Eco-Act 21:10: relationships never end

It’s hard to believe but I (Adrienne) am writing this blog from sunny (but not as hot) San Diego! As many of you know, I have moved down here to start a graduate school program in Climate Science & Policy at Scripps Institute of Oceanography in July.

My journey of vocational discernment has been greatly shaped by my time with you all at Union/415. While I was with you, I was able to discern in community a call to ordained ministry (still in the works but maybe later), social work / thriving communities, environmental action, food justice, and local business that’s for the neighborhood. Though I’ll be focusing on the climate action piece this next year, I am very excited to see how all of my Union/415 experiences and interests will overlap my studies and overall vocation.

Staying Connected

reflecting on the past & looking toward the future

As we look backward and ahead regarding our Eco-Faith initiative and Union’s next iteration as we get back in person, I want to frame these wonderings within the (indigenous) idea that relationships never end. How might we live as People of the Way if relationships never end? How might we commit to acting for the care of all of Creation if we took seriously the earth’s ongoing relationship with us and all our ancestors, past and future? I can’t help but wonder about the timing and care of this message as I’ve heard it twice (maybe 3 times?) during my first week in San Diego.

The first time was from a Japanese American Episcopal priest serving in Okinawa. Nestled in our Zoom boxes, she described how beautiful it has been to get to know the community and indigenous Okinawan culture while walking with her parish through the uncertainties of a still very real COVID pandemic. She detailed how important relationships are to people there (especially the older folks most impacted by the virus) and shared there is no word in Okinawan for goodbye because culturally, relationships never end.

A day or two later, I was reading about the 751 more unmarked graves found at a former residential school in Saskatchewan, Canada. As I mourned these children and the history of genocide that the Church and State perpetuate all over the world, a package arrived. In it was a thank you present from Union: a wool blanket designed by Snoqualmie Tribal Members McKenna Sweet Dorman and Jaime Martin. The timely gift was different shades of brown (so earthy!) and “incorporates designs found on traditional basket weavings from the Puget Sound region” (see above link for more). The last note said:

These blankets were designed with wrapping, gifting, and honoring in mind. The meeting of the design from each side to the other will speak to the continuous quality of time and intergenerational connection through time. The intentional colors of the blanket reflect the use of natural plants, dyes, and materials used by traditional artists. This design speaks to Snoqualmie Tribe's collective past, present and future.

After learning in Kitchen Table Conversations of Native histories and re-imagined futures for Coastal Salish peoples and other Native folks on Turtle Island, this gift thoughtfully wrapped and held me — a tangible reminder of the histories, communities, and relations that have shaped my work at Union, alongside my hopes for deepened Union relationships with local tribes. The blanket’s Native context and Union’s gift remind me, though not quite in the same language: relationships never end…we are all part of Creation…we will always be connected.

This view of time and of relationship encompasses our sense of self in relation to the community, how we treat one another, and the ways we act for the earth. Though I am stepping away, I wonder who might step in and alongside my frank and action-oriented Eco-Faith counterpart: Gary Cooke. I believe that the momentum we’ve all created together is meaningful and one way Union can continue to show God’s deep love for all of Creation.

If you are interested in becoming more involved with Eco-Faith, please email Gary. For the rest of the summer, we will be collecting produce on Thursdays before noon at the McCollough’s in N. Seattle, 415, and the Downey’s in W. Seattle. The beautiful produce from our dispersed community gardens gets distributed to neighbors at Compass House Dexter.

As I hold on to the significance of relationships never ending, I will always think fondly of my Union community! But to be sure, I think I had more profound exhortations and reflections of gratitude for Union in my Sunday Zoom goodbye (Gary’s prayer that sent me on my way had us all crying!). What I do recall from that message is: Union is doing the Kin-dom work in so many areas; keep showing up tangibly!

I will leave the Eco-Faith blog world (for now) with some exhortations from Jesus…a 1st century indigenous Palestinian Jew and Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer of the cosmos (and all our relations):

“Believe me: I am in my Father and my Father is in me. If you can’t believe that, believe what you see—these works. The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing. You can count on it. From now on, whatever you request along the lines of who I am and what I am doing, I’ll do it. That’s how the Father will be seen for who he is in the Son. I mean it. Whatever you request in this way, I’ll do.”

