​We seek to Live into our Faith
​with Mission & Social Justice Work

Mission & Social Justice
and
​Climate Change

Mission and social Justice (MSJ) carries out its responsibilities by promoting