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 008: Learn Native History

Colonization was the first environmental injustice

start there.

As our eco-act for this week, we invite you to learn more about Indigenous histories and movements for environmental justice. Also, please join us in the KTC author talk this Tuesday.

Water Protectors at Standing Rock pictured above. Adrienne reflects below on what the Kitchen Table Conversations have covered in the Environmental Justice (EJ) conversation this spring/summer.

Starting earlier this year at 415 and moving in March over to Zoom, we have been privileged to create a safe space to engage in really, really difficult conversations around Indigenous-settler relations, and specifically environmental (in)justice. Our group is open to all and offered through kakáo, which has allowed us to have a diverse cross-section of folks at the table. The group is facilitated by Lydia Heberling, consistent 2nd Sunday facilitator, former kakáo barista, and PhD at UW studying Native American Literature. Lydia has thoughtfully connected us with media and art, dynamic speakers, and a variety of sub-topics within Indigenous movements.

Some common Indigenous EJ themes and questions that we have explored include:

• “Environment” definition: Beyond just the naturalistic, pristine wilderness that we often think of, our environment includes the schools, businesses, housing, health care systems, green spaces, and people around us. Such social realities invite us to think about the history of how our environment came to be, and how such factors continue to shape community.

• Progress & environmentalism: The program of progress and environmentalism does not often acknowledge or support the complexities and varied histories of Native communities. An example: animal activists are divided over Makah whaling, which is covered in their treaty rights. Here are a few articles: KUOW & Seattle Times Opinion piece. Rather than understanding complexities, environmentalism tends to fetishize and extract Indigenous culture for its supposed mystical wisdom and relationship to the environment.

• Colonialism as the original environmental injustice: As the above suggests, environmentalists do not always center Indigenous EJ as a starting place. The legacy of settler colonialism includes one of forced removal, slavery, ecocide, and continual separation from ancestral land and thus cultural practices that tribes rely on. “If we assume an estimate of eighteen million Indigenous people on the continent…in 1492 and compare that to the Native American population count of roughly 228,000 in the 1890 census…we see a population decline of approximately 99 percent.” (Gilio-Whitaker, 49). Our praxis of environmental justice must address the devastating legacy of Colonialism and how BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, & People of Color) are affected disproportionately compared to white people.

• History, Christianity, Capitalism, & Western society: Unfortunately, Western ideals around Manifest Destiny and the belief that Native life (bodies, culture, ways of being) was inferior to Christian doctrine and social norms were popular among European settlers since first contact was made. Such racial and religious presumptions justified ill-treatment and removal of Natives, and continue to perpetuate the idea that corporations and the US gov’t/legal system know better than Indigenous communities. For many of us as Christians embedded in our capitalist society, we have wondered what a way forward could look like that accounts for our religion’s history and our current complicity in our nation’s Settler State policies that continue erasing Indigenous people.

• Indigenous EJ histories: Different tribes have different histories. There have actually been many attempts to address Native EJ at the US Federal level (ie: the EPA), however, tribal consultation and recommendations have not historically panned out, especially with the tangle of corporate / gov’t interest, and inconsistencies in Federal and State recognition of tribal sovereignties. Many Native protests and occupations have led to increments of change, though their struggle has been continual for the last 500 years. Environmental injustice and our current climate crisis is not recent history for Indigenous communities.

Other topics discussed include the health of Indigenous land, ecosystems, and people; the National Park formation and the harmful roots of the conservation/preservation movements; Native food (and land) sovereignty; Indigenous women in the EJ movement; what a new framework for coalition building could look like; and Christian confession and responsibility.

Overall, the space created by the virtual Kitchen Table Conversations has been especially formative and fruitful. As we continue to faithfully resist ongoing racial injustice (really any injustice) in our country, we have been reminded how necessary it is to do this critical work in community. KTC will be taking a summer break for July, stay tuned for updates!

Many of these topics have been guided by our reading of *Dina Gilio-Whitaker’s book As Long as the Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock. We have the incredible opportunity to talk with her this Tuesday and we hope you’ll join us!

Eco-Act 005: Center Black EJ activists

center Black EJ* activists

Black Lives Matter. *Environmental Justice

This week as we continue to lament, reflect, and act on police brutality and white supremacy in our communities and country, we want to amplify and share Black voices in the environmental justice field. We invite you to read “A Little Patch of Something” by Imani Perry (written 6/3/20), where she talks about the long history of Black planting and tending alongside racialized atrocity and grief. Closer to home, you can also read more about Seattle’s Black womxn farmers and support some of their work.

Here are other people to learn from and support in the Black environmental justice community…

In Seattle:

• Black Farmers Collective: Seattle-based YES Farm!! BFC is a group of urban food system activists dedicated to providing opportunities to improve the health of [Black] communities through all aspects of the food system. Donate!!

• FEEST: is an organization led by youth of color in South Seattle and South King County working to improve health in our schools. Youth leaders celebrate food and culture at community dinners and build power to win policy changes that increase food access for all students. Donate & volunteer!

