The 217th Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly (2006) declared, "the Christian mandate to care for creation and the biblical promise of the restoration of right relationships between God, human beings, and the rest of creation impels and inspires us to act to reduce our energy usage." They added " that the urgency, injustice, and seriousness of this issue calls us as Christians to act NOW and to act boldly to lead the way in reducing our energy usage."
PCFL's response included a Lenten series in 2007, using a daily reading from Frederic & MaryAnn Brussat's spirituality & practice website's "spirituality in nature" and weekly covered dish supper gatherings on Wednesday evenings. We had informal and informative talks (details below) by some friends of PCFL on responses to the environmental challenges faced by our world. And we invited discussion on a blog created for that purpose!
We'll continue to explore ways to take this seriously, to pray asking for God's forgiveness and guidance, to study this issue, to educate others, and to use less energy, striving to make our life carbon neutral. We welcome your participation!
During Lent, we sent daily readings and practice suggestions by e-mail.
On Wed. evenings we held a covered-dish supper at church, 6:30-7:30 PM, to share the practice, followed by a talk & discussion, 7:30-8:30.
Feb. 28 – Jack Lohr on "What Can We Do?"
Mar. 7 – Jack Ward on "Corporate Responses to Global Warming"
Mar. 14 – Fred Curtis on "Economics of Global Warming"
Mar. 21 -- John Cays on "Greening of Architecture"
Jack Lohr is pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Franklin Lakes. His personal commitment to reducing carbon emissions includes walking, riding a bicycle to work, using a motorcycle that gets 67 mpg, and driving a Prius. He says he's trying to leave a habitable planet for his unborn grandchildren, and rebalance the earth to create justice for the poor. He says, "I know there's room for discussion on the science, the economics, and the politics of global warming, but the saying is still true: 'We must live simply so that others may simply live.'" He'll be leading a discussion of "What We Can Do" to make a difference.
Jack Ward is Vice President for Development of the Association for Manufacturing Excellence He has worked with corporate executives, the Shambala Institute for Authentic Leadership, and Peter Senge's Society for Organizational Learning, to strategize new responses to global warming. He'll talk with us about new strategies emerging from corporate leadership.
Dr. Fred Curtis, Prof. of Economics at Drew University. The U.S. and global economies are increasingly confronted with two major challenges to their fossil fuel-reliant systems: global warming (and its impacts on the climate and eco-system) and peak oil (the predicted long-term decline in the daily output of petroleum) in a time of ever increasing demand for fossil fuels. In the past year, many solutions have been proposed for these energy-related problems. Solutions include bio-fuels, hybrid-electric vehicles, carbon sequestration, extension of the Kyoto Protocol, synthetic fuels from coal and a market for carbon emissions, to name a few. Global Warming and Peak Oil will impact not only the energy and transportation sectors of the economy but also construction, insurance, agriculture, finance, development and globalization. They will thus impact every aspect of our economic lives. Fred has studied the factual, scientific basis of peak oil and global warming and their multi-faceted impacts on the economy. He can share how these issues are addressed by economists, corporations and business interest groups and by government policy.
John Cays is Associate Dean for Academics at
New Jersey Technical Institute's
