2 Quick LInks You Can Use- NOW!
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COMING EVENTS!
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Saturday, March 24- Interfaith walk ends with Climate Change Rally: Copley Square, Boston.
Info
Sunday, March 25-
Interfaith Dialogue on Climate Change Action Strategies: Friends Meeting House, Cambridge
1:30-4:30 pm. Email for more info: bigdapeyton
@verizon.net
Wednesday, March 28-
MIP&L 's co-founders Tom Nutt-Powell & Steve MacAusland at St. Andrew's, Wellesley: Lenten Series on What We Can Do at Home and Church. 6pm. 79 Denton Rd., Wellesley. Info
Sunday, April 22- EARTH DAY!
This promises to be the biggest Earth Day ever! For general info, click here.
MIP&L will be joining the Earth Day Fair at the Unitarian Universalist church in Haverhill. Noon. UU Church, Haverhill
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Greetings, MIP&L friends!
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Spring? Where?
 It's snowing madly as we prepare this month's newsletter. But the Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue (from Northampton to Boston!) is underway! MIP&L has endorsed this important religious witness, and we invite you to participate, especially this Saturday, March 25, at the Climate Rescue Rally in Boston. MIP&L will be there! Read about it below.
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Don't let the calendar date fool you into thinking it's time to take down your interior storm windows! (Remember the April Fool's Day Blizzard of 1997?) Don't have interior storms?? They're an EASY way to save energy and $$ on your heating bills. It's what we call an Everyday Environmental Stewardship (EES) opportunity! Check out 3 EES ops- interior storms, paint and carpet- in this issue.
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Welcome, Mark Larson! Mark is MIP&L's new Energy & Environmental Stewardship Analyst! Mark speaks about what inspires him to engage in the work of environmental stewardship- below.
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"Starting Out" Stories:New MIP&L member, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Cohasset says:
"As a Christian community, unless we are caring for the environment, we can not be caring for our neighbor. "
and asks: "What difference can we make?"
See how & why this parish on the South Shore made the important decision to ACT... and how MIP&L is helping.
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- Not green...but getting there? Last month we featured, "You know you're NOT green when..." This month, we spotlight one of those key- but often overlooked- elements of your energy transformation strategy: your heating and cooling maintenance contract. Click here.
- Has your faith community signed up for MIP&L membership and a Environmental Stewardship Assessment (ESA)? The ESA one of the most important ways MIP&L can help your faith community be more environmentally responsible. View sample ESAs here- and then contact MIP&L about becoming a member and moving ahead with your ESA!
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Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue
Arrives in Boston, Sat. March 25!
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Be there for the Huge Rally!
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An amazing interfaith witness for creation is underway, despite the past weekend's nor'easter and the ingering cold! Where are the walkers now? Click here for their day to day schedule.
Then on Saturday, March 25 (Climate Rescue Day), the entire event will culminate in Copley Square, with a huge Rally! MIP&L will be there, and we hope you will, too. Come out and join the largest Climate Rescue demonstration ever! ( It's really a massive PRAYER! )
Raise your voice- with others from all walks of faith-
on behalf of God's creation!
Here's the day's schedule:
- 10:00 am - Assemble at Christ Church, Zero Garden St., Cambridge
- 11:30 am - Walk from Cambridge to Copley Square, Boston
- 1:30 pm - Welcome the walkers as they arrive at Copley Square
- 2:00 pm - Attend the Interfaith Service for
- Climate Rescue at Old South Church,
645 Boylston Street, Boston
- 3-4:30 pm - Rally for Climate Rescue, Copley Square
Visit the official Interfaith Walk for Climate rescue site, and learn more! See you Saturday!
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MIP&L Welcomes
Mark Larson
Energy & Environmental Stewardship Analyst
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 Mark will be contacting MIP&L members to follow up on their environmental stewardship actions and to see how MIP&L can help them move forward with their energy transformations!
Mark, wife Meghan and son David
Mark says:
I joined MIPL because I am a practical
guy looking for a way to find meaning in the time I spend in my
community of faith. I hear phrases like environmental stewardship,
greenhouse gas emissions, and global climate change in the news or in
Sunday sermons and think, What can I do? These phrases and their
underlying problems seem beyond my day-to-day life. With MIP&L I have
found a way to link the problem of global climate change to practical
action within my community of faith.
My church, St Andrew's Framingham, is
planning to replace its oil furnace and make other energy efficiency
improvements over the next 2-3 years. Replacing a furnace in a house
of worship can be more than just a tedious and expensive task for a
community; it can be an opportunity to save money, reduce carbon
emissions, and bring concrete meaning to the word stewardship in the
life of a parish.
Skeptical? Give MIP&L a call orvisit the website- and find
out. -Mark Larson
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Everyday Environmental Stewardship (EES)
Simple ways to curb your environmental impact!
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This month we feature three EES opportunities!
