Pre-Lent Survey

Please help the Green Team by filling out this survey! Thanks!

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/HCHGN8D

Diocesan Green Team Meeting - Jan. 11 2010

The Green Team had a great meeting this month. We discussed many new and exciting tips to help you make your home and parish greener. Have you considered having an energy audit on your home? KCP&L and Missouri Gas Energy have partnered up to offer the ENERGY STAR Program:

"ENERGY STAR is a government-backed program that promotes energy savings and environmental conservation through the use of energy-efficient products and services. Whether you replace old appliances, remodel your home or buy a new house, ENERGY STAR can help. For more information, visit http://www.energystar.gov/."

You can earn up to $1200 in an audit and repair to your home to make it more energy efficient. To download additional applications, visit http://www.hpwes.net/.

The Green Team also invited Repower America to join us. Repower America is commited to pushing clean energy and climate legistlation through Congress. Your Senators may cast the deciding vote. Repower America urges you to take action by contacting your Senators today!

1. Call 1-877-9-REPOWER [1-877-973-7693]. Call this toll-free number and make your voice heard! You will be directed to leave a message for your Senators that will be delivered to their offices.

2. Sign a letter to your Senators at RepowerAmerica.org. Join with other Repower America members in your state by signing a letter to your Senators. Go to http://www.repoweramerica.org/ and sign a letter that will be sent directly to your Senators' local and DC offices. You can also write your own letter and send it to your Senators directly.

3. Visit your Senators' local office. This is your chance to speak directly with your Senators' staff. The Senators' local offices take note of every constituent. Request an appointment or just drop in and show your support for clean energy.

4. Email your Senators' office. Email is an easy and effective way to contact your Senators' staff to let them know how important clean energy legislation is to you. Visit your Senators' web site to find the email address for your Senators.

Repower America also urges you to explore their wall at www.repoweramerica.org/wall. You can also add your own video to voice your support for clean energy bills. Search for Human Rights Office staff on the wall!

Most of all, have a blessed day!

Ideas for the New Year

Here’s what we’re considering at Guardian Angels: (still in process)

• Using Advent to invite people to “alternative Christmas giving.” Give out a one-sheet flier with ideas, along with the Advent reflection booklet already planned. Build in some education about the relationship between reducing consumption and earth-care. Have a poster with ideas from parishioners who are already thinking and doing “alternatives”.
• The U.S. Bishops, in 1991(!!!!) identified the need to care for the earth as “an exceptional call to conversion.” What better theme for Lent!! Tentatively, we are planning
• Talk with as many people as we can before Lent about the St. Francis Pledge (10-15 minutes in existing groups).
• A pre-Lenten parish survey, done in church, to identify which issues people are most concerned about; what time frames they prefer for earth-oriented education, retreats, projects, etc.; information about what they are already doing.
• Using the 5 Sundays of Lent to highlight the 5 aspects of the St. Francis pledge:
• Pray (individually and together)
• Learn (about the crisis of the earth) ,
• Assess (in the light of scripture, church teaching),
• Act (individually, as families, as a parish) ,
• Advocate (work to change laws, structures, cultures, services. (Actually, this is a model for a theological reflection process…)
• Invite people to take the pledge, indicating specifically what they will do for at least some of the steps
• Present the completed pledges at Masses before or after Earth Day
• Throughout: Share stories about what parishioners are doing.

Your input, ideas, experiences, resources will be most welcome in these projects!!

Signs of Hope

On October 24, I attended the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream Symposium. If you are not familiar with it, check it out on the web –www.awakeningthedreamer.org . The symposium was put together by the Pachamama Alliance - a group of native peoples whose environment, culture and society were being devastated by progress”, and some “first-world” people. The result is a stunningly beautiful and very challenging 3 ½ - 4 hour event. The Kansas City event was part of the worldwide day of action for climate action, which included 182 countries and over 5200 events. You can see pictures at www.350.org . The first week in December I am attending a facilitator training in the hopes that I can make this event widely available in the diocese – ideally through parishes or collections of near-by parishes. Let me know if you have thoughts about using it in your area.

Thoughts from our first meeting (June 09) and other ideas

Here are a few thoughts from our June meeting (OK, better late than never!)

If you remember, we did a very non-scientific survey, rating our parishes on 11 possible kinds of “green action.” Let’s just say it makes a good baseline for doing more. On a scale of 0-5, the highest areas were commitment to recycling, and encouraging families and individuals to “reduce, reuse, recycle” (2.1). Including creation and creation-care in worship rated 2.0, working on buildings, energy issues, landscaping and grounds rated 1.9.

Further down were the following: fostering awareness of the religious/spiritual mandate for earth care; education about ecology/climate change, etc.; use of USCCB materials and the St. Francis Pledge; involvement in advocacy for the earth; fostering simpler life-styles; encouraging nature experiences. I have added to my list: use of the arts and media to foster appreciation and protection of our natural world.

Successes include: use of real cups (or at least starch-based disposables); considering carbon footprint in building; replacing incandescent with CFL’s; community gardens; recycling bins; working toward using wind/solar energy; highway clean-up.

Next steps were mostly around getting organized with a green team, education, fostering awareness. Also: recycling, community garden and wind power.

How can the Diocesan Green Team help? Concise ideas to educate – “nutshells” with impact; joint purchasing (energy alternatives, starch-based disposables, light bulbs, grocery bags, etc.; sharing ideas and resources.

Soooo - What are you doing? Plans, successes, dreams, questions, resources to share??? Just e-mail Whitney (zoubek@diocese-kcsj.org) – she knows how to do the posts. Let’s start sharing!!!