- John 14:11-14, MSG

Eco-act 21:09: acting for the neighborhood and for 2050

Last fall, we reflected on what poet Mary Oliver called the season’s exquisite, necessary diminishing.

We also wondered “… what if everyone in the Union community who gardens, or who could garden, decided to plant extra tomatoes, or lettuce, or spinach, or onions, peppers, melons, squash, potatoes, …. Could we grow enough food to make a difference for someone else?”

Now we are thankful for the continuation of the annual cadence: Easter rebirth leads to Pentecost’s message of growth. Spring promises summer. And Oliver observes, “in spring there’s hope … in summer there is everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts, the hospitality of the Lord….”

We’ve also got an answer to our fall question, as the photo left illustrates. Last Thursday Union gardeners delivered seven bags of greens, along with turnips, snap peas and chard; the produce was delivered to, and appreciatively accepted by, Compass House.

Let’s keep this going! For everyone interested in joining the Union Gardens project, mark Thursdays on your calendars. That’s when you can bring your produce to the McColloughs’ house in North Seattle, or the Downeys’ in West Seattle, or Union before 1:00 PM. The Union team will take it from there.

Now, let’s step back for a moment and glance at the bigger picture: fighting climate change on a global scale. This month, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released a special report entitled Net Zero by 2050. Executive director Fatih Birol describes 2021 as “a critical year at the start of a critical decade,” and the report notes that the current pace of carbon/greenhouse gas emissions reduction will miss the 2050 deadline for “net-zero.” But rather than dwell on “gloom and doom,” the report sets out a detailed set of milestones—400!—whose achievement will mark the path the world needs to follow to reach its net-zero goal—with global equity(1)—by mid-century. Some examples:

• By 2021: no new oil or gas fields, or unabated coal plants(2), receive governmental approval

• By 2025: no more sales of fossil fuel-powered boilers

• By 2030: universal access to energy; all new buildings will be zero-carbon-ready(3); 60% of global new car sales will be electric vehicles; most of the required new clean technologies for heavy industry will be demonstrated at scale; solar and wind generation additions will exceed 1,000 gigawatts annually; unabated coal plants will be phased out in advanced economies

• By 2035: 50% of new heavy truck sales will be electric

• By 2040: 50% of aviation fuel consumed will be low-emission

• By 2045: 50% of global heating demand will be met with heat pumps

• By 2050: nearly 70% global electricity will be generated by solar and wind

Is creating a list of milestones the same as meeting those milestones? Of course not. Much of the success in reaching net-zero by 2050 will be driven by technologies not yet developed or proven at scale today, for one thing. And, as the IEA report notes, innovation will require governments to put “R&D, demonstration and deployment at the core of energy and climate policy.” More daunting still, a high degree of international consensus and collaboration will be needed. Hmmm…. And yet, it’s possible to find hope in this special report, for at least two reasons. First, this is not an alarmist “the sky is falling! Quick, we’ve got to do something!” document. Instead, the report presents tangible measures—things we can watch for and work for. And secondly, we as individuals are not relegated to the sideline; we have a role to play. The writers are clear: “A transition of the scale and speed described by the net-zero pathway cannot be achieved without sustained support and participation from citizens…. We estimate that around 55% of the cumulative emissions reductions in the pathway are linked to consumer choices….” So how might we contribute?

• Through our consumer choices: making our next vehicle electric, installing energy-efficiency upgrades and heat pumps in our homes, choosing to walk, bike or take public transport, and using the car wisely when it’s necessary, ….

• Through our voting/political choices: supporting candidates who back clean energy, zero-carbon R&D, job retraining for workers displaced by fossil fuel phase-out, expansion of clean-electricity grids, solar and wind farms, ….

• Through our investment choices: investing in companies/projects working to develop and scale technologies needed to achieve net-zero by 2050.

The path is indeed narrow, as the IEA press release notes, but we do have a path, and ways that we as individuals can help stay on it. That’s encouraging. It’s also encouraging that we have a way—Union Gardens—to help at the neighborhood level. We really can, at both the local and global levels, act with purpose and hope. Reasons to be thankful!

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(1) Per the IEA Report: “Providing electricity to around 785 million people that have no access and clean cooking solutions to 2.6 billion people that lack those options is an integral part of our pathway.”