• Feed The People: Chef Tarrik Abdullah & others in the Seattle Kitchen Collective have been providing AMAZING free meals in Seattle to any who need it.

• Nurturing Roots Farm: is a community farming program focused on educating youth & community members on healthy food choices. Creating community through gardening.

Elsewhere:

• Natl. Black Food & Justice Alliance: NBFJA organizes for Black food and land, by increasing the visibility of visionary Black leadership, advancing Black people’s struggle for just and sustainable communities, and building power in our food systems and land stewardship. On their Support page, you can donate and support other actions; check their resources on the Info page.

• Soul Fire Farm: Soul Fire Farm is committed to ending racism and injustice in the food system.

• Aja Barber: is a writer and fashion consultant. “[Her] expertise is in race, intersectional feminism and ... fashion (focusing mostly on sustainable and ethical fashion)”. (Patreon)

• Amber Tamm: farmer, horticulturalist, floral designer

• Black With Plants: D’Real learns from plants and works in concert with communities to make strategic gains towards Indigenous Sovereignty and Black Liberation. Donate (Venmo, Paypal, Patreon, Cash App) @blackwithplants.

• Leah Thomas: intersectional environmentalist, activist, eco-communicator. She has a helpful article on the Good Trade, created the text graphics shared in this post, and is the subject of the other illustration by Alja Horvat. She also has a great list of other intersectional environmentalists on her Instagram feed!

These are a few of MANY Black folks doing this work (and admittedly, many here are young)! Who else do you follow and support? Drop their info in the comments below! To close, we share this list from Leah Thomas and commit to a more intersectional environmental justice. #blacklivesmatter

Jesus was Known in the Breaking of the Bread

This is a reflection from Adrienne, whose work for Union includes Communications and these days, helping out with our food ministries.

Last Sunday, the Gospel Lectionary reading was Luke 24:13-35 — the story of the two disciples heading to Emmaus. Their world had just been turned upside-down, much like our own. Though they took time walking and speaking with Jesus, “he had [only!] been made known to them in the breaking of the bread” (v. 35). I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what it means to truly see and know Jesus, broken open in something as common as a shared meal, a source of sustenance. This feels especially poignant in the Church’s current season of fasting from gathering and sharing in the Eucharist together.

In the midst of this pandemic, I see Christ resurrected in the embodied and relational gifts of Union: broken open abundantly for our community. Eastertide or not, it is clear that we care deeply about (yummy & nutritious) food accessibility and the interrelated communal web that we get to practice food justice with.

Though we aren’t able to do our usual 4th Sunday SCCA brunch or provide the chicken fingers and egg rolls at snack time for Compass House’s Café Club kiddos, we are finding ways to play to our strengths and tangibly feed our neighborhood:

• People are packing dozens of sack lunches every week that we distribute to LUV & ICS. Others are cooking one or a few extra meals for those in our community and for Compass House by carefully preparing, labeling, and dropping off. Last week, we estimate there were about 80 main meals, with a few desserts and baked goods thrown in!

• Other exchanges touch all corners of our web, like our legendary burritos! On Fridays, Theo and I visit the U-District Food Bank to see what produce or prepared foods we can rescue from the hundreds of pounds of excess they have had lately. We have lowered costs and reduced food waste by using lots of veggies for burritos (and soup!), in addition to sending many boxes of great quality fruits, colorful veggies, prepared foods, and bread to Compass House. (I love food waste & reclamation patterns of resurrection!)

• After we purchase the remaining burrito supplies, our famed 4th Sunday kitchen crew (Ian, Kelly, & Jeff) cook up the goods and so far, a different group each week shows up — masked, gloved, and far apart — to roll upwards of 175 burritos every Saturday. Theo then delivers these to Compass House, LUV, and ICS later in the week.

• Theo also heats up coffee pots and more burritos on Wednesdays for Street Youth Ministries to pick up and distribute…along with snacks, sandwiches, underwear, all types of hygiene products, and a hand-washing station that their ministry delivers twice-weekly to those without shelter in the U-District. We will start delivering burritos to New Horizons starting this week as well.

Theo & Andy at ICS (before masks were recommended)

Like any ecological system, we are enmeshed in a web of relations and mutually affect/are affected by our community partners. In this uncertain and disruptive time, we all have different capacities and for some, they must cook, or shop, or pray, or do nothing. And all of that is good and necessary.

It has been wonderful to experience the way Union has channeled all of its energy, prayers, resources (read: worship in action) with abundance. For me personally, this has been a gift and source of hope to see all the ways our partner relationships — which have taken time, care, and trust to build — are blossoming this spring. We are relying on our network to feed our network. And, we are reclaiming excess food that would otherwise be wasted! As we are broken open by the tangible needs of our community, may we continue to see and know Jesus and the power of his resurrection.

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Eco-faith Action Invitation:

Practice food re-distribution by making an extra meal this week for someone…bonus points for using items from your garden!