louisville to determine if stricter rules need to be used in the storage of coal ash or coal combustion residuals as the EPA calls it.
In a series of blog posts I will try to look at the issues around this
issue. I visited the site of the existing coal ash pond that was many stories tall and sat an an ominous backdrop to the River View Cemetery where many of our poor citizens are buried.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 12, 2010
Winds of Change - July 17, 2010
On a trip to Chicago this week, my wife and I came upon a surreal sight. Over 200 wind turbines scattered across the landscape about 90 miles north of Indianapolis. Their feet stood in the corn, their heads about 40 stories in the air. A little research told me that this was the Fowler Ridge Wind Farm scattered across Benton County Indiana. 
Phase I was started in 2008 and Phase II in 2009. When fully complete it is supposed to be one of the largest wind farms in the world "and will generate enough carbon-free electricity to power more than 200,000 average American homes." Green energy and green jobs for the region. What company is doing this great investment in the future of energy? BP. That's right the same company that is responsible for the Gulf Oil Disaster is doing something right.
Posted by Tim Darst, July 17, 2010
Louisville Evangelical Speaks Out - July 9, 2010
Dr. Russell Moore, dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and preacher at Highview Baptist Church, was recently featured in a National Public Radio story titled "An Evangelical Crusade To Go Green With God." It is good to see clergy speaking out about this important moral issue.
His recent blog entry about the Gulf Oil Disaster and its effects on his hometown of Biloxi, Mississippi, Ecological Catastrophe and the Uneasy Evangelical Conscience is powerful and calls into question our compliance with ecological destruction through our support of free markets and lack of corporate accountability.
Posted by Tim Darst, July 6, 2010
"We abound in the luxury of the peach" - July 6, 2010
Thomas Jefferson wrote this to his granddaughter one early summer when his 160 peach trees at Monticello were fruiting. The peach is native to China where local mythology had it that the immortals ate them for their power of conferring longevity. They were brought to the new world by Spanish explorers in the 16th century and they have flourished here ever since. Besides being juicy and delicious, they have vitamin C, potassium and protein. I planted a peach tree in my front yard four years ago with the help of the guys at The Plant Kingdom and have had a bounty of peaches for the last two years. What a better way to care for God's creation than planting a tree to capture the carbon from the air and provide locally grown produce for my family and friends while it keeps my house cooler with its shade. I have already made peach cobbler and preserves and my wife loves it on her cereal now that the raspberries are waning. My neighbor Jaci helps me pick them and eat them too.
This fall would be a good time to get your own peach tree and you too can "abound in the luxury of the peach."
Posted by Tim Darst, July 6, 2010
Higher electricity rates are here but not wind power - July 3, 2010
The Public Service Commission (PSC) made two decisions in Frankfort on Monday regarding Kentucky Power Company (KPC) that may bode ill for the rest of the state. Kentucky Power Company is the utility that provides electricity to 20 eastern Kentucky counties including the cities of Ashland, Pikeville and Hazard. KPC asked the PSC for two things: an increase in electricity rates and permission to buy wind energy.
Rate Increase
Asking the PSC to approve rate increases is nothing new, utilities do it all the time. Earlier this year LG&E asked for a 12.1% increase to 8.3 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh). KPC asked for an increase from 8.03 cents per kwh to 10.84 cents per kwh - a 34.95% rate increase! The company cited "increased costs of doing business" as the need for the increase, including the cost of storm damage. This is the future of energy in the United States. The cost of supplying energy is going up and exacerbating that is stronger storms and more storm damage due to climate change. We can all expect increases in electricity rates in the near future. KPC did not get their requested increase but did get a 12.5% increase. We will be seeing more of these scale rate increase throughout the state in the coming months.
Wind Energy
KPC also asked for permission to buy wind energy from the Lee-DeKalb Wind Energy Center, a 155-turbine wind farm being built just west of Chicago. The farm, a project of Florida Power & Light, would provide clean "green" energy for 67,500 homes. KPC wants to sign a 20-year contract for the wind and lock in the price because they see renewable energy as the way of the future and want to get in early when the prices are low. They see a mandated Renewable Portfolio Standard on the horizon and want to be ready (See "New Energy for the New Year", December 30 2009). The PSC denied their request for buying clean energy, but the decision was not unanimous. Vice Chairman Jim Gardner said the wind power contract should be approved because the cost of wind power is comparable to other power purchases made by KPC, requirements for renewable power are likely and purchasing wind power now would lead to cost savings over the long term.
Let us hope that the PSC uses better judgment in the future as other Kentucky utilities try to move towards renewable sources of energy.
Posted by Tim Darst, July 3, 2010
Eight Presidents on Solving the Energy Crisis - June 25, 2010
June 15, 2010, President Obama, "Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America's innovation and seize control of our own destiny...The transition away from fossil fuels is going to take some time, but over the last year and a half, we've already taken unprecedented action to jumpstart the clean energy industry."
January 31, 2006, President Bush, "This country can dramatically improve our environment, move beyond a petroleum-based economy and make our dependence on Middle-Eastern oil a thing of the past."
June 28, 2000, President Clinton, "We need a long-term energy strategy to maximize conservation and maximize the development of alternative sources of energy."
August 18, 1988, President Bush, "There is no security for the United States in further dependence on foreign oil."
February 18, 1981, President Reagan, "We will continue supportive research leading to the development of new technologies and more independence from foreign oil."
July 15, 1979, President Carter, "Why have we not been able to get together as a nation to resolve our serious energy problem?"
January 15, 1975, President Ford, "A massive program must be initiated to increase energy supply to cut demand, and provide new standby emergency programs to achieve the independence we want by 1985."
January 30, 1974, President Nixon, "We will break the back of the energy crisis. We will lay the foundation for our energy capacity to meet America's energy needs from Americas own sources."
Presidents have been pushing for meaningful energy legislation for decades. The House of Representatives passed an energy bill in June of last year (American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009) and now it's up to the Senate. They have a bill (the American Power Act) introduced by Senators Kerry and Lieberman. They simply need to strengthen the bill and pass it this year. Let's all pressure our Senators to make it happen.
Posted by Tim Darst, June 25, 2010
It's like a heatwave burning in my heart - June 18, 2010
Martha and the Vandellas sang these words in their 1963 hit song "Heatwave" and they have been on my mind as meteorologists predict more consecutive days above 90 degrees this coming week. The other day NASA proclaimed this spring as the hottest since we began keeping records in 1861. The National Weather Service says there have already been ten days this year that have topped 90 degrees. There were only 13 in all of 2009. Things have been heating up in Washington also. President Obama pointed to the Gulf Oil Disaster as a good reason to pass new energy legislation to move us towards more sustainable energy solutions. Senator McConnell accused the president of taking us on an "ideological tour of the far-left to-do list."
Rev. Robert L. Jeffrey Sr., the senior pastor at New Hope Baptist Church in Seattle wrote an op-ed piece in The Seattle Times offering a long view and sound advise in these hotter and hotter days, as we witness the horrible environmental damages from the oil spill.
"We need courage, persistence, and love for each other and our Earth to be an integral part of building new businesses and new economies. With faith in God, hard work and creative thinking, our citizens will find ways to create effective and sustainable communities."Caring of creation is one of the earliest jobs that God gave to us humans. Taking the job seriously means a burning desire in our hearts. When we see the sad photos of the oil soaked animals, when we feel the heat of the hottest spring on record, may God give us the strength to make good decisions and lead us to a more loving future.
It's like a heatwave burning in my heart I can't keep from crying Tearing me apart
Posted by Tim Darst, June 18, 2010
What do we do about the Gulf Oil Disaster? - June 8, 2010
That is the question I keep hearing lately. Some want BP to move faster and fix it once and for far all. Others have given up on BP and want the US Government to take over. Some have said that they want to drive down to the Gulf Coast and volunteer to help out, but others have said that locals should be paid to help since they are the ones who will bear the economic burden. Whatever we do, it won't be enough to prevent more destruction of countless organisms as the oil continues to spill and we continue to drill. Whatever we do won't be a long-term solution to the problems of the toxicity of oil and the dangers of drilling so deep and for it and in so many places.
What do we do to prevent more disasters? How can we reduce our dependence on oil in general? These are questions we should be asking as well. Reducing our dependence is something many of us have been working on for decades. Here are some things you can do to lighten your oily footprint.
First steps
Reduce your driving overall is a good start. Combining trips rather than taking many short trips throughout the week makes sense. Try riding the bus, just once. Even if it this means driving your car to the nearest bus stop. Making that first trip is a big step towards riding more regularly. Stay at home more often. Eat at home, watch movies at home, wherever you felt you needed to drive to tonight, don't. Walk to restaurants, movies theaters or stores every once in a while, it's good for you. When you do drive, make sure your tires are inflated and don't speed.
Bigger steps
Buy a more efficient car next time you need a new one. Ride your bike to work on Bike-to-Work Day. Buy a bike if you don't have one. Trade your gas-powered lawnmower in for an electric or manual one. Don't fly so many places. A full plane uses almost triple the fuel per person that a full car uses. Vacation closer to home this summer. Try going one day without your car every so often.
Huge steps
Take Greyhound or Amtrak (from Cincinnati or Indy) on your next vacation. Buy an electric car and solar panels for your garage. You will never worry about the price of gas again. Divorce your car altogether. This may sound crazy, but one of five households in Louisville doesn't have a car and they seem to make it work. Move closer to town so you don't have such a long commute and are within walking distance of store and restaurants.
Simply getting mad and not making a change in your own life isn't a long-term solution. Boycotting BP and simply supporting other big oil companies isn't either. Something needs to be done in response to this disaster. What are you going to do?
Posted by Tim Darst, June 8, 2010
Acclimation - May 23, 2010
We don't like change. When the weather turns warm our first instinct is to turn on the air conditioner. Our bodies have been accustomed to cooler weather, not temperatures in the mid to upper 80s. What about a different approach? What if we let our bodies acclimate to the weather a little before turning on the AC. Sure, it will be a little uncomfortable at first, but moving out of our comfort zone can be a good thing.
A little acclimation will allow our bodies to tolerate the weather more and allow us to set our thermostats at a higher setting. For every one degree you raise your thermostat setting you can save 2% on electricity costs and reducing electricity use reduces carbon emissions.
Try a little acclimation this summer and be more in tune with the seasons.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 23, 2010
Spill, Baby, Spill - May 21, 2010
For the last 20 days oil has gushed from the floor of the Gulf of Mexico at the rate of 210,000 gallons per day. That comes to 4.2 million gallons of crude into a marine ecosystem that is already hurting from dead zones and over fishing. The Gulf is home to hundreds of species of fish, at least 28 mammals including the endangered sperm whale and dolphins, reptiles including a number of threatened and endangered turtles, and many endangered corals. Even if the oil never comes ashore the destruction is going to me horrendous and mostly unseen by us.
Why are we drilling offshore?
Our appetite for oil has been steadily growing since the 1850's when we started using it to light our homes. Most recently, our use of oil to fuel our vehicles has skyrocketed as we drive, fly and transport more people and goods than ever before. President and former oil man George W. Bush said in 2006 that "we have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil." Most of the easy oil is gone. We are now drilling at great depths in sensitive places like the Gulf of Mexico to feed our oil appetite and in an attempt to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
The Deepwater Horizon rig that exploded on April 20 was drilling in 5,000 feet of water and 13,000 feet under the seabed.
Is there a better option?