(2) “Unabated coal-powered plants:” operating with little or no carbon capture/storage

(3) “Zero-carbon-ready:” capable of producing carbon-free renewable energy onsite, or procuring carbon offset

Eco-Act 21:09: checking in as we journey

This week, with May approaching, we check in on our Union Gardens project with a mixture of gratitude and anticipation. Then, we revisit two previously discussed components of our work to live more eco-friendly lives: recycling and our food consumption. First, Union Gardens ….

As the photo at left shows, radishes and arugula, sown just a few weeks ago, are growing nicely. And look carefully center-right to spot some butterhead and romaine lettuces sprouting. It won’t be long now….

At this point, just about everything can be safely sown or transplanted into outdoor gardens. For us, this means adding tomatoes, peppers, onion sets, carrots, bok choy and beans, as well as succession-planting lettuce. Our hope is that, by the end of May and early June, we will start to have some produce to share. If you have been thinking about joining the Union Gardens project, this is a great time to get started—in your back yard or a nearby pea patch, or on your deck, porch or windowsill.

Perhaps you have noticed and been encouraged by the recent wave of good environmental news. Ford, GM and Volvo, for example, have announced timelines for going all-electric. Tesla founder Elon Mush is financing a $100 million competition for the creation of solutions that remove carbon from the environment. The Environmental Protection Agency plans to allow California to resume setting its own (rigorous) vehicle emissions standards. And last week, the Biden administration joined with other world leaders to announce a focus on a clean energy future. These and similar developments are exciting in part because of the scale on which the players operate—far beyond what any individual can achieve. And with governments and corporations signaling they will do the “heavy lifting,” we have an opportunity to fine-tune the work we continue to do as individuals.

Recycling

We all dutifully follow the rules: buy-use-recycle-done. We’re environmentally responsible consumers, right? We do our part, and then pass the baton to our municipalities so they can finish the job properly. But is this approach really working? Or are we deluding ourselves? Maybe we as consumers have some opportunities to focus our efforts for better results, for example:

• avoiding products that come in plastic containers or multi-material containers (e.g., foil-lined chip bags)

• buying foods in bulk, using our own containers

• using Ridwell to dispose of plastic films

Such actions, over time, signal manufacturers that we want their help in eliminating plastics from the environment.

Food consumption

What we eat, particularly red meat, impacts the environment: raising/feeding beef, for example, accounts for perhaps 6% of greenhouse gas emissions annually. As the world’s population grows and becomes more affluent, demand for meat will increase, leading to deforestation to free up more land for grazing and feed crop production—creating more greenhouse gas emissions. How do we help avoid this problem? We don’t need to become vegans or vegetarians; we just need to eat less meat, substituting chicken, fish and plant-based proteins for a portion of our current meat consumption.

So what can we take away from our journey to this point? Governments and major corporations appear to be stepping up to fight global warming on a scale only they are capable of—encouraging news. Furthermore, much

remains that each of us can individually contribute—more good news. And seeds + earth + water + sun still yield food to enjoy—and share. Good news indeed!

Eco-Act 21:08: Earth Day everyday

Official Earth Day art by Speto, acclaimed Brazilian street artist from São Paulo.

This year’s Earth Day (April 22nd) comes on the heels of the World Meteorological Organization’s 2020 Global Climate report, showing that 2020 was one of the hottest years on record and that the planet is on the verge of climate disaster if we don’t act now. It also comes amidst growing calls for the end of racialized police violence with the conviction of Derek Chauvin in the killing of George Floyd and a relentless string of other Black and brown people killed by police — many of them being children and young adults. To reflect on racism and Creation healing, we invite you to reflect on indigenous scholar and farmer, Dr. Randy Woodley’s article: White Supremacy and the Fate of the Earth.

This year, Earth Day is being officially celebrated all over the globe by EarthDay.org on April 20-23. They have put together informative forums, campaigns, and other ways to engage and we invite you to check out some of these resources. In addition to tuning in live for their program, “Earth Day Live“ at 9 AM PST, you can watch their virtual summits at any time:

• Global Youth Summit: led by Earth Uprising, in collaboration with My Future My Voice, OneMillionOfUs and hundreds of youth climate activists.

• We Shall All Breathe: The Hip Hop Caucus and its partners will present the “We Shall Breathe” virtual summit. This digital event will examine climate and environmental justice, connecting the climate crisis to issues of pollution, poverty, police brutality, and the pandemic, all within a racial justice framework.

