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 21-06: 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 21-04: Garden Calendar!

We’re starting a community garden…but dispersed! As you may recall, we are aiming to get our community gardening at home (in any form!). Our hope is that tending to the earth would reconnect you to God and all of Creation, and that any surplus you grow could contribute to Union’s robust food ministries. (For more info on our vision for Eco-Faith in this next year, read more here).

Union Gardens

Read on for a nifty planting calendar

To start you off on your way, we’ve developed a Planting Calendar detailing the kinds of produce you can grow, when, and how to get them going. Additionally, in the “Union Weekly Use” column, we’ve listed the quantity needed for our weekly burrito roll, with current recipes in mind. Obviously, there are some blanks in that column! We would welcome any and all produce that you contribute and can either add them to burritos or distribute fresh produce to Compass House or LUV.

If you would like access to the spreadsheet itself, click here. Otherwise, feel free to download this picture to print out for your reference.

Let us know what tips or tricks you might have in the way of starts and prepping your soil for a fruitful harvest. And, we will be starting a What’s App group to share ideas and/or a monthly zoom chat on a Thursday night — stay tuned!

We’ll be prepping our gardens right alongside you. Happy planting!!

* Useful references: Food Grown Right, In Your Backyard, McCrate and Halm; The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide, Seattle Tilth

** Assuming approximate last frost date of April 15th, per Sky Nursery

Eco-act 21-02: Abundantly Overflowing

As we heard last week, Eco-Faith is growing in an exciting direction in this next year. And we want you along for the ride! Again, three focuses you can expect from us this year are: (1) occasional ideas of personal action that you can take to move toward climate healing; (2) climate-focused legislative initiatives that Union could actively support/engage in; and (3) Union Gardens, a socially distanced community garden that aims to grow produce to share with others in our wider community.

Today, we’ll be focusing on the possibility and impact of #3, Union Gardens. With the pandemic and all of the physical distancing that has come with it, our community has had to pivot to continue feeding our underserved and at-risk neighbors. We’ve rolled ~300 burritos almost every single Saturday (which get distributed as a hot, nutritious, personally wrapped meal to up to 7 different organizations per week). We’ve channeled tons of produce, canned and pantry goods, Farestart meals, and other items to LUV, Compass House Dexter, and other places. Our community has also cooked ~60 meals per week for Compass House residents and 40 meals for ICS clients weekly. And yet, with the pandemic continuing to increase income loss, poverty, hunger, and the housing crisis, — with a disproportionate impact on BIPOC folks compared to white folks — our community is even more in need of fresh produce and accessible food.

Union Gardens

Growing for our community

This spring and summer, if each of us took some time to pray, prepare, and tend to some dirt (in the backyard, on the porch, on the windowsill, in 415’s garden boxes), imagine what we might be able to create together! We could include more nutrients and greens in our meals and more sweet and abundant fruit for families and individuals in our city. We could save on some production costs while also growing local and offsetting emissions! And, when we are able to deliver fresh produce and burritos with ingredients from our gardens, our tangible care in the form of food says, “We see you and we care” AND “We’ve been thinking of you since the winter…with every weeding, watering, and harvest”.

As you prepare your own gardens now, looking toward spring and summer, would you consider planting a little extra for Union’s food ministry?

Right now, we are working on developing resources for when and what to plant, as well as how much we need. We will have more specifics soon, but we know our ministries currently use/need: red bell peppers, onions, greens of all kinds, garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, squash, carrots, and celery.

Again, we’ll have more on quantities and planting/growing tips soon (and we welcome your help and input as you’re interested)! We envision this as a type of victory garden experiment, and as a way to do something together while apart. We look forward to planting and growing with you this year — stay tuned for more!

Eco-act 21-01: a time to plant

Today we’re excited to begin our second season of eco-faith posts. Thanks for joining us! We’ll get started by planting seeds for three projects we hope to “cultivate” this season. Then we’ll talk a bit more about planting actual seeds to produce tangible crops that we can begin to harvest in the not-too-distant future. First, the projects.