Moving away from petroleum to electric vehicles would reduce our dependence on foreign oil and the need to endanger off-shore ecosystems. Electric vehicles could be made in Kentucky where we already have four automotive plants and low electricity rates for manufacturing. But wait, 95% of our electricity in Kentucky comes from coal. So in addition to electric vehicles, Kentucky needs to diversify its electricity sources by adding more renewable sources like solar, wind and hydro power. The combination of the electricity storage capacity of the vehicles and the renewable energy sources would move this nation to a more sustainable energy system. Increasing energy efficiency in our homes and businesses is also crucial. Kentuckians are some of the most wasteful electricity customers in the nation.
The Kerry-Lieberman energy bill introduced today will help level the playing field for renewable energy sources. It is not a perfect bill, but will show the world that the US is serious about making changes. China is already ahead of us in renewable production. Hopefully the Senate and President Obama will take a leadership role in passing this law.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 21, 2010
Earth Day - April 24, 2010
Genesis 2:7 says "then the Lord God formed man of the dust of the earth" the Hebrew word for man is Adam or a-DAM and the word for earth is Ada-MAH. Adam from Adamah, like humans from humus. We are of the earth. We depend upon it. We would die without it.
Genesis 2:15 says God placed Adam in the garden to till and keep it. The Hebrew word for keep is shamMAR which means "to care for and protect." This is one of the first jobs that God gave to humans - to protect the earth. Are you doing that? How's that going?
Genesis 1:26 says that we "have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth." The Hebrew word for dominion raDAH means "higher on the root of a plant." It doesn't mean ownership or unrestricted use. We are given dominion because we have a special place in creation. We have the job of to protecting creation but we also have the ability to destroy it. No other species has such an awesome power. With that awesome power comes awesome responsibility. I look at responsibility as: the ability to respond.
Parents have dominion over their children. I have two daughters and, when they were young, my wife and I had dominion over them. Our job was to protect them and provide them with their basic needs. When we dropped them off as school, their teachers had dominion over them and we expected them to returned to us unharmed. We did not have the right to abuse our dominion.
If a neighbor were to lend you their car, you would have dominion over their car. You could use it but would be expected to return it in the same condition to your neighbor; presumably with the same amount of gas in it.
Genesis 1:28 tells us to "be fruitful and multiply." Okay, we've done that. We can check that off our list. We have in fact an overpopulation problem. One way to look at population growth from the last 10,000 years to is to condense it into a 12-month calendar. So, January 1st would represent the year 8000BC and December 31st would represent the year 2000. Each day would represent about 27 years. Do you follow me? In July, people start writing, using iron tools, and building libraries. In October, Jesus lives, dies and is resurrected. December 24 is a big day, humanity reaches the one billion mark. On December 29 just 5 days later, we reach 2 billion. We add another billion on the 30th and on the 31st, we add a billion in the morning, another in the afternoon and another before midnight. That is how we have gotten to almost 7 billion people today. If we continue growing at this rate and add a check mark on the calendar for each billion we hit. We will have 60 million check marks on January 1st.
All of the nearly 7 billion people on the planet need food, clothing, housing, clean water. They want electricity and cars and all those things we Americans all have. It would take five earths to accomplish that.
This past Thursday marked the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day. If nothing else, Earth Day is a good opportunity for us to look at how we are caring for the earth. Are we using our resources wisely? Are we only using our fair share? While Americans make up only 5% of the world population, we use 25% of its resources.
The good news is that we still have time to change this and it's not about sacrifice. It's about making choices that are more joyful and life giving. Sure we all have a problem with change, but it's easier to change voluntarily now than to be forced to change later.
My wife and I took a good look at our life about 8 years ago. First we looked at our electricity use. Mainly because we knew that 95% of Kentucky's electricity comes from coal and coal is the dirtiest of the fossil fuels, and we blow up mountains and fill in streams to get to it. So, we replaced our incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescent ones. You know the ones I'm talking about - the curly ones.
We replaced our old refrigerator with an EnergyStar model because it was wasting energy 24/7.
We turned off lights when we left a room and the tv when we weren't watching it.
We bought an EnergyStar washer and dryer and I quit using the dryer all together. I now use what I call a solar-powered clothes dryer that my wife reminds me is simply a clothes line.
We installed ceiling fans and reduced our air conditioning use.
We also found that many appliances use electricity even when turned off. We now plug them into power strips and turn off the power strips to stop those "phantom loads." We didn't do all this overnight we did it slowly over four years. By the end of the four years we had reduced our energy use by 70%!
Other things we did include buying much of our food from local sources and growing some of our own because the average food item travels 1500 miles before it reaches our table. We visit the farmers' market and look for local products at the grocery.
We try not to buy things with a lot of packaging. We try to reduce what we buy, period. We try to buy reusable items and not disposables. We now buy our milk in returnable glass bottles and don't buy bottled water.
All of these changes we have made we made slowly. We made these changes voluntarily and joyfully. We made these changes in order to live more simply and tread lightly on the earth. We made these choices to be more loving to our neighbors by not polluting our neighbor's air or water. You too can make choices that bring you closer to caring for creation. Start small, move slowly. The important thing is to keep moving, keep growing keep improving keep moving closer to the life that God wants us to live.
Environmental degradation is a social problem like slavery was and racism and sexism and child labor. People of faith led the country away from those social problems and people of faith will lead us out of this problem.
The Rev. Sally Bingham of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco said, "I believe that folks who sit in the pew, who profess a love for God are the ones who should be leading this movement." Remember, in Genesis, God asks us to protect the earth. How are you going to do that?
Posted by Tim Darst,
Coal is dead! Long live coal! - April 21, 2010
Depending upon who you talk to, coal is either dead or still has a long life ahead of it. Getting to the truth in these matters is difficult because as Jedi Master Yoda said, "Impossible to see the future is."Here I will try to give both sides of the issue:
Coal is dead: The EPA's restrictions and fights by environmentalists have made it nearly impossible to build new coal-fired power plants. No new plants were built in 2009.
Long live coal: Even if we don't build any more coal plants (LG&E's Trimble plant being built as you read this) the existing plants will be in production for decades to come.
Coal is dead: Coal emits carbon dioxide that causes global warming and must be stopped.
Long live coal: Efforts are underway to find a way to sequester carbon from coal on a large scale. If this is achieved then we don't have to worry about carbon emissions from coal.
Coal is dead: Most of the easy coal is gone. Coal is harder to get to now and will become more expensive as this continues.
Long live coal: We have "200 years of coal" left and it is still the cheapest source of energy.
Coal is dead: Wind and solar are sources that will replace coal and provide green jobs.
Long live coal: We need the coal industry jobs here in Kentucky and not at some solar plant in China.
Coal is dead: Coal is the dirtiest source of energy. Wind and solar are the cleanest.
Long live coal: Coal is the most reliable source of energy. Wind and solar are only available when the wind blows and the sun shines.
It seems to me that both sides are correct. We need new, cleaner, affordable, dependable forms of energy. We also need jobs here in Kentucky. The long-term outlook for coal is bleak. Whether coal is gone in 200 years or 50 years depends upon how fast we use it up. Our rate of consumption is rising as the easier, cleaner coal is disappearing. A good long-term plan would be to start now on a transition away from coal while making sure Kentucky benefits from a new energy paradigm. With some of the lowest energy rates in the country, Kentucky is an ideal location for manufacturing jobs in the wind and solar industry. Meanwhile the coal plants we have on-line now will provide a demand for coal that will support the existing coal workers. The next generation of coal miners should be the first ones to start making wind turbines and solar panels. We already make the Tedlar polyvinyl fluoride film as backsheets for the solar industry at the DuPont plant in Louisville. Solar installation can't be outsourced to China. Incentives from Frankfort can save the jobs that Kentucky will need. Coal companies should diversify now and help transition to the new energy of the future. It won't happen overnight. It will take decades, but we need start now.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 21, 2010
I Live In A Forest - April 13, 2010
I live in a forest of thousands of trees - Oak, Maple, Ash, Pine and Golden Rain Tree. Below the trees flourish a plethora of plants: ferns, flowers, bushes and grass. Within the trees there teems birds, squirrels, opossum and raccoon. While beneath, the groundhogs, chipmunks, mice and rats are plentiful. I take from the forest, firewood to heat my house and food to eat, including cherries, apples, mulberries and greens. I walk below the boughs and watch the denizens of world above as the forage or fight or flirt with one another. I watch the smallest plants as they push through the soil and stretch towards the sun.
I live in a forest that others can't see. I live in a forest with thousands of other people who drive their cars down the streets below the trees and close themselves in the houses between the trunks. They see it only as a neighborhood. How sad that many cannot see the forest at all.
Photo by Michael Jastremski from openphoto.net.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 13, 2010
Meet the recycle brothers - March 30, 2010
Meet the two recycle brothers: Recycle-Able and Recycle-Ed. Recycle-Able looks good and sounds good, but he's more about show than substance. Sure he has potential, but he's a little light when it comes to actualization. He's all talk and no action. Recycle-Ed on the other hand, he's the real thing! Ed puts his money where his mouth is. Don't be fooled by Able and his chasing-arrows symbol. He just wants you to buy him without guilt. He's more about marketing than anything else. Ed, well, now he's been there. He's post-consumer and making a real difference. Sure, he may be a little more expensive, but it's not always about money is it? Guys like Able are a dime a dozen. They are just another broken promise. They use virgin resources and don't think twice. Sure Ed's been around the block a few times, but experience counts in these matters. He's best when he's 100%. So tell me now, who will you be friends with next time you buy something? Ed or Able?
Posted by Tim Darst, March 30, 2010
First multi-family Energy Star rated building in Louisville - March 23, 2010
Housing Partnership, Inc. (HPI) and Catholic Charities have teamed up to convert the old St. Denis parochial school into 34 apartments for low-income seniors. Reusing an old building and providing affordable housing for seniors is a great cause to be sure, but they took extra steps to be more sustainable in the tear-out and construction. According to HPI they recycled 20 tons of metals, 296 tons of concrete and 692 tons of asphalt when they tore out portions of the building, sidewalks and parking lot. The concrete is reduced to gravel in the recycling process and used as fill on construction sites. The asphalt will be used as fill or in asphalt design mix.
In addition to the recycling efforts these two non-profit organizations hired SunWind Power Systems of Floyds Knobs to install a solar-powered water heating system. The system is on the roof and uses the heat of the sun to warm the water that the residents need. The $67,000 system is expected to save each resident about $160 per year on their gas bill and pay for itself in 12.4 years. Lowering the cost of utilities was important for the residents that are on a fixed income.
The Energy Star designation for multifamily projects is a rather new program. This project was an unusually large project for getting such a designation and that is quite an achievement according to Gabe Fritz, Project Manager.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 23, 2010
Farm Ministry - March 13, 2010
Joel Salatin, self described "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist farmer" spoke to about 300 people at the Clifton Center last night about the importance of building a local food system to rescue us from the current system that is failing. He sees the "need to go to a sacred moral high ground" in the production of food, something that is lacking in our current system.
The current system is failing on many levels, Salatin pointed out. The current system is producing food that is unhealthy, in a way that is unsustainable, and that bases its decisions on economics rather than spirituality and morals. The Agrarian Age has been replaced by the Industrial Age in our creation of food. A Restorative Age is needed that will return us to a more environmentally and morally responsible system at all five levels: farming, processing, marketing, accounting and patronage.