• Teach For the Planet: Join a group of gifted global educators and education activists to talk about the importance of climate change education and action today, for tomorrow’s change makers.

There are many more resources on their homepage including their admonition to us to celebrate Earth Day every day through their Restore Our Earth campaign, as well as history of the day (51 years in the making!) and a tool to find (mostly virtual) Earth Day events to tune into.

You can also check this Verge article for a variety of Earth Day celebrations and educational events: President Biden’s Leaders’ Summit on Climate Change (4/22-23), a virtual 5k (4/17-25), National Geographic’s Earth Day Eve Party (tonight!!), and many many more!!

On a closer-to-home scale, we encourage you to look into Earth Ministry’s broad array of events! There are some great opportunities to get involved in regional and state environmental actions. Let us know how you celebrated Earth Day, and what you’re committing to in the year ahead!

Eco-Act 21-07: the “global” in global warming

eco not ego

global climate change

Today we begin to look at how and where we as individuals fit into the work of eliminating global warming. To do this, we’ll dig just a bit into agriculture, which accounts for 19% of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions annually, according to Bill Gates in How to Avoid a Climate Disaster*. As we start, we should remember three points.

1. We truly are all connected. Atmospheric warming can’t be eliminated by or for Seattle, Washington state or the US alone. We can and should take steps that help local conditions, and we can be confident that these measures contribute to the bigger solutions needed. But despite our best efforts, we will feel some negative impacts of global warming in Seattle, the Northwest, the US—and in the northern hemisphere—until climate problems are addressed globally. It should also be stated that the global majority will face more severe consequences of global warming, first.

2. Global climate solutions must pair with global equity solutions. Effective, lasting climate solutions must be robust enough to work for a growing world population (the Pew Research Center estimates it at 10.9 billion in 2100), supporting higher living standards and expanding economies that enable increasing worldwide consumption of goods and energy. We have a mandate to act, from both a climate and a social justice perspective: no (social) justice, no (climate) peace.

3. Game-changing climate solutions will require global scale. Carbon taxes, solar and wind farms, transition to “clean” steel and cement, carbon capture technologies …. These and many other initiatives will be essential to the elimination of GHG emissions. And they will require investments, technology advances and legislative actions exceeding by orders of magnitude the contributions any one of us alone can make. Does this make our individual efforts pointless? Absolutely not! Our actions can help make a direct difference. Here, for example, are three actions we as individuals could take right now that have the potential to reduce GHG emissions in the agriculture sector:

   • Waste less food. Americans throw away something like 40%** of the food they buy—twice the percentage of Europeans and some other populations. As wasted food rots in the landfill, it releases GHGs—3.3 billion tons each year. So we can help reduce global warming simply by shopping for food more carefully and making sure we use everything we buy.

   • Modify our diets. Raising livestock for food is a major source of GHG emissions in the agriculture sector. Reducing the amount of meat we eat thus makes a direct, if gradual, contribution to GHG elimination. Consider also that our reduced consumption here will help compensate for other parts of the world where improving standards of living support increased meat consumption. Can our meal planning include a few meatless (or “engineered” meat) entrées each week?

   • Get smart about fertilizing our gardens. As they are used, fertilizers can release nitrogen, which ultimately leads to GHG emissions and water pollution. Yet plants—including those in our Union Gardens—benefit from fertilizing. The challenge is to fertilize just enough. A wealth of information on this topic can be found here and elsewhere online.

Intentional acts like the three noted above produce direct benefits and confirm the value our individual roles, in this case as consumers and savvy gardeners. But they do more: they signal the food industry, agribusinesses, corporate farmers and livestock producers, and other organizations that our requirements, and thus our shopping behaviors, are changing. And to continue to enjoy success in the marketplace, these major corporations and other businesses will have to change their behaviors as well, by changing product offerings or raising smaller herds, for example, or growing food grains instead of livestock feed.

Climate change is truly global. But even so, we do fit into the work of eliminating global warming—by our actions on a personal scale, and by our influence on regional, national and global-scale players.

* How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, Bill Gates, page 55. The formal title for this category is actually “agriculture, forestry and other land use.”

** How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, page 121.

Eco-Act 21-06: Union Gardens April Check-In

Winter’s End

For those of us happy to do a bit of gardening in the wind and rain, the 2021 growing season has been underway for a while already. Actually, we’re still harvesting lettuce and kale from our “winter’s end garden,” left. But now, the overwintering plants are slowly being joined by new sprouts from the peas and salad greens we seeded a few weeks ago (note the tiny bits of green in the foreground).