1. Individual actions: Eco-Faith’s first season focused primarily on steps each of us can take on our own to care for the planet: diligent recycling, for example, or responsible disposal of electronic devices, or intentional repair/repurposing/gifting of items we no longer use, or regrowing scallions on windowsills—or even creating worm bins (!) to enhance soil quality. Ideas like these for earth-friendly individual actions will always crop up. So, for 2021 project #1, we will from time to time identify or revisit an individual action for your consideration. For example, last year we introduced Ridwell, a disposal service that handles non-recyclable food packaging and certain other plastics; batteries; clothes/fabric, shoes—and a “rotating” category for things such as strings of Christmas lights. Ten dollars/month provides a discreet outdoor collection bin and regular pick-up. We have now joined those of you who use this service to step up their recycling game conveniently and cost-effectively.

2. Climate change community actions: Even in the darkness overshadowing this post-election period, seeds of hope are being sown with respect to our physical world: the U.S. return to the Paris Climate Accord … General Motors’ decision to move away from fossil fuel-powered vehicles … the U.S.-hosted Earth Day Climate Summit … cancellation of the Keystone Pipeline Project …. In fact, all kinds of climate-friendly actions are being undertaken nationally and at the Washington state and King County levels as well. The future harvests that these actions promise are truly encouraging, but many workers will be needed to bring them in. So, our second project for this season will be looking more closely at various legislative initiatives to try to unearth specific opportunities for some or all of the Union community to actively support. Stay tuned!

3. Union Gardens: With the arrival of February, the gardening season quietly (and damply) begins. Time to clean up the garden beds, loosen and amend the soil, and think about what to grow this year. For serious gardeners, it’s also time to think about indoor starts—and actually to sow peas and spinach outdoors. In fact, before too many more weeks pass, it will be time to transfer starts or directly seed:

• Arugula

• Cabbage

• Cauliflower

• Celery

• Collards

• Kale

• Leeks

• Lettuce

• Onions

• Peas

• Potatoes

• Radishes

• Scallions

• Spinach

Eco-faith 2021 Directions

Individual Acts, Communal Acts, Union Gardens

In a post last October, we wondered …

“…next spring, 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?”

Which leads to this question about a third project: Can Union members plant and manage a “socially-distanced community garden?” The idea would be to plant and grow enough veggies in the back yard, on the deck, in the pea patch, or wherever, for the enjoyment of the gardeners—AND someone else … some Lake Union Village residents, for example, or Union’s burrito-rolling team, ICS sandwich makers, Compass House residents, or ….

So, these are the three project “seeds” we want to plant with respect to Eco-Faith season two: (1) occasionally sharing ideas that Union members can implement on their own to benefit our physical world; (2) climate-focused legislative initiatives that Union could actively support/engage in; and (3) Union Gardens, a socially distanced community garden that aims to grow vegetables to share with others in our wider community.

As we get rolling in the coming weeks, we’ll be on the lookout for purposeful individual actions to share. We’ll be browsing legislative programs for community action opportunities. And we’ll be digging into the possibility of gardening for others as well as ourselves.

We would love to hear what you think about these ideas!

Eco-Act 024: “To every thing there is a season ….” (Ecclesiastes 3:1)

Planting and tending a garden, and feasting on the harvest, are always satisfying activities, whether the garden is our own yard/patio/windowsill or the gardens that stock farmers’ markets and grocery store bulk food aisles. But this year gardening has offered something more profound: hope—the calming reassurance that at some deep level, the world still works: plant—nurture—say thanks—enjoy.

Garden

+ hope

But now this wonderful season comes to what Mary Oliver, near the end of “Six Recognitions of the Lord,” called the exquisite, necessary diminishing. What might we do now, to keep hope alive? Six thoughts are humbly offered.

1. Gardening is diminished, not done. A variety of gardening books, Food Grown Right, In Your Back Yard, for example, list ways to garden into late fall/winter. Garlic will over-winter and can still be planted outdoors for spring/early summer harvesting. Other hardy plants still have a chance outside too—chard and kale, for example, particularly if you can find starts. (But hurry….) Now is also the time for a last weeding/clearing-out and amending the soil. And consider a bit of indoor winter gardening—herbs in pots, or recycled scallions.

2. Buy vegetables, beans and grains that don’t come in packages. In other words, choose foods available in supermarket organic and bulk-food aisles or, if you’re comfortable shopping there, at farmers’ markets such as Pike Place Market. Think of this as your act of solidarity with other gardeners whose crops travel a shorter distance to your table—and, ideally, use less plastic.

3. Enjoy another kind of “garden.” Make it a point to regularly walk in nature. On your walks, choose specific trees, or hedges, or garden beds, and notice their cadence as they, and we, progress into and then out of winter. Or visit a formal garden such as the Seattle Japanese Garden to enjoy gardening on an entirely different scale.

