earth notes and news 2008 - gulf coast synod

8/7/2019 Earth Notes and News 2008 - Gulf Coast Synod

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LENS homepage (Lutheran Earthkeeping Network

of the Synods): http://www.webofcreation.org/LENS/index.html

The Stewardship Team of the TX-LA Gulf Coast Synodhas an Eco-Justice sub-team. If you or any member ofyour congregation might be interested in becoming amember, please contact Joyce Kuhlman,

[email protected], for more information! We arecurrently meeting on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays at 4:30pm at Covenant Lutheran Church (unless there areschedule conflicts).

April 22 is Earth Day!!

Celebrate Earth Day 2008!

If you are looking for a good day to schedule a worship service forcare of the earth, why not plan to celebrate Gods creation on April20th or 27th?

There are several internet resources available to help you getstarted: If you choose to celebrate using this years theme go tothe following for information including a guide for study,liturgies, sermons & sermon starters and ideas for youth:http://www.earthday.net.

If you choose to celebrate using a general Earthkeeping theme, check outhttp://webofcreation.org/Worship/index.htm or http://www.seasonofcreation.com/

http://webofcreation.org/LENS/c4cliturgy.html or http://www.eco-justice.org/tips-w.asp

which contain liturgies, prayers, blessings, litanies, a list of appropriate hymns, and petitions, inshort all you will need.

One Churchs Story We would like to start up a regular feature about how various churcheswho have environmental or social justice groups went about getting them started. If yourcongregation has such a group please send us your info (it doesnt have to be fancy if we havethe facts we can write it up) so others might learn what works and what doesnt. Send info to

Joyce Kuhlman [email protected].

Earth Notes & News

Volume I, Issue 1.

J. M. Kuhlman - editor

Earth Notes & News is

a publication of the

Stewardship Team of

the Texas-Louisiana

Gulf Coast Synod of

The ELCA.All images and text in

this document may be

used in your newsletters

Networking and NewsWe would like to begin networking all theeco-justice teams in our synod to shareideas, help facilitate, communication, andgenerally help one another. If yourcongregation has an environmental orsocial justice team, please ask one oftheir members to serve as a contactperson and send their contact information

[email protected].


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What Can We Do To Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions?

A whopping 46% of homeenergy use is really energy loss!Here are simple ways ofreversing this, mostly bychanges of habit. Thanks toclimatecrisis.net and The HomeEnergy Diet (New SocietyPublishers, 2005) for many ofthe carbon savings figures."1

"And to man He said, 'Behold, the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom;

And to depart from evil is understanding.'" Job 28:28

Pray. This one doesnt get a number because it is more important than the rest

Pray for guidance, pray for our leaders, pray for the earth

We who have lost our sense and our sensesour touch, our smell, our vision of who we are; we who

frantically force and press all things, without rest for body or spirit, hurting our Earth and injuring

ourselves and others: We call a halt. We want to rest. We need to rest and allow the Earth to rest. We

need to reflect and to rediscover the mystery that lives in us, that is the ground of every unique

expression of life, the source of the fascination that calls all things to communion. We declare a Sabbath,

a space of quiet: for simple being and letting be; for recovering the great, forgotten truths; for learning

how to live again. Amen http://webofcreation.org/Worship/liturgy/prayers.htm

For general information: http://abcnews.go.com/Video/playerIndex?id=3724763

1. Adjust your thermostat by two degrees. You can save 3% of your heating costsby simply turning your thermostat down 2 degrees. During the summer, each degreeyou raise the temperature of your air conditioner saves 3-4% of your cooling costs. Ondays when its feasible, open a window instead of running the AC. Changing yourthermostat by two degrees throughout the year saves about 1 ton of C02 a year.

2. Turn off that oven. For a meal that requires 1 hour to cook in anelectric oven, and which uses 2.7 pounds of C02, a crockpot uses 0.9pounds of C02 for seven hours, a toaster oven takes 1.3 pounds of C02

for 50 minutes, and a microwave only 0.5 pounds of C02 for 15 minutes ofcooking. A solar cooker requires NOC02!