He promotes the production of food within local foodsheds to reduce the use of fossil fuels in transportation. Growing many types of food on smaller farms rather than large farms that produce only one crop. Raising and slaughtering animals in a humane manner rather than using large CAFO (confined animal feeding operations) and huge factory-like slaughter houses that are bad for the animals, workers, help the spread of disease and are environmentally unsustainable. His Wikipedia entry says he "considers his farming a ministry." When speaking of the unbearable conditions of slaughterhouse workers, he even made a reference to scripture recalling that the Levites drew straws and took turns at sacrificing animals thus avoiding the problems that workers today suffer from repetitive motion occupations.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 13, 2010
"The time for timidity regarding God's creation is no more." - February 28, 2010
This quote from the Southern Baptist Declaration on the Environment and Climate Change calls us to more beyond our hesitations and fears. Many naysayers have pushed back so much that those who know about climate change are shy about bringing the topic up. But we must speak the truth about climate change now more than ever. The US Senate is due to move forward on a bill to answer the House of Representatives Waxman-Markey bill that passed last June. The General Assembly in Frankfort continues to be in denial about global warming and pushes bills that promote coal mining and burning. Talking about global warming at family functions is getting harder because the conservative radio hosts have spread misinformation on the issue. The Republican Party that once supported a presidential candidate (Sen. John McCain) that promised to pass a climate change bill during his campaign, seems to have amnesia all of the sudden and have labeled climate change an Obama issue.
Rev. Sally Bingham has called climate change the most important issue facing the world today. The effects are already being seen around the world and the window of time that we have to slow its progress is closing. People of faith must take a leadership role in this important moral issue. Throughout history social sins like this have been confronted by people of faith: slavery, child labor, sexism, racism, to name a few.
Arguments that the economy will be destroyed were used against the abolition of slavery, child labor and tobacco and they have proved to be unfounded. The time for timidity is no more. We must all act to combat climate change for the good of the whole human family.
Posted by Tim Darst, February 28, 2010
Religion Plays a Big Role in Earth Care - February 22, 2010
About 100 participants at the Interfaith Dialogue on Earth Care in Bowling Green on Saturday discussed whether we can answer the questions of Earth care without religion. The consensus seemed to be that yes, we can, but it would make more sense to include religion. Representative of Islam, Judiasm, Christianity and Buddhism met at Christ Episcopal Church for the all-day conference and share what their faith tradition taught about caring for God's creation. Making policy decisions without a moral compass would not be wise, and where better to look for moral guidance than religion.
"Religion is a very powerful motivator. Religion can be very useful, but it can also stand in the way unless we find our common ground," said Scott Aikin, professor of philosophy at Vanderbilt University who proposes an asset-based approach to finding the best of each faith tradition when seeking solutions to the problems we face today.
In addition to Christ Episcopal Church the other faith community sponsors of the event included the Bowling Green Islamic Center, Holy Spirit Catholic Church, The Presbyterian Church (of Bowling Green), State Street United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist Church of Bowling Green, State Street Baptist Church and First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).
See more coverage at the Bowling Green Daily News.
Posted by Tim Darst, February 22, 2010
The Voice of the Church on Earth - February 15, 2010
IPL National Preach-In
On the Sunday of February 14th (falling on Valentine's Day), the national organization Interfaith Power and Light, invited the churches of the land to participate in a special Preach-In to call attention to the need to be loving in a particular way - loving the earth. The preach-in invited speakers on Sunday morning to speak from the pulpits about global climate change.
Interfaith Power and Light is an organization dedicated to mobilizing a religious response to global climate change. They believe that the religious communities of the world are crucial voice in the work of changing our path and behavior. People are increasingly realizing that religious belief and motivation (or the lack of it) plays a large part of both the problem and the solution. So, even though Interfaith Power and Light is an interfaith organization, I am an Episcopal priest, and so want to address the Christian tradition in particular with this.
Just what does the world need from the church in our day? Is it primarily political action and volunteer activity? It certainly involves those things. But I think in addition, and perhaps more importantly, what the world needs from the church is a Word from God about the earth and a model of how to live rightly upon it. There are many who point to Christianity as part of the problem -- with some good reason. Some Christians feel the need to turn outside the church, to science or more earth-centered religions for a clear message. But I want to say that the Christian church does have in our faith and worship life the right and needed words to speak to the world on behalf of the earth and all living things. I want for the church to claim what we already have in our faith the knowledge of how to live rightly on this planet in this time.
Reverence, Holiness and Justice
Let me share with you three great, Christian traditions that the earth needs to hear from right now: (1) worship and reverence, (2) for holiness and right living, and (3) justice and right relations with others. [With thanks to Dr. Elizabeth A. Johnson, Professor of Theology at Fordham University.]
Worship and Reverence
First, we have, as a gift to the world, the language of worship, reverence and sacredness of all things. We have, in God's covenants with Israel, the word that tells us that God makes covenants not just with Noah and his human descendants, but with the whole created order and every living thing in it. We have in the Psalms, the words that tell us that trees can skip, and mountains can clap their hands, and the sun and moon can speak of God and can bow down. Our Gospels tell us that God personally feeds each bird, and that stones can cry out with Hosannas in recognition of God presence. We know that the land itself is responsive to both sin and righteousness, and that it has the capacity for groaning in pain as it waits for us (the Apostle Paul says) to reveal the righteousness of God.
These things the church can say with strength and conviction, to help not only the church, but also society, business, governments and schools -- see the natural world as God does -- as holy, loved and good in its own right. We can help the world to attune to worship, to feel awe, and to expand the boundaries of their love to all things which are holy and beautiful and worthy of kindness and grace.
Holiness and Right Living
Second, the church has a millennia-long tradition of repentance, self control and holiness. These are words and actions desperately needed in these days of endless cycles of consumption, isolation, anxiety and hurry that keep our blinders in place and underlie our need for more and more things. These are words and practices that can help heal us of addictions, the distractions of noise and busyness, the disconnection and the rage that lies so close to the surface for so many. The church can take a role in helping themselves and others learn to love simplicity and virtue, to practice contentment and moderation; to prefer community over consumption and genuine peace over security through violence. The church has these tools, and the time has well past come to apply them to our present ecological and social realities.
Justice and Right Relations
And third -- the church has a long and established bent toward justice, attention to the least among us, care for the weak and the poor and the marginal. From the very earliest Hebrew Scriptures, the land, the animals, the strangers and the servants were all granted Sabbath rest from the very foundations of creation. Every seventh year was to be an entire Sabbath year, when Israel was not to plant or harvest anything -- neither grapes, grain, nor olives. And what was the reason given in the law? So that the land could rest, the poor could eat, and what the poor left behind, the wild animals could eat.
From its very earliest words, the Judeo-Christian faith has reminded the people that the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it. From its very beginnings the covenant of God has always extended beyond human beings. The Sabbath was for and about all creation. God's feeding and clothing has always included more than human beings. There is nothing in the faith, rightly understood, that supports the right of the human animal to consume the earth at the expense of the rest of God's created order.
It is time the church began to raise a confident voice on behalf of the new poor -- the natural world which, like so many others before it, is now being hunted and exploited to extinction. Its time the church raised its voice to extend the love of neighbor to include the whole community of life -- to be neighbor to the drowning polar bear, the disappearing whooping crane, the fading forests, the eroding soil and all that depend upon it.
The Opportunity
In this struggle is a great religious adventure, because it is God's will that all creatures be fruitful and multiply, as they, like us humans, were originally created to be. Its past time the church clearly said so.
Posted by Fr. Jerry Cappel, February 15, 2010
Living Beyond Our Means - January 27, 2010
When we say that someone is living beyond their means, we usually mean that they are spending more money than they earn. They are borrowing from their future earnings to pay today's bills. As we all know, this is unwise because future income may not be enough to pay future expenses much less the debts we are accumulating. The recent financial crisis showed us what can happen when we borrow too much from our future.
Living beyond our means, I propose, can also be applied to our natural resources. When we use more resources than we are entitled, then we borrow from future generations. We assume that future generations will find a way to live more sustainably than we are. We fear that changing the way we use our resources will cause other problems. These assumptions and fears only make the situation worse.
If you divide the total land available on the Earth into the total number of people on the Earth, you get 4.5 acres per person. That is our fair share. The average U.S. citizen uses 24 acres. If you have three kids in your household and you bake a dozen cookies, then there are four cookies for each child. But if one of them grabs eight cookies and crams them in their mouth, the others would scream "Unfair!".
When we use coal, oil and natural gas at the levels of consumption that we do today, we are being unfair to other countries and to future generations. We only have a limited amount of these fossil fuels. We need to find new solutions to our energy problems, NOW! We can't wait until our current energy sources run out before we find an alternative. The stone age didn't end when they ran out of stones.
We are living beyond our means when it comes to using our natural resources and if we don't wise up soon, an energy crisis will soon make us forget about the financial crisis we saw.
Photo courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
Posted by Tim Darst, January 27, 2010
A small group of thoughtful, committed citizens - January 21, 2010
We are all familiar with the famous quote from anthropologist Margaret Mead that goes: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." That quote came to mind this week as a small group of citizens made their stand on the sidewalk along a busy stretch of Bardstown Road in the Highlands neighborhood of Louisville.
They decided to make their stand when a section of the walk was closed for construction. Why is this a problem you may ask? Aren't there bigger fish to fry? Well, let's look at the stats. In 2008, 4,378 pedestrians were killed and 69,000 were injured because they were struck by a car according to walkinginfo.org. Louisville is ranked 7th in the nation in pedestrian safety by Transportation for America. One of the many causes of pedestrian casualties is when sidewalks are closed and pedestrians are faced the choice of walking back several blocks or walking in the street. Additionally, obstructions like this discourage people from walking, the most sustainable mode of transportation.
The Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation (a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens also known as CART) has footage on their website (cartky.org) showing that this particular sidewalk closing has indeed encouraged pedestrians to put their lives on the line and step off the curb to get where they are going.
At issue here is a decision by the construction company not to provide safe passage for walkers during construction. Covered scaffolding would be one option that would allow for foot traffic and at the same time not hinder automobile traffic. "Maintain pedestrian-ways during construction and special events" was actually listed as a major short-term objective (4.3) of the Louisville Community Walkability Plan of 2008. After making calls to Metro Council members, city government and the media, this group decided to bring attention to the problem when it was most needed - rush hour. They stood on the side of the road, one of them in a chicken suit (begging the question - why did the chicken have to cross the road?), and alerted drivers that there were pedestrians in the roadway.
The media showed up and so did Metro police and this small group of people got the attention of the community. Cars were honking in support and just simply honking. People were sticking their heads out of businesses and drivers took notice.
The next day, the construction company moved their fence back four feet to allow for safe passage of pedestrians. Many people were alerted to problem and this small action will undoubtedly have an effect when other sidewalks are considered for closing. They have changed the system, ever so slightly, but moving the world toward greater environmental sustainability and more social justice.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 21, 2010
Scientists call for an end to MTR - January 9, 2010
Mountaintop removal coal mining "needs to be stopped" according to University of Maryland professor, Margaret Palmer who is quoted in a recent Washington Post article and lead author of a new study published Thursday in the journal Science.
The steams below the mining sites, have experienced increased flooding and toxic chemicals that have led to a decrease in biodiversity and increase in human health problems. Selenium levels alone are 800-2000 times higher than normal.