The major recent activity, however, has been preparing a new garden bed and seeding it with radishes, arugula, spinach, and lettuces. With luck, we’ll be enjoying the radishes sometime in the second half of April, followed by the arugula and spinach, and then the lettuces by late May/early June.

If you’re willing to accept Sky Nursery’s “last frost date” estimate of April 15th, then a wide variety of vegetables can be safely direct-seeded outdoors at this point, as noted in our Union Gardens Calendar:

• fava beans

• peas

• spinach

• onions/scallions

• arugula

• collards

• kale

• leeks

• lettuce

• potatoes

• radishes

• turnips

• cabbage

• cauliflower

• celery

• kohlrabi

Coming Attractions

We’re anticipating rows of green to begin emerging in the “coming attractions” garden, left, within a week or two.

Might you be looking for a positive, hopeful activity—or even just sign of the warmer, sunnier weather to come? Consider planting some seeds in your garden, planter box, or a container on the windowsill!

Eco-act 21-05: 51 billion tons

Our 2020 Eco-Faith posts focused primarily on actions that we as individuals can take to care for our physical world. In 2021 we will continue to occasionally offer a new idea for individual earth-friendly acts. But we’re also launching two new projects. We’ve been sowing the seeds for one of these in recent posts: Union Gardens, our socially-distanced community garden project that aims to grow a bit of food for ourselves—and a bit more that we as a community can share with Compass House, Lake Union Village and others. Now we’re waiting hopefully and continuing our preparations for the first sprouts in the coming weeks.

With Union Gardens underway, we introduce a second project area to think about: climate change, and specifically, what positive actions the Union community might take in support of our environment.

Climate change/global warming is seen by many as an existential threat to the quality of life—perhaps life itself—on planet earth, while a few may still deny or ignore the problem. Among those who acknowledge it, some feel climate change will be controlled through solar and wind initiatives, electric vehicles, the Paris Accord, and other efforts. Others, however, believe current efforts represent only a tiny fraction of what will be needed to avert catastrophic climate change.

avoiding climate disaster

a book review on Bill Gates’ new book

So how might Union as a community work on this confusing but critical issue? It seems that the necessary first step will be coming to a common definition and understanding of climate change. And to attempt to do this, we turn to a recently-published book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster*, written by Bill Gates. This informative, reader-friendly, realistic-yet-hopeful book presents a structure for understanding climate change and its causes, what tools are available now to address the problem, what additional steps must be taken—quickly—and what roles governments, private enterprise and individuals must play. We will draw on this book in several upcoming posts, and heartily recommend it.

The problem

Greenhouse gases are added to the world’s atmosphere every year at the rate of 51 billion tons,** give or take, and cause the earth to warm, which in turn causes or will cause a variety of problems for humans—and everything else: rising sea levels, extreme weather, drought, crop failure, wildfires, poor air quality, famine, mass migration, economic distress, political unrest, …. And because greenhouse gases (aka, carbon dioxide or GHG) remain in the atmosphere for centuries, simply reducing the rate of yearly addition will not stop global warming. The analogy that Bill uses is that merely reducing the flow of water into a filling bathtub will not avoid an eventual overflow. Turning off the flow is essential.

GHG sources

Greenhouse gases are created by virtually everything humans do. In his book, Bill organizes GHG sources into five groups and provides estimates for the portion of annual emissions each represents:*

• Manufacturing 31%

• Electricity 27%

• Agriculture 19%

• Transportation 16%

• HVAC 7%

Tackling the problem

Because pretty much everything we do creates greenhouse gases, and because driving GHG emissions to zero is critical, tackling global warming is a uniquely difficult problem: basically, we have to change EVERYTHING, more or less AT THE SAME TIME. And if that isn’t daunting enough, GHG emissions must be eliminated in economically and morally just ways that allow the world’s poor and emerging countries to benefit along with us. As Bill notes, “We need to accomplish something gigantic we have never done before, much faster than we have ever done anything similar…. But don’t despair. We can do this.”*** Let’s see if we can find a way for the Union community to help.

*How to Avoid a Climate Disaster, the Solutions We Have and the Breakthroughs We Need, Bill Gates

** Ibid., page 3

*** Ibid., page 5