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3. Buy local. Buy local fruits and vegetables whenever possible. Choose a Texas wine. Bemindful of the petroleum miles it takes to bring products to your table. Some grocers (HEB forone) label their produce as local when applicable.

4. Use cold water to wash your clothes. Switching to cold water washingsaves 80% on energy used for laundry (an estimated $60 a year).1 Hangdry your clothes. Over its lifetime, a T shirt can send up to 9 lbs. of C02 into

the air.2 Hanging your clothes saves 700 lbs of C02 a year.5. Turn off the lights when you arent using them and reduce your directlighting energy use by 45% Stop using heat-producing halogen lamps (they canalso be fire hazards). Install occupancy or motion sensors on outdoor lights.1

6. Replacing your incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent

one (CFL). They last 10 times longer and use only one-fourth of the energy ofincandescents. Replacing one 100-watt bulb with ajust-as-bright 30-watt CFLcuts more than 1,300 pounds of CO2 pollution over the life of the bulb,assuming a 15,000-hour life for the CFL. It also substantially lowers yourelectric bill and pays for itself in 5 months! According tofastcompany.com/magazine if every one of 110 million American households

installed just one CFL in the place of an ordinary 60-watt bulb, the energy savedwould is equivalentto taking 1 .3 m i l l ion ca rs of f t he roads .


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7. Use a power strip for anything that can be powered by a remote control orthat has a power cube transformer (little black box [see left]), and turn it off,and/or unplug, when not in use. (Power cubes are60-80 percent inefficient.)1

8. Keep your tires inflated. This improves gas mileage by 3%. When waitingin a drive thru, do not let your car idle; turn it off. Everygallon you save also saves 20 pounds of C02 emissions.

1Chart your itinerary to include as many right turns as possible. According toTime Magazine, UPS has reduced C02 emissions by 1,000 metric tons sinceJanuary using this policy. 2

9. Insu late your water heater. This will save a half ton of C02/year. Insulate hot water pipes.

10. Pay your bills online. According toMaryanne Murray Buechner, at Time Magazine2, ifyou pay your bills online it not only saves trees butalso helps reduce fuel consumption used in

transportation (trucks & planes). The author alsonotes that if everyone in the U.S. paid their billsonline, the switch would cut solid waste by 1.6billion tons a year and curb greenhouse-gasemissions by 2.1 million tons a year, according toJavelin Strategy & Research. Having your employer to directly deposit your paycheck saves yourtime, fuel to take it to the bank and additional paper consumption.

11. Plant a tree. single tree removes one ton of CO2 over its lifetime by sequestering thecarbon and releasing oxygen. It also removes particulate matterfrom the air, is a natural air conditioners providing shade and

reducing the need for air conditioning and, without leaves in thewinter, trees allow the suns rays to naturally warm the house. Treesalso evaporate water to the atmosphere which increases cloud coverand helps cool the planet.

12. Say NO to plastic bags. According to Carolyn Sayre at TimeMagazine2 485 b i l l ion plastic bags end up in landfills every year.These bags can take up to a thousand years to biodegrade and emitharmful greenhouse gases in the process. Paper bags use up trees.Buy some canvas bags and use them over and over again.

13. Buy more products that use recycled paper . According toCoco Masters at Time Magazine2, although Americans do recycle 50%or 42 million tons of what they use, the rest, or another 42 milliontons is not. We use 900 million trees every to feed our paper hunger.Recycled paper uses 60% less energy than virgin paper; each ton ofrecycled paper purchased saves 4,000 kW-h of energy, 7,000 gal. of

water and 17 trees, and a tree has the capacity to filter up to 60 lbs. of pollutants from the air.2

14. Recycle more. You can save 2,000 pounds of CO2 every year by recycling half of yourhousehold waste.3

1http://www.care2.com/channels/solutions/home/33352

http://www.time.com/time/specials/2007/environment/?internalid=AOT_h_03-29-007_51_things_we_ca3 www.climatecrisis.net

earth notes and news 2008 - gulf coast synod

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