"Adult hospitalizations for chronic pulmonary disorders and hypertension are elevated as a function of county-level coal production, as are rates of mortality; lung cancer; and chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease; health problems are for women and men, so effects are not simply a result of direct occupational exposure of predominantly male coal miners"
Even many years after the sites are reclaimed by the coal companies, the soil that normally filters out impurities is failing to do so. These streams are home to many species of animals that are low on the food chain and the toxic chemicals slowly work their way up the chain. Drinking water in the area is also adversely affected.
These problems will not be fixed by the recent agreement that the state of Kentucky has made with coal companies as highlighted in an article in yesterday's Courier-Journal.
Fr. John Rausch of Glenmary Home Ministries in Stanton, Kentucky spoke at the Festival of Faiths this last November and said, "We are exposing people to a health hurting situation." (See prior blog post.) This new study confirms Rausch's statement.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 9, 2010
New Energy for the New Year - December 30, 2009
A group of diverse organizations has come together to advocate for cleaner energy for Kentucky. Their agenda calls for changes in the General Assembly to make the Commonwealth more sustainable in its energy use and production.
They are the Kentucky Sustainable Energy Alliance and some of the changes they seek are:
A renewable energy portfolio standard that will require Kentucky utilities to get 12.5% of their electricity from renewable sources. They currently produce only about 3%.
The creation of a Clean Energy Trust Fund that would pay for energy efficiency improvements for low income Kentuckians who are expected to be hit hard by rising energy costs. This would be paid for through a rate increase that would amount to only about $1.22 more per month for the average household.
The creation of feed-in tariffs that would require utilities to pay a more fair rate for the electricity it buys from solar energy installations. This would be a real boost to solar energy in Kentucky as it would greatly increase the payback period.
Pass a resolution that streamlines the permitting process for hydroelectric installations on existing dams.
Require utilities to exhaust all cost-effective demand-side management options prior to granting new facility permits.
Allow local governments to finance up-front costs of energy effciency improvements and renewable energy installations.
Create tax credits for low-impact hydroelectric power and other renewables generated within or near Kentucky that are equal to the coal tax credit.
Support the development of on-bill financing and require utilities to participate once developed. This will allow people to borrow money from the utilities and pay it back through energy savings.
Create a voluntary time-of-day pricing model to encourage us to use our electricity at off-peak hours.
Often times I'm told by people that it is too hard to conserve energy or use renewable sources because our laws don't encourage that. Well here's our chance to see meaningful changes. Look for more from the Kentucky Sustainable Energy Alliance and ask your Kentucky lawmaker about new sustainable energy for the new year.
Posted by Tim Darst, December 30, 2009
"no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data" - December 14, 2009
The Associated Press has completed their examination of the 1,073 emails that were stolen from climate scientists and found "no evidence of falsification or fabrication of data." They did find a hesitancy on the part of scientists to release data because of the war waged against them from the climate skeptics. Skeptics have been relentless in their assault on the scientific community but now is the time to work together for a solution. Making reductions in our emissions of greenhouse gases make sense for many reasons, including the promotion of green jobs that are needed in these economic times. Being more efficient and less wasteful always makes sense. Now that the economy has put a pinch on most people's finances, reducing our energy usage makes even more sense. Dwindling resources points to rising prices for coal, oil and natural gas as it is. Now is the time for us to reduce. Now is the time for the world to make progress in reaching a consensus at Copenhagen.
Posted by Tim Darst, December 14, 2009
Advent is the season for imagination - December 14, 2009
Christians are now celebrating Advent, the season that leads up to Christmas. This it typically a time of preparation and waiting. Jack Jezreel, Executive Director of Just Faith Ministries, recently spoke at St. William Church about Advent. "Advent, by definition, is the season of imagination," says Jezreel. What are we waiting and hoping for in Advent? he asks. Not merely Christmas he concludes but for the coming of a more just world. For Christians it is the Reign of God; for Jews, the coming of the Christ; for Muslims the coming of Mahdi. The Pachamamma Alliance says we await a world that it more "socially just, environmentally sustainable and spiritually fulfilling." The imagination is necessary for us to be able to see the world we hope for. We must all have the vision in order to have hope for future.
But waiting does not mean being passive, says Jezreel. "To say that we wait and hope for peace on earth, for justice, for reconciliation and restoration is to claim what we live for and work for." This is a call to action. A call to "be the change you want to see in the world" as Gandhi said. So in this season of Advent and in these trying times, use your imagination and dream a new dream. A dream of hope for a better world.
Posted by Tim Darst, December 14, 2009
BlackFriday - November 18, 2009
As Black Friday approaches it is time to think about our holiday shopping decisions. How will those decisions affect others? What ripple effects are there? Activist and journalist, Shannon Service said "how I lead my life speaks a prayer for the world I want to create," calling us to vote with our dollars. In other words, we should spend our money to support the world we wish to see. Do we want to support sweat shops or fair-trade? Do we want to buy local or send our money overseas? Do we buy material things that require resources and energy (and therefore cause pollution) or do we buy non-material things.Author, pastor, speaker Brian McLaren said that our current economic system cannot keep "growing beyond the environmental limits" without "resulting in a multifaceted environmental crisis." He says,"It's a delicate balance." "Our lifestyle demands more than the planet can keep giving." Instead he calls for a new form of capitalism that includes a "moral core of concern for the common good." (See "A Delicate Balance" March 17, 2009)
William Gibson, a Presbyterian Minister and author, says "consumerism itself is the substitute, a most unsatisfactory, though addictive, substitute for that which makes human life meaningful and fulfilling." This holiday shopping season let us instead concentrate on loving, caring relationships and not so much on things.
Posted by Tim Darst, November 18, 2009
An Assault on the Image of God - November 14, 2009
Last week's Festival of Faiths included a panel discussion titled "Get that Coal Out of My Water." The panel included Fr. John Rausch of Glenmary Home Ministries in Stanton, Kentucky. The topic of the discussion was mountaintop removal coal mining and its effects on water quality in Appalachia. "We are exposing people to a health hurting situation," says Rausch, referring to the toxic chemicals that are unearthed in the mining process and then leech into the water supply. Among the toxins are mercury, arsenic, selenium. Arsenic is a suspected carcinogen in humans and selenium damages human nervous systems. Mercury can cause kidney damage in humans and animals.
Rausch spoke of a mountain stream that he shows to people that is colored orange due to the chemicals from the mining. That same stream passes through the yards of young children that live in the vicinity.
When asked if mountaintop removal coal mining was a sin, Rausch replied that it is "an assault on the image of God," and "when we destroy mountains we destroy sacramentality."
Rausch spoke of a mountain stream that he shows to people that is colored orange due to the chemicals from the mining. That same stream passes through the yards of young children that live in the vicinity.
When asked if mountaintop removal coal mining was a sin, Rausch replied that it is "an assault on the image of God," and "when we destroy mountains we destroy sacramentality."
Posted by Tim Darst, November 14, 2009
Sacred Water - November 7, 2009
This week, while we take a short break from the rain, we have been looking at water and how if affects us. At the Festival of Faiths (www.interfaithrelations.org) in downtown Louisville, people of faith are studying the sacredness of water and what it means for life on earth. Local activists and the Kentucky Division of Water on Thursday met to discuss whether we should allow LG&E to build another coal-burning plant up river from Louisville in Trimble County. See November 3 C-J article.
Water is something we clearly take for granted, we turn the faucet and we get clean water. We pay little thought to where it comes from or where it goes once we are finished using it. Taking time to consider our relationship with water and how water ties us to the rest of creation is a good exercise for our physical and spiritual health as a people.
At the Festival of Faiths, there are many events that can help us in our contemplation of water. Everything from the sacred traditions around water, to stories from Tori Murden McClure about traveling on water, to ways to provide water to developing nations, and how mountaintop removal coal mining is hurting our water supply.
With regards to the Trimble County coal plant, there are issues about what would happen if the coal slurry broke loose and got into the Ohio River like it did last year in Kingston, TN. What happens when it rains on the large piles of coal sitting next to the plant and heavy metals wash into the river? What about the mercury and arsenic that drift down from the plume and land in waterways? More questions we need to ponder if we plan to keep building coal-fired power plants to meet our rising demand for electricity.
Since the scientists predict more rainfall in Kentucky in the coming years due to climate change, we will have many rainy days to think about water.
Posted by Tim Darst, November 7, 2009
Acting on the Side of Justice - October 19, 2009
Working for social justice means working towards a world where all peoples are treated fairly. It means that we all consider our actions in light of the consequences they may have on others. It means that when 5% of the world population (US) consumes 33% of the world resources it has a responsibility for the consequences. Desmond Tutu, Joanna Macy, Bill McKibben, Mary Evelyn Tucker and others are asking all people of faith to act on the side of justice this Saturday.
In South Africa we showed that if we act on the side of justice, we have the power to turn tides; on October 24 we have a chance to start turning the tide of climate change. - Desmond TutuThis Saturday in cities accross the world groups are making a statement and drawing a line in the sand. A line at 350 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide, 37 ppm below where we are now. 350ppm is the level scientists believe is a safe level. Join other people of faith in making the commitment to take a stand at www.350.org/faith.
Join other folks from the area on Saturday at Waterfront Park to show your support for a socially just world.
Posted by Tim Darst, October 19, 2009
State-of-the-Art Solar in Louisville - October 5, 2009
Over 100 people attended this past Saturday's Louisville Solar Tour, a part of the National Solar Tour held each year. This year's local tour included a dozen sites that included solar water heating, solar electric and passive solar heating. The most exciting project on the tour was an installation by RegenEn Solar on a home in the Highlands that used two newer innovations in solar electricity - thin film panels and Enphase micro inverters. Thin film was featured in Time Magazine's Best Innovations of 2008. Time says: "Unlike the bulky silicon panels that dominate the solar market, Nanosolar thin-film technology is light and extremely cheap to make. The key is the manufacturing process: while silicon panels need to be baked in batches, Nanosolar's thin-film panels roll off the assembly line, as if from a printing press."
Solar panels need inverters, devices that convert the DC energy from the panels to AC energy that most of our household appliances require. In the past, you hooked your array of solar panels to one inverter. The company Enphase Energy makes micro inverters that connect to each panel independently. Among the advantages is the ability to track the performance of each panel and see if one is not performing as it should. Another advantage is that you can buy fewer panels at the onset and add to your array as time goes on, thus making solar more affordable for most homeowners.
Posted by Tim Darst,October 5, 2009
October Means Sweet Potatoes - October 2, 2009
October, to me, means sweet potatoes. Every Spring we plant the short, thin sticks with a few leaves on them that we buy from Bunton Seed Company and by Summer the ground is covered by flowing vines of green. When October comes, we dive in with our hands and a pitchfork, being careful not to skewer a tuber. It's like opening presents wrapped in the soft brown loam. We don't buy sweet potatoes out of season from across the country or around the globe. We wait until October and eat them in season. The anticipation makes the experience all the better. It's part of trying to become a locavore. It also keeps us closer to the earth and more in touch with the seasons. It is one of the reasons that I cherish Fall.
Posted by Tim Darst, October 2, 2009
A Day on the Bus - September 23, 2009
Yesterday was World Car Free Day, celebrated in over 1,000 cities in 40 counties across the globe as a day to fast from your car. With transportation accounting for 30% of carbon dioxide emissions, giving the planet a break for one day isn't such a bad idea.