Environmental stewardship requires that we take the time to stop and think: about commonly-used household products such as paint...about replacing old carpet with new...and about the energy-saving istep of installing interior storm windows. Read on!
Paint: Latex vs oil-based- the lesser of two evils? What to do? Click here.
Carpet: Out with the old..but where does it go? And what's that funny smell with that beautiful, brand new carpet you got on sale? (Hint: It's not good for the environment.) Click here.
Interior storms: Minimal investment- big payoff! Even the not-so-handy can do it! Here's everything you need to know.
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"STARTING OUT STORIES"
New MIP&L Member:
St. Stephen's, Cohasset
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What's it like for a community of faith to move from "thinking" about the environmental crisis to "doing" something about it?
Colette Wood tells us how St. Stephen's is getting started:
Several months ago, parishioners at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church in Cohasset began a discussion around the idea of forming a group to look at what it means to be a faith community at a time of great environmental concern. The idea for such a group came after many parishioners saw the movie "An Inconvenient Truth" last year. We have since begun to formally meet as a committee of the parish and have set some simple goals to get started.
The first was to get a good look at our own building facility. To that end, our first call was to Massachusetts Interfaith Power and Light for membership and guidance around issues of energy audits, carbon footprint, etc. Internally, members of the committee are putting into place new systems for recycling and waste reduction. For example, a compost bucket has been purchased for coffee grinds (we love our coffee!) and other food suitable for composting. We have worked with the team that cares for our church gardens and agreed they will use the compost throughout our grounds (no pun intended). We will be looking at sending newsletters electronically where possible, purchasing environmentally friendly office supplies, and reducing the amount of paper used in our bulletins.
A second goal is to look at education and advocacy work on the environment. Committee members are also active in the group "Sustainable Cohasset." Later this month we plan to have a public relations "blitz" in the parish to let everyone know what we are up to. We are looking at information for the Sunday school children and an "Earth Day" event in April. We have a wonderful, interactive website which will soon have an "environmental" section so that we can spread the word electronically. As we grow, we hope to expand our advocacy work beyond our own town.
A last goal we set was to look more deeply into what it means to be a person of faith and be concerned about the environment. We have asked the question of ourselves, What does it mean to "love thy neighbor" if what I do to the environment here on the South Shore of Massachusetts is hurting the environment of my neighbor in Central America? As a Christian community, unless we are caring for the environment, we can not be caring for our neighbor. We hope to deepen our environmental spirituality and seek out new ways to see the face of God in all of creation. For more information on St. Stephen's go to www.ststephenscohasset.org |
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Compact Flourescent Lights (CFLs) are an
Everyday Environmental Stewardship (EES) Opportunity
for you and your faith comunity!
And they are Catching On!
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 Everybody these days is waving the CFL banner!
And the National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program urges the Christian faithful:
"Give up incandescents for Lent!"
"CFLs use about a
quarter the amount of energy compared to standard incandescent bulbs,
provide the same amount of light, and last up to 10 times longer. If
every American household replaced three 60-watt incandescent bulbs with
CFL bulbs, the pollution savings would be like taking 3.5 million cars
off the road." Learn more
The Coallition for the Environment & Jewish Life is also using CFLs to motivate its faith community with the Light Among the Nations campaign.
Read about what CEJL is doing here.
Use these campaigns as a thought-starter...and put CFLs in YOUR home
AND your place of worship!
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True Confessions:
MIP&L's Mary Downes' "BAD BOILER"
(And what she's going to do about it!)
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 Don't be "cowed" by what the MIP&L-cam discovered in our Communication Manager Mary Downes' basement.
(Yes, that's her fuel tank. She had too much time on her hands one winter weekend.)
Like a lot of people (maybe you, too?), Mary hadn't really thought much about her 30-year-old boiler until she became involved with MIP&L. Now she looks at her boiler and sees $$ and pollutants going up the chimney.
What is the "low hanging fruit" in this picture (right)?
(That is, what's easy and quick to fix NOW?)
Look at the pipes- they're not insulated!
She's heating unoccupied space!
What a waste.
With a quick trip to the hardware store, and dragging her teenage son off the computer to help, she can save energy right away by insluating those pipes. (As you can tell by the fishing rods to the right, Mary's husband Bill is busy with other things....)
Tune in next month to see if Mary has followed through- or if sloth and inertia (two of environmental stewardship's most lethal enemies...) have invaded the Downes household!
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We hope you enjoy this issue of the MIP&L newsletter.
Contact us
with your questions, ideas, success stories...horror
stories/photos...and/or calls for help!
Remember: Wherever you are in
your environmental stewardship journey, we've been there-
and can help
light the way (with CFLs, of course!).Begin that journey today, here.
Most importantly, thank you for everything you and your faith community are doing- and will do- to care for creation. Because... IF WE DON'T, WHO WILL?
Sincerely,
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Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light
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