4. Reflect. If we let them, gardening and food shopping can link us in a tiny way to climate change and global food security. According to Food Forward, “Currently, we produce enough food for the global population, but not everyone has equal access to food, due to income inequality, geopolitical conflicts, and other factors. In fact, we produce (and waste) so much food that if we prevented just 25% of global food waste, which totals at 1.3 billion tons annually, we could feed all 870 million people suffering from chronic undernourishment.” How can we embody this reality in our individual actions?

5. Think, then act.

• We can start with our own behavior: we can waste less food, which includes buying blemished produce along with the perfect specimens and buying only the quantities we need.

• We can include beneficial foods such as oatmeal, shade-grown coffee and seaweed, in meal plans. We’ve talked before about using our purchasing power to encourage farmers and food companies to behave in more eco-friendly ways. Farmers could plant oats or barley, for example, between rows of corn and soybeans—if we incent them to do so. Who would have thought that eating more oatmeal could be an act of eco-care?! According to this same article, “green eating,” which includes eating less meat, would bring affluent nations into closer alignment with their own dietary guidelines and “greenhouse gases from food production would fall by 13 to 25 percent.”

• We can consider garden modifications that take climate change into account. These might include introducing native plants/controlling invasive species; growing plants that support pollinators and birds; retiring gas-powered yard tools; reducing water consumption with mulch, rain barrels, drip irrigation, spot watering and limiting watering to early morning/evening; composting waste; planting trees to absorb CO2; reducing hardscapes; and creating a rain garden.

6. Dream. Recently we started to wonder … next spring, 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? Would you participate in such a project? What other gardening dreams might we turn into reality as purposeful, hopeful acts of caring for the world and each other? We also invite you to attend our first Eco-Faith Virtual Discussion on 10/29 @ 7 pm, more info here.

Eco-Act 009: planting with purpose, awaiting the harvest in hope

Planting with purpose

awaiting the harvest

Throughout this past spring we “planted some seeds:” we shared some ideas about food—growing it, mindfully choosing what to grow, buy and eat, even how to reduce the amount we waste. Our purpose? Originally, it was to take on the seemingly unstoppable, despair-inducing, “game over” force of climate change by identifying positive, “person-sized” steps each of us can take to act with a “game on” attitude instead—to act in hope. These positive steps included:

• Tending a garden (eco-act 003)

• Re-growing scallions (eco-act 001)

• Intentionally replacing a meat-oriented meal with a plant-based meal, regularly or occasionally (eco-act 002)

• “Eating local” as a way of celebrating, supporting and connecting with our local environment (eco-act 007)

• Grocery shopping mindfully to reduce waste (eco-act 006)

• Enlisting worms to make use of food scraps (eco-act 004)

For those who have taken any of these or similar small steps, may they have (re)kindled a sense of environmental purpose, direction and hope in you. May (re)connecting with the rhythms of planting, growing, consuming and conserving given you a sense of your place in them. If you haven’t yet, it’s always the right time to jump in: there’s still time to plant, always time to shop and eat mindfully, always time to let nothing be wasted.

Of course, this spring unfolded into a season sadder, darker and more discouraging than anyone could have imagined. And we were reminded—or perhaps taught for the first time—that climate change is linked to environmental/racial justice, and that it hits marginalized communities especially hard. Acting with purpose and waiting in hope seems especially difficult here because many corrective actions feel systemic rather than “person-sized.” None of us can single-handedly close a factory that pollutes nearby poor neighborhoods, for example.

But we can leverage our individual power by supporting BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color)-owned farms, restaurants, organizations, and other businesses. We can vote, show up at budget/council meetings, and ask more of our school boards. What are some other actions you could take?

• Support Black-owned businesses & communities on Seattle Good Business Network

  • Check out the “Food & Beverage” section; be sure to click on “Additional Black-Owned Food Business Lists”—and look in all three sections

  • Under the “Donate” tab, check out “Black Community Food Initiatives”

  • Under the “Learn” tab, check out “Local Food/Farm Groups”

• Revisit our posts on centering Black Environmental Justice Activists

• Learn Native history & recognize Settler Colonialism as the “original sin” of the US, especially in terms of environmental/social justice

Whether it’s gardening, managing a worm bin, adjusting diet and food shopping habits—or taking a step toward environmental/racial justice, we would love to hear what you have been up to. And we hope that your purposeful act has given you hope.