I planned my World Car Free Day to cross 120 miles and 13 buses in order to meet people for prayer around the city. We prayed for those affected most by climate change and air pollution. I prayed with eight wonderful nuns on the sidewalk in front of the Ursuline Motherhouse on Lexington Road. I met with a Tibetan Buddhist Geshela who chanted prayers with us and two representatives from the Drepung Gomang Instititute. Terry Taylor of Interfaith Paths to Peace shared with me an interfaith prayer at Fourth and Broadway. I prayed in the West End, East End and South End. On the bus, I heard many languages that I assume to be, Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese, and maybe Arabic. I met many folks on the bus including Mormon Missionaries, a Sundanese Lost Boy, and many local folks simply trying to make it to work and back. I was reminded that 20% of the households in Louisville don't have a car and must depend on public transportation. There was excitement when our bus was rear-ended at Sixth and Broadway and we all got out and walked to the next stop.
All in all it was a prayerful day that may or may not have made a difference in the world, but when my great-grandchildren ask me what I did to try to stop global warming, I will tell them.
Posted by Tim Darst, September 23, 2009
Has the Pope Lost His Marbles? - September 18, 2009
This month, the Vatican announced the installation of high-tech solar collectors to help heat and cool its buildings. Last year it installed a huge solar array on the Pope Paul VI Auditorium. Earlier this year the Pope put solar panels on his home in Germany. What gives? Utility companies in Kentucky have been saying that solar energy is a bad investment and that it doesn't pay for itself. Has the Pope lost it?
In his last papal encyclical, Caritas In Veritate, he says, "the environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole." Oh, so maybe he hasn't lost it, he's simply making decisions based on the future and based on moral reasons. So often we only look at things from a short-term financial basis. When you look at things from a long-term perspective and taking into account the effects of your decision on others, maybe it's the Kentucky utility companies that have lost their marbles.
Posted by Tim Darst, September 18, 2009
First Clunkers now Reclunkerators - September 5, 2009
We are all familiar with the wildly popular Cash for Clunkers program that took inefficient automobiles off the streets and replaced them with new more efficient ones while stimulating the economy through auto sales. Well get ready for the next program that I like to call - Cash for Reclunkerators. Cash for Refrigerators just doesn't sound as fun. The program starts next month and will pay consumers with rebates of $50 to $200 to buy a new EnergyStar refrigerator. There is only $300 million available for the program so start looking for a new energy efficient model to replace your old inefficient one. Refrigerators run 24/7 so running one that wastes energy is like throwing money away. With more than 90% of our electricity in Kentucky coming from coal, it is creating a lot more pollution than it needs to. Unlike the clunkers program, the government doesn't require the buyer to trade in their old refrigerator. They trust you to dispose of it on your own. Don't be tempted to put it in the garage to keep that six-pack cold for when you don't want to walk all the way to the kitchen. An energy waster will keep on costing you in the garage like it did in the kitchen.Photo courtesy of photos.com
Posted by Tim Darst, September 5, 2009
Most Americans think Congress should address Climate Change - August 28, 2009
A recent Zogby poll shows that 67% of Americans feel that Congress is doing enough or should do more to address climate change. Only 28% felt Congress was doing too little. 71% supported the passage of the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) that the House of Representatives passed in July. Fifth-four percent believe that the Senate should pass climate change legislation because:
"we need a new energy plan right now that invests in American, renewable energy sources like wind and solar, in order to create clean energy jobs, address global warming and reduce our dependency on foreign oil."Senators Mitch McConnell and Jim Bunning need to listen to the voters when climate change legislation comes up in the Senate next month. Readers of this blog should call the Senators and let them know how you want them to vote.
Photo courtesy of photos.com
Posted by Tim Darst, August 28, 2009
Local Woman Writes On Creation Care! - August 17, 2009
Rebecca Barnes-Davies is currently a student at the Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Her book, 50 Ways to Help Save the Earth, includes practical steps as well as a spiritual perspective to caring for God's creation. Some of the ways will even surprise those seasoned environmentalists.
When asked why creation care is an important issue for people of faith, Rebecca responds, "I think creation care is a vital part of faith. Speaking from my own tradition, it is essential that Christians care for God's world as evidenced throughout our scriptures, tradition, ethical statements (from various denominations), and our experience with the world around us. We cannot ignore the scriptural mandates or the long history of theological, ethical grounding in our tradition that say that we cannot be in covenant with God apart from the covenant God has with all of creation."
I read the book immediately and was impressed by how comprehensive it is as well as how useful. The book is available online at Cokesbury or ask your local bookseller to order it for you.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 17, 2009
Hurryup, Hurryup, Hurryup! - August 8, 2009
My mother-in-law, bless her heart, has Terminal Restlessness Syndrome. It affects many dementia patients making them want to go ... anywhere. They don't recognize where they are so they think they should be somewhere else.
Our society today seems to have a similar syndrome. We all seem to be in a hurry to go somewhere, do something. We can't simply be, we must do. Multitasking is the norm. It is not enough to simply drive our cars, we must talk on the phone, text message, read the paper, eat our meals or any combination of these.
This isn't a new phenomenon either. Henry David Thoreau addressed it in Walden:
"Why should we live with such a hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine tomorrow."Benjamin Hoff in "The Tao of Pooh" (Penguin Books, 1985) calls us Bisy Backson (Busy, back soon) and says:
"Our Bisy Backson religions, sciences, and business ethics have tried their hardest to convince us that there is a Great Reward waiting for us somewhere, and that what we have to do is spend our lives working like lunatics to catch up with it."Having clear roots in Puritanism, we do indeed seem to be working harder and harder, moving faster and faster. I worked with a young woman once who was in such a hurry she didn't have time to prepare a meal so she stopped at a fast food place on the way to work. She was so busy driving to work and working at her desk that about mid morning she threw most of the food away because it was cold. She would dash off to lunch and return with a styrofoam container that she took bites from as she worked through the afternoon. Then she would often grab dinner at a drive thru on the way home.
We fill our lives with labor saving devices and electronics that keep us busy but don't enhance our lives. The effects of such a lifestyle are unsustainable.
When my mother-in-law gets restless, we take her on slow walks around the neighborhood and talk to her reassuringly. When all of get too busy in our lives we should all take a slow walk and talk to each other reassuringly.
Posted by Tim Darst, August 5, 2009
Weather vs Climate - July 21, 2009
According to Merriam-Webster.com, weather is the state of the atmosphere with respect to heat or cold, wetness or dryness, calm or storm, clearness or cloudiness. Climate (again Merriam-Webster.com) is the average course or condition of the weather at a place usually over a period of years as exhibited by temperature, wind velocity, and precipitation. Why the vocab lesson? I have heard a lot of statements lately about climate now that we are having a mild summer. The other day I heard, "I don't see any global warming around here."
Weather, as we all know, is not the same every year, or even every hour for that matter. It changes constantly. Sure there are patterns to weather where we have dry spells and warm spells, but these are all short term compared to climate. Climate is long term. There are trends to climate and have been for as long as the earth has existed. We are currently in a long-term warming trend that scientists tell us is mainly due to the build up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. There will be cool years and warm years, but the overall trend points to warming. When the Wall Street is experiencing a bear market (long-term downward trend) there are still days that the market goes up.
So don't be fooled by the mild summer of 2009. We are still in the midst of global warming. Enjoy the cool days while they last.
Posted by Tim Darst, July 21, 2009
Doubting Thomas - July 3, 2009
Today is the feast day for St. Thomas. Christians will remember him as the doubter. The one who was not in the room when Jesus appeared to his disciples after his death. When Thomas returned to the room he heard the story of Jesus' appearance, but would not believe. He had to see to believe. He wanted to touch the holes in Jesus' hands and stick his finger in the hole in Jesus' chest before he would believe that it truly was Jesus.
Many of us today are like Thomas. We want proof before we believe in something. We want to see before we can believe. Global warming and the scientific evidence for it is not readily visible. Even after tangible events like Hurricane Ike and the ice storm, people want more. Will we have to wait until sea levels rise so much that millions are displaced? Will we have to wait until droughts and flooding reach biblical proportions? Let us pray not.
"Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed" (John 20:29)
Posted by Tim Darst, July 3, 2009
Yarmuth and Chandler do the right thing - June 28, 2009
We at Kentucky IPL are grateful to Congressmen Yarmuth and Chandler for doing the right thing and standing up for God's Creation," said Tim Darst , Executive Director . "Congregations and people of faith throughout Kentucky are working to be good stewards of energy in our homes and houses of worship, but we know we can't do it alone. We need a public policy shift to help us avert the worst impacts of climate change and move our nation to a clean energy economy. That's why word of the passage of this historic legislation is such good news."
Late Friday, the U.S. House of Representatives voted on "The American Clean Energy and Security Act," a historic bill that will help build a new clean energy economy and launch the first national plan of action to address the growing threat of climate change. It combines a declining cap on global warming pollution with support for renewable energy and standards and incentives for improving energy efficiency.
"This is a moral issue and one that should concern all people who believe we have a responsibility to be good stewards of Creation," said The Rev. Canon Sally Bingham, President of the Interfaith Power and Light national campaign. "Each of us must take action and show personal responsibility, but we also need national legislation to address the climate crisis and build a clean energy economy that will create American jobs and reduce global warming pollution."
Posted by Tim Darst, June 28, 2009
Will Ben Chandler do the right thing? - June 25, 2009
Being a Member of Congress is a tough job. You are chosen by the people to lead. To make decisions on behalf of the people you represent and sometimes you have to make difficult choices. There are some issues that you can't make based on opinion polls or corporate lobbyists. For instance, we can't decide on civil rights based on polls, otherwise minorities would always be oppressed by the majority. Congressman Ben Chandler is facing a decision tomorrow about whether to vote for the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The Act will put a limit on carbon emissions and promote cleaner forms of energy. The Act will be the first step in confronting global warming and its devastating effects on millions of people around the world.
The energy lobbyists are spending millions to fight the bill (see ads in Courier-Journal and on television) by spreading fear of rising utility bills. Even though the bill calls for huge payments to utility companies to keep costs down, the lobbyists are being persuasive. In a discussion with a Chandler Washington aide yesterday, the majority of the calls coming in are in opposition to the bill. The aide tells me that the Congressman is "still looking at the bill." All people of faith should call Ben Chandler's offices (Lexington 859-219-1366, Washington 202-225-4706) and let him know that you support the bill and want him to vote for this most important piece of legislation.
As Republican Texas State Representative Charles "Doc" Anderson said about moving away from coal energy, "It's not about Democrat or Republican. It's not about moving left or moving right. It's about moving forward instead of moving backward."
Posted by Tim Darst, June 25, 2009
Your loved one is sick, what will you do? - June 17, 2009
Many of us have faced the situation of a loved one who is ill. We have had children, spouses and parents who suffer from some illness or the other and we want to help them get well. My mother-in-law lives with us because she is suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease). My wife and I spend a lot of time helping her to feel better. A friend from church is having an operation today for an aneurysm near his heart. We all prayed for him and blessed him on Sunday and the medical team is working diligently to cure him. His wife and three children are very concerned and will doing everything they can to help him get better in the coming weeks after surgery. This is what most of us do when a loved one is sick.
We all have another loved one that is sick, the earth. The earth is not a dead rock, but a living ecosystem that is comprised of billions of life forms tied together with air, water and soil. We can see the symptoms of the illness. The air, water and soil are toxic in many parts of our world. Species are going extinct at the rate of 50,000 per year. Asthma and cancer rates in humans are accelerating. The earth has a fever and is getting warmer. (See June 16 C-J article.
Our loved one is sick and some people are debating whether we should do something about it. Politicians and utilities are saying it will hurt us financially to reduce carbon emissions. Instead of using the most aggressive treatment available, Congress is watering down the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Many of us are continuing to consume energy and resources as if nothing is wrong. We only have one earth and the sicker it gets the sicker we will get. Our loved one is sick, what will you do about it?
Posted by Tim Darst, June 17, 2009
Jesus, Guns and Green - June 8, 2009
I received a phone call last week from one of the religion reporters for our local paper (Louisville's Courier Journal). He was about to make a reporting trip to the Bethel Community Church, where they were planning to host an "Open Carry" church service later this month. Although it was not being held at the normal Sunday worship hour, it was a church sponsored event clearly in favor of the right to own and carry firearms. (For the whole story, click here.)
He (Peter Smith) was wondering if I had any comment. Of course I did. Even though I currently possessed three guns (inherited from my childhood) it seemed pretty clear to me that using the name of Jesus to endorse the right to carry a weapon was plainly and patently wrong. How much clearer does Jesus have to be? In the Garden of Gethsemane, on the night before he was to be tortured to death, Jesus rejected the use of weapons as a solution for anything. In that Garden, Peter drew his weapon in defense of himself, his friend, his teacher and his people. If ever there was a right moment to use deadly force in self defense, that was it. The most innocent man on the planet was being taken, in the dark, against the law, and by the force of lies and betrayal. As in any good movie, it was a moment for heroic decision. Peter thought he knew what that heroism should look like (Rambo?). He was wrong.
A couple of years earlier, Peter had left his livelihood, his town and his own family to cast his lot with the One who seemed to be the one who would finally set the Jewish nation in order and deal with the injustice and corruption of the current day. Peter raised his weapon in defense of that conviction. He raised his weapon against injustice and oppression. As citizens we honor and celebrate those who have the courage to rise up as Peter did. A a citizen I can appreciate that. But not Jesus in this moment. "Put away your weapon," Jesus told Peter. "If you live that way, you will die that way." That truth was more than Peter could take in. He ran off into the night, and denied three separate times that he even knew Jesus. I am sure that night Peter felt like he really didn't know Jesus.
Who's Cross? Which Sword?
What is the lesson for us? Was it that God wanted Jesus to die and therefore was not to be defended? Was that then but this is now, and now we disciples should be packing heat? Was his choice to take up a cross the one-time choice to be made by him alone? Or was the choice he made a model for the choice we are all to make? I think the scriptures are pretty clear on this score. "Follow me" is a message delivered by Jesus throughout the gospels. And dying in Christ is a message continued throughout all the epistles. The message of Gethsemane was not that those disciples were to put away their weapons so Jesus could finish his work. The message was that the world will be redeemed only as we take up our crosses for each other rather than weapons against each other. When Peter put his weapon away that night, he never got it out again. Tradition has it he also ended up crucified - upside down. Jesus meant his life to be not just a one-time sacrifice to be accepted by us. He meant his life to be a model to be followed by us. The One who calls us to love our enemies, turn the other cheek, put down our swords and take up our crosses still calls us to that path today.
The Rest of the Planet
Now to make a "green" connection with this. Here it is. Just as the way of redeeming the human violence and abuse in the world is through the way of the cross, so it is with redeeming the violence and abuse of the rest of the planet. The root of both is the same. We are violent to each other because in our fear of loss and of each other we reach for our weapons. We are violent to the rest of created order for the same reason. We grasp and accumulate because we are afraid of coming up short. We will kill the whale and the mountain and even our children's future if by doing so we think we secure the present. We will draw our sword against the present earth as long as we think it will keep life's crosses at bay. Jesus taught us not to run from crosses, but to pick them up. The paradox is, Jesus also said, if we follow, we will find that the yoke is easy and the burden is light. And so will the rest of the world.
Posted by Jerry Cappel, June 8, 2009
It's a sin to waste - June 2, 2009
We heard this growing up. Our parents always told us it was a sin to waste. Usually we heard it when we were trying to get out of eating something we didn't like. Jewish tradition teaches that psolet (Hebrew for waste) is a sin and bal tashchit means "thou shalt not destroy." The Pope recently stated that environmental pollution is a sin.
Congress is taking on waste with the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. The bill aims to set minimum standards for energy efficiency for new buildings and appliances. It makes you wonder why we were making inefficient buildings and appliances in the first place. Some hate government mandates, but we used lead paint and leaded gasoline for years despite the health effects and it took a government mandate to get us to change. Let's hope Congress has the courage to make the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 good and strong.
Posted by Tim Darst, June 2, 2009
What would Jesus do about global warming? - May 22, 2009
Faced with the decision of what to do about climate change, the House Energy Commerce Committee voted 33-25 last night to make sweeping changes in our nation's energy use. The bill (HR 2454), called the Waxman-Markey bill or the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES) is 932 pages long and calls for an auction of air pollution permits. To the consternation of many environmental groups, some permits will be given away free. The amount of carbon dioxide allowed by the permits will be limited (a carbon cap) and that number will decrease every year. The amount of reduction (18% below 1990 levels by 2020) is well below what most scientists have called for.
The money from the auction will be split into many pieces, with 25% going to oil refineries, coal plants and energy intensive industries. 56% will go to utilities to help keep energy prices low, and provide rebates to low-income consumers. Renewable energy and green job initiatives only get 10%, while another 7% goes to international sources to help prevent tropical deforestation and help people adapt to climate change. The remaining 2% goes to deficit reduction.
There are three other major parts of the bill. The first requires a minimum efficiency standard for all new buildings built. The second calls for a minimum amount of electricity to come from renewable sources and the third deals will the coal industry, specifically a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants.
More details in future blog entries.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 22, 2009
Family Re-Union - The Missing Relatives - May 21, 2009
I was in Maryland last week attending a major family event. Two of them, actually. One was a wedding and one a baby shower (note: not the same couple and not a shotgun wedding). Of course there was much gathering going on - gathering people from long distances, gathering food in abundance, and gathering news and gossip.
It was a weekend full of cousins and grandparents and children and friends. The children ran freely among relatives and family eccentricities were tolerated (for the most part). Differences in lifestyle and viewpoint were smoothed over enough for the event to function. All this was as it should have been.
But as I enjoyed the gathered family, I also felt there were a number of relatives missing from the festivities. I don't mean by this a number of aunts and uncles who just couldn't make it. I don't mean by this some marginal cousins we neglected to invite. And I don't mean they were missing because people missed them. Rather, these were kin that we excluded from us by neglect and forgetfulness as we celebrated among ourselves. These were kin we could have invited in and celebrated with and whose joy could have been added to ours, if only we had thought to include them.
Next of Kin
I am talking about our very extended kin. I am talking about the flora and fauna around us. I am talking about the watershed we drew from and the food chain we ate from. I am talking about those who participate in the economy with us. I am talking about those yet unborn who will inherit from our lives.
They were, of course, included in our festivities - invited or not. You cannot un-invite them, because you cannot separate yourself from them. This family was made up of those related to us by our eating and drinking, traveling and consuming, and just plain living. They participated with us in everything we did. They breathed the same air we did and drank the same water. They flourished or diminished in concert with the choices we were making. We were, consciously or not, blessing or cursing these kin of ours.
Now, do not hear me say that we were all neglectful, selfish and greedy people. We were just folks - lovers of others, protectors and providers for our children and contributors to society. It would do no good to disparage the cars we drove or the food we ate or the trash we created (I flew there myself). I don't think a guilt trip or a good scare is what will bring us to remembrance. I think what we all need is to expand our family circle. We need to gather all our kin into our lives and invite them all to our celebrations. We need a re-union of extended family. We need to re-unite with all our kin.
Extra Chairs
Perhaps here is a way to call this to our minds. During the Passover Seder, an empty chair is set at the table for Elijah. It reminds those gathered that the expectation for Elijah's return keeps him present at the feast. It is said that Elijah visits every Seder gathering. We too could set extra chairs. Perhaps three: one for the poor, one for the children, and one for the rest of creation. That way, these next of kin will be with us and remembered by us. That way, as we ate and drank, travelled to and fro and collected our trash, our remembrance might help us to behave more broadly, kindly and carefully. The empty chairs might move us to this, not by fear or guilt, but by love, joy and generosity. After all, who doesn't love a house full of celebration with lots of happy children and kin?
Posted by Jerry Cappel, May 21, 2009
KIPL goes to Washington - May 6, 2009
I am blogging from Washington DC today because Fr. Jerry Cappel and I are meeting with members of congress to talk about the proposed climate change legislation also known as the Waxman-Markey bill. We found the Kentucky Congressmen that we talked to pretty much split along party lines. Here's what our Senators and Representatives told us:
We met with Sen. Mitch McConnell's aide on energy and she said that the Senator is against a Renewable Portfolio Standard calling it a "draconian mandate."
Sen. Bunning's aide said that they would like to see equal incentives for coal as for renewables.
Congressman John Yarmuth was very supportive of caps on carbon emissions but wanted to make sure that utility rates did not skyrocket during these economic hard times.
Congressman Brett Guthrie, the freshman Republican, "had issues with the current Waxman-Markey bill, but did say that he would support incentives for renewables. He was also concerned about rising utility costs and it's possible adverse effect on businesses, particularly manufacturer's that have chosen Kentucky because if our low electricity rates.
Congressman Ben Chandler is in support of climate change legislation but his aide unable to give specifics what aspects of the bill the congressman supported and didn't support.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 5, 2009
Solar Installation in Progress - May 5, 2009
Earthwell Energy Management employees are busy at it on the roof of Jeff Street Baptist Community at Liberty. The panels are a gift to the community from ASHRAE, the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers. For more information go to www.kentuckyipl.org
Posted by Tim Darst, May 5, 2009
Let there be light - May 1, 2009
Yes, less than two weeks after St. William Church installed solar panels, Jeff Street Baptist Community at Liberty is doing the same. With a donation from ASHRAE (the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers) to purchase the panels and installation donated by Earthwell Energy Management, Inc., the congregation is ready to start installation the Monday after Derby.
ASHRAE is paying for the materials as a part of their 2009 sustainable footprint project. They hope to help offset their environmental impact caused by having their conference in Louisville in June. Ken Peet, chair of the Sustainability Subcommittee and President of local LSE Engineering, Inc. says with the help of Kentucky Interfaith Power & Light, "we selected the church due to its existing efforts to save energy."
Check back for updates as the project progresses.
Posted by Tim Darst, May 1, 2009
My morning olfactory walk - April 30, 2009
Leaving home this morning and walking to the bus, I made it a point to be mindful of the smells I encountered. The first smell was the cool, but humid morning air that hit me when I stepped out the door onto my porch. Walking down my street, I caught the aroma of the lilac bush in the front yard of Calvin and Lang's house (my neighbors). The aroma hit me some fifty feet before I got to the bush and peaked as I was passing it.
As I approached the busy Eastern Parkway and Bardstown Road a new smell burned in my nostrils. I could detect a combination of unburned diesel fuel and the burnt carbon smell of the internal combustion engine. After boarding my bus, the smell went away. Even with the windows open on the bus, the smell stayed outside. Questions came to my mind. If everyone smelled what I smelled would we make changes? Does "out of smell out of mind" allow is to keep doing what we are doing? I wondered what it would look like if exhaust were purple? Would we have clouds of purple haze along our streets? If we could see the effects of our behavior would we would do things differently?
Next time you walk out your door be mindful of what you can smell.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 30, 2009
Vatican Expanding Solar Energy - April 24, 2009
In 2007, the Vatican started "using solar energy, reflecting Pope Benedict XVI's concern about conserving the earth's resources" according to this Boston Globe article and this BBC article.
In 2008, the Vatican expanded their solar energy capacity and "announced its intention to become the world's first carbon-neutral state" according to treehugger.com.
Now the Vatican is building "the biggest solar plant in Europe." "It?s a wise investment in every way we look at it," said Umberto Bertele, chairman of the management school at Politecnico di Milano, in an interview with Bloomberg.com.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 24, 2009
Good Friday Mountains - April 10, 2009
This is Holy Week in the Christian tradition. This is a week where the faithful make some attempts to follow Jesus through the dark and difficult events leading up to his crucifixion and burial. It is the main time, I believe, for the church to focus on the shadows of life.
I spent the first part of this week in the mountains of eastern Kentucky, with a group of people trying to raise their own consciousness about the horrors of mountaintop removal coal mining. Mountaintop removal coal mining is a radical form of strip mining where entire tops of mountains are blasted away, the material dumped into the valley (and streams) below, and the coal extracted. It is far less expensive (to the coal companies that is) to extract coal this way than deep mining and other less extreme methods. But it has all sorts of associated costs related to it - flooding, poisoned water supplies, coal dust and cracked foundations from blasting. Oh, yes. And the fact that the mountains are no longer there.
So, we came to do flyovers and hear the stories of land owners and miners in the area. The stories were horrible. Not just for the land, but for the people. It was surprising to me, though, that my most visceral reaction was not so much for damage to the land itself, but for the stories of damage to the people of the land. The stolen land, the broken health and the continued poverty is outrageous. The impunity of the coal companies and the collusion of the civic authorities is shocking. It seemed like we were in some third-world country without the rule of law, where the dictator and his cronies could do whatever they wished without consequence.
There were moments this week where I felt embarrassed to be human. There were moments when I wished that fire would come down and consume the enemies of God. There were times when I just wanted to turn away from the sorrow and loss of a helpless people. And then there is that dull ache and paralysis of grief and my own complicity in the problems. What do we do with all that? How do we continue to be willing to feel all that without turning away? How do we keep our eyes and hearts open in it?
That is where Holy Week comes in. The dark and grieving Psalms, the reminder of deep sin from the prophets, the story of incredible violence in the gospels - there is a gift there if we will have it. It can give us life if we can receive it. This week I felt it open my heart. It opened my heart because I recognized that the faith is not unaware of the depth of our brokenness and the darkness of our shadows. It gave me strength because I knew I was not the first or the last to see and endure such darkness. It empowered me to not turn my face away from the mountains because the faith does not turn its face away either.
Without Holy Week and its unblinking look at sin and darkness, I would have nothing to draw from to help me keep my own eyes open. Without Holy Week and its open-hearted confession of sin, I would not be able to join with the people of the mountains and confess our sins together. Without the cross, Easter Sunday would be a celebration only for those who will not look and do not see. Without Holy Week, we could not have an Easter service on a mountain top removal site. We could only have communion in clean, bright and polite spaces.
So I do not want to rush to Easter. I want to travel the dark road to the cross and the tomb. That road offers the gift of repentance. That road offers the strength to awaken to the places of ignorance, grief, violence and greed. Then I might have it when I encounter my own ignorance, grief, violence and greed. Then I might be more ready for Easter morning, wherever I may be.
Posted by Fr. Jerry Cappel, April 10, 2009
The River of More - April 1, 2009
She was standing on the Bank of Simplicity as the River of More flowed by. I was caught in the current of More and happened to notice her. Her peacefulness caught my eye, for peaceful I was not. Flowing with the river, I had been, looking for happiness always feeling that happiness was just up ahead. The river was full of others wallowing it her fullness. Many had no inking to look to the bank, I was lucky to have done so. She looked me in the eye and made a calm gesture to reach for me. I frantically reached back not knowing what it was that impelled me. The river was swift and getting to the bank was difficult. The lure of the River of More still held sway to my desires. I grabbed onto her hand and she helped me to hold on to the bank. I kept looking back at the others in the river. They looked happy. What was I doing! Nobody else was leaving the river, yet her face standing there on the bank assured me that there is happiness without the river. She helped me up and helped me to see. Those in the river weren't happy at all, just busy searching and hoping in the river. The bank was where true happiness was all the time. There I stood on the Bank of Simplicity watching the River of More flow by.
Posted by Tim Darst, April 1, 2009
Earth Hour - March 24, 2009
Interfaith Power & Light is participating in Earth Hour. You can join us by turning off non-essential lighting in your homes at 8:30 PM local time on March 28th. Your congregation can send a strong message by turning off steeple lights and other outdoor decorative lighting. We are partnering with Earth Hour to send the message that the faith community is concerned about global warming and to demonstrate commitment to finding solutions. Last year, 50 million people representing 400 cities on all seven continents turned out their lights in the largest climate event of all time.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 24, 2009
"A Delicate Balance" - March 17, 2009
Author, pastor, speaker Brian McLaren, speaking to a packed Highland Baptist Church on Sunday night, said that the current economic system cannot keep "growing beyond the environmental limits" without "resulting in a multifaceted environmental crisis." He says,"It's a delicate balance." "Our lifestyle demands more than the planet can keep giving." Instead he calls for a new form of capitalism that includes a "moral core of concern for the common good." McLaren's message resounded well in light of the current financial crisis and climate change that are both facing this country right now. In the past, actions of corporate executives have not been questioned as much as they are now. People are looking more closely when taxpayer dollars are being used. The ethical consequences of global warming are becoming more of a concern as well. Few are ready to throw out capitalism, but many are looking for a newer more ethical form of capitalism for the future.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 17, 2009
First Church in Kentucky to Go Solar - March 1, 2009
St. William Catholic Church will install 15 solar panels on the roof of their church this Saturday, March 7 at 10 am. Sun Wind Power Systems, Inc of Floyd's Knobs, Indiana is donating their time to install the panels with the assistance of the parishioners of this small Catholic community. The panels will generate about 30% of the church's annual electricity needs and are expected to pay for themselves in less than 20 years, but the purpose of the installation is not financial. "Caring for God's creation is one of the themes of Catholic Social Teaching and in line with the social justice focus of our community," said Sharan Benton, Pastoral Administrator of the community. The panels will prevent the emission of over 8,000 pounds of carbon dioxide pollution each year. With the help of Kentucky Interfaith Power & Light, the purchase of the panels were made possible through donations from individual parishioners that were matched by the church. Sacramental Minister, Fr. John Burke, Pastoral Administrator Sharan Benton, and Formation Minister Anne Walter will perform a blessing of the panels before they are hoisted onto the roof.
The 3 kilowatt solar array will be connected to the electrical grid using a net-metering arrangement with LG&E. The net-metering arrangement allows the utility to "buy back" the excess energy produced and eliminates the need to store the energy on-site.
In the past year, St. William Community has been working to be more efficient and conserve energy. They installed compact fluorescent lighting, programmable thermostats, and sealed the building from the cold. For years they have used ceiling fans to cool the sanctuary instead of air conditioning.
Since more than 90% of Kentucky's electricity comes from coal, and much of Kentucky's coal comes from removing mountain tops in Appalachia, reducing electricity usage is important for faith communities. Burning coal releases not only carbon dioxide, but also mercury, sulfur dioxide and other toxins into the air and water. Mountaintop removal coal mining is destructive to ecosystems, streams and lives of the people of Appalachia.
Posted by Tim Darst, March 1, 2009
Power Outage, Power Gain - February 26, 2009
I have heard it said several times over the last few weeks. "It's been a hard year for trees." Indeed it has. First it was the wind storm last fall and then the ice storm this winter. And when it is hard on the trees, it is hard on our electricity.
My wife and I first survived the wind storm with only a few hours of the electric being out at our house. But then the ice storm sent us into darkness and cold for four days. I know that for many people, a loss of electricity like that can be more than inconvenient. It can be dangerous. It can leave people without access to oxygen or medications. It can also prompt some people to make some desperate and foolish mistakes while trying to stay warm.
But I also noticed that in our house, the loss of power was not all bad. For while we lost control over some things (like the encroaching darkness in the evening), some mobility (bound by ice and downed tree limbs), and some connections (no phone or internet), there were some good things as well. And it is those good things that carry a lesson for us.
First, we gained some time. Now, I know that you can't really gain or lose time, but you sure can gain or lose a healthy sense of what time is for. That loss of power suspended a whole set of expectations that we tend to let run our lives. That set is all those things we tell ourselves we just "have to get done." Since we could not drive and could not email and could not make phone calls, we decided we might was well just read or talk or tend to some of those quieter, less urgent (but just as important) things in our lives.
Second, we gained some community. My daughter, now free of phone and internet, first went into a period of shock and paralysis. Eventually, however, as the shock wore off, she came around for some actual conversation. And we all, without a thousand little things to distract us, actually spent some nice time in the same space, at the same time, talking and being with each other. Creating a meal became a community challenge, and we enjoyed them as community victories.
Third, we regained a piece of ourselves. Without the demanding clamor of expectations and the chatter of television, we were able to take the time to hear ourselves think. We were allowed the time to notice how we feel. That always brings some kind of clarity. Sometimes it simply brings the realization of how tired we really are.
All this is nothing new, of course. These are the reasons we take vacations and retreats to reconnect and gain some perspective. These are the things various spiritual disciplines through the ages have admonished us to do - to separate ourselves from the daily routine and take time for our souls.
Here lies the lesson as we face the challenges our environmental crisis is bringing. We must keep before us and before others that the sacrifices being asked of us (living simpler, smaller, slower and closer to home) may well be more gain than sacrifice. Like the graces found in a power outage, we may come to prefer the grace over the power. As we learn to release our grasp, our pace and our distractions, the reconnections we gain will be more than recompense.
The hard question is - will we learn to turn off the lights before they are turned of for us?
Posted by Fr. Jerry Cappel, February 26, 2009
A Sacred Lent to Care for Creation - February 25, 2009
Giving up things for Lent has long been a tradition for Christians. Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the forty days that lead up to the crucifixion and death of Jesus. Making sacrifices may not sound fun, but sacrifice is related to the word sacred. To sacrifice something is to make it holy. The Rev. Sally Bingham of Grace Cathedral in San Francisco has five suggestions of thing we can make sacred this lent:
1. Buy more locally produced food. You can reduce emissions from transportation by buying from farmers markets and eating foods in season rather than foods shipped in from around the globe.
2. Use alternative transportation to work, school, or your place of worship. This is a good way to slow down and find a few extra minutes for contemplation during Lent.
3. Eat less meat. Reducing the amount of meat you consume, even just one day a week, will make a difference in your carbon footprint.
4. Turn down your thermostat. Grab a blanket and add an extra layer of clothing. Even one degree lower will add up to big energy savings.
5. Try a media fast. It can be very rewarding to turn off televisions, computers, and radios a few nights a week and sit down to a board game with your family
Here's your chance to make a change in your life by caring for God's creation and at the same time making Lent meaningful.
Posted by Tim Darst, February 25, 2009
Idling cars are the devil's workshop - February 19, 2009
Why do we idle our cars so much? We idle them in on cold mornings so they are nice an toasty when we start our drive. We idle them when we run into the store to grab a gallon of milk. We idle them as we sit and talk on the cell phone. This time of year, we idle our cars quite a bit. So what's wrong with that?
Metro Louisville Ordinance 72.032 makes it illegal to leave your car running while unattended. The ordinance was adopted after the police were swamped by reports of vehicles being stolen while left running.
There are 114 laws in state, county and local jurisdictions across the country that make it illegal to leave a vehicle idling, many because of the pollution it causes. Pollution from moving vehicles is understandable since you need your car to get to many places, but to pollute for warmth, that's another matter.
The Car Talk guys on public radio have said repeatedly that our modern cars do not need to be warmed up more that 60 seconds before driven.
Some police officers were criticized for using their government-owned vehicles while doing traffic duty "on the side" and leaving the engine running the whole time. The taxpayers were paying the fuel bill! Many other government vehicles run all day long when the drivers are in them or not, moving or not. With the budget problems at the state and local level does it make sense to be so wasteful? Jefferson County Public Schools already have a policy to limit idling of their school buses. Shouldn't all government agencies follow suit?
When we idle our vehicles we pollute our neighbors air. We are polluting God's creation.
Posted by Tim Darst, February 19, 2009
Time to Face the Facts - February 13, 2009
We simply have to face facts, the era of low electricity rates is about to end. LG&E's annoncement that they will request an increase in rates to pay for the cost of storm related repairs ("Ice storm drains cold cash," Courier-Journal, February 12, 2009) is only the beginning. There are a number of factors that point to increases in electricity changes in the coming years-increasing demand for coal, cap and trade regulations for carbon emissions, increasing demand for electricity and climate change. Climatologists tell us that we will experience more severe weather events like the ones we have seen recently. China is building one coal-fired power plant every two weeks and their increasing demand is driving up the cost of coal. Bill Caylor, the President of the Kentucky Coal Association was on WFPL's State of Affairs last week and he claims that the cost of coal will increase by 4 or 5 fold in the near future. Congress has promised legislation to limit and then reduce carbon emissions. A cap and trade system is most likely, though carbon charges (read "carbon tax") is possible too. Either way, new power plants (and Kentucky has six in the works) will have to buy credits or pay the charges for new generating capacity. Finally, we're part of the problem. Kentuckians are some of the most wasteful electricity users in the country, mostly because we have the some of the lowest rates. It took $4.00-per-gallon gasoline to get us out of our SUV's so it will probably take 14 cents per kilowatt hour (it's less than 7 cents now) to get us to change our electricity habits. Not only will this cause us to be more efficient, we will also need to do more for those less fortunate. Many households in Louisville do without a car (20%), but doing without electicity is another thing. Many of our most vulnerable citizens require oxygen, breathing treatments and air conditioning. It's time we face the facts and step up to the challenges that the near future brings.
For more information go to:
http://www.purdue.edu/dp/energy/pdfs/SUFG/publications/SUFG-PCCRC-CO2-Report.pdf
http://www.kaec.org/info/archive08/dialogue.htm
http://www.kaec.org/stand/rates.htm
Posted by Tim Darst, February 13, 2009
Happy New Year - February 8, 2009
Monday, February 9 is Tu B'Shevat, the Jewish New Year for Trees. When Rabbi Rapport of the Temple mentioned it to me I was intrigued. Being an uninformed Gentile, I went to Wikipedia and found that Tu B'Shevat "customs include planting trees and eating dried fruits and nuts, especially figs, dates, raisins, carob, and almonds." Remembering the importance of trees is a good tradition that we can all follow. A quick search of the bible at BibleGateway.com gave me 277 instances of the word tree. The bible starts with God creating trees (Genesis 1:11) and ends with the two trees in the the holy city (Revelation 22:19) that have leaves "for the healing of the nations." Knowing that trees have the ability to capture and sequester carbon dioxide makes them more valuable now than ever before. This ability is one that humans are scrambling to replicate in the face of global climate change. Across the state of Kentucky we are confronted with the limbs and trunks of thousands of trees that fell in the wake of the worst ice storm in the state's history. Let's commemorate the New Year of Trees by planting new trees and caring for the ones we still have.
God led Adam around all the trees of the Garden of Eden. And God said to Adam: 'See My works, how good and praiseworthy they are? And all that I have created , I made for you. Be mindful that you do not spoil and destroy My world-for if you spoil it, there will be no one left to repair it." (Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 7:13)
For more information on Tu B'Shevat from Rabbi Rapport, check out www.kentuckyipl.org/TuB'Shevat.pdf
Posted by Tim Darst, February 8, 2009
Building a sustainable neighborhood - January 23, 2009
Louisville has great neighborhoods. Those of us who grew up here sometimes take them for granted, but when you talk to people from out of state they will tell you. Many of the aspects that they mention include: walkability, Mom and Pop businesses, old trees, neighbors caring about neighbors, just to name a few. Sustainability is a concept that has emerged recently. Sustainability is the ability of a system to maintain state or condition. This is often used in terms of maintaining the condition of the environment. The application of sustainability to a neighborhood is an even newer concept. A group of folks in the Clifton neighborhood have been working "ways a neighborhood can function like an ecovillage." Some of the things they are promoting is "farming and permaculture, bioremediation...local food movements, and any organic farming." In Cincinnati, there is a group that has started the Enright Ridge Ecovillage "a community fostering a sustainable urban neighborhood, who promotes preserving the planet through social, economic, and healthy lifestyles and demonstrate urban revitalization using these principals." Some of Louisville's Deer Park neighbors had a meeting the other night to determine if there are ideas that could apply to their neighborhood. I think we will be hearing more about sustainable neighborhoods in the coming years.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 23, 2009
Coal, Our Ace in the Hole - December 16, 2009
Coal, has been Kentucky's ace in the hole for many decades. According to the US Department of Mines and Minerals, there are less than 13,000 Kentucky coal industry jobs today.[1] 2006 Department of Energy data shows that we get 92.3 percent of our electricity from coal in Kentucky.[2] But, the Brookings Institute has ranked Louisville and Lexington among the worst polluted of the 100 largest cites in the US because of our coal pollution. The American Cancer Society has linked coal pollution to premature deaths.[3]
"It is better to act on the prevention (of sickness and environmental problems resulting from coal plants) rather than on the cure," says Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines. Environmental groups and the Catholic Church are opposing a plan to build a coal-fired power plant in the Philippines. [5]
It makes sense for Kentucky to not have all of our eggs in one basket and start looking for a new ace in the hole. By diversifying our energy portfolio to say 30% from renewables like hydro, solar and wind, we can give our economy a boost and our lungs a break. Promoting these green jobs by increasing demand and luring a manufacturer to build wind turbines or solar panels is a must. Calling for a moratorium on coal fired power plants will be good for Kentucky. But what about those 13,000 jobs? Well, 80% of the coal mined in Kentucky is exported [4] so moving to other sources of energy production does not mean we will lose all of our coal jobs. What about mountain-top removal? More on that issue, stay tuned.
Sources:
[1] www.mountainjusticesummer.org [2] www.eia.doe.gov [3] www.nrdc.org [4] www.kycoalblog.org [5]newsinfo.inquirer.net
Posted by Tim Darst, January 16, 2009
PSC wants customers to pay for new coal plant - January 6, 2009
Last night, the Public Service Commission held hearings in Louisville and Madisonville in order to get input from the public before approving a rate hike requested by LG&E. Part of the rate increase goes to pay for a new Timble County coal plant according to a press release from parent company E.On. LG&E already receives about $26 million each year from its customers to promote conservation and efficiency. Why isn't E.On doing more with the $26 million to reduce consumption? If it did, then they wouldn't need to construct a new coal-fired power plant.
Cathy Hinko of the Metropolitan Housing Coalition pointed out the impact this rate hike will have on low-income folks in a WHAS-11 story last night. "Many people cite utility costs as part of the reason they become homeless," says Hinko.
"Arrogance, insufferable arrogance on the part of E.On and LG&E," says Rev. Jerome Sutton of the African American Think Tank.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 6, 2009
New Year's Resolution - Stop Recycling - January 2, 2009
As the new year begins many Americans will make resolutions to start doing something that is good for them or stop doing something that is harmful. I would like to propose not recycling for the good of creation. How can this be good for the earth?
Let's start with the mantra of the environmentalist - reduce, reuse, recycle. We see it so often that we hardly even pay attention to it. We should focus on those first two words - reduce and reuse. You probably didn't notice that those words are in order of priority. It is more important to reuse something than it is to recycle it. By the same token, it is better if we don't buy it at all. For example, instead of recycling those magazines of yours, you should be passing them on to someone else to use. Maybe a neighbor, business or charity could use them. Give pet magazines to the Veterinarian office, Readers Digest to a nursing home and the others to a homeless shelter. But don't stop there, you should probably cancel some of those subscriptions and save the trees they were printed on in the first place.
Packaging takes up most of the space in our recycle bins. Those boxes, jars and cans can often times be reused. Use cereal boxes to mail gifts in, glass jars for storing leftovers, milk cartons to plant seeds ... you get the picture. Once again reducing the packaging is the best. Buy in bulk. Get cereal in bags instead of boxes. Refill you laundry detergent jug at the health food store. As a last resort, if you can't find another way, then recycle.
Paper or plastic has long been posed as the moral question when it comes to taking you groceries home. This is the wrong question though, since we shouldn't be putting ourselves in the position of recycling. Using reusable cloth bags is the much preferred option.
Make 2009 the year that we begin not needing to recycle.
Posted by Tim Darst, January 2, 2009
Green Hanukkah - December 26, 2008
As Hanukkah ends this weekend, Jews and Gentiles alike should reflect on what environmental meaning this sacred holiday has for all of us. One family in Texas is doing just that. "Hanukkah is a good time to think about petroleum and oil and resources and scarcity and miracles," Sadeh said. "It's a good new focus for this time of year." See the full story here at HoustonBelief.com
Posted by Tim Darst, December 26, 2008
Faith and the Environment - December 19, 2008
Since environmental issues are seen by many as political issues, and it has often been said that the two topics you shouldn't discuss in public are religion and politics, you may question why anyone would want to blog about faith and the environment. There is a growing awareness that many of the environmental issues we face are moral issues and therefore directly connected to religion. The three Abrahamic religions, and indeed most of the world religions, call on us to care for each other. This call to love your neighbor is found in the Hebrew Scriptures (Leviticus 19:18), the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, the Quran (4:36) and in Bhuddism's bodhisattva - the message is universal. Moving beyond our own selfish needs is not only a religious obligation, but also, many feel, an essential need if we are to survive as a people, into the future. Selfishness leads to resentment, anger and violence. Selfishness comes out in many places.
What does this have to do with the environment. If you have ever been camping and arrive at the most beautiful site only to find it littered with remnants of the group that came before you, or if you have been hiking in the woods and come upon trash that someone else didn't bother to carry to the trash can, then you understand. More complex examples include living in the shadow of a coal-fired power plant only to find that the smoke carries mercury with it, poisoning the fish in the nearby lake. Likewise, the people of Appalachia have found that the water they have been drinking from their well or mountain stream for generations is now laced with arsenic from the mountaintop removal operation upstream. It is easy to blame the coal and utility companies for these selfish acts, but you really need to connect the dots to realize that we are the ones to blame. Demand for cheap electricity is increasing. We as consumers are buying more and more electronic devices and consequently using more and more electricity. This complex problem is one of many similar problems to be addressed in this blog, stay tuned for more.
Posted by Tim Darst, December 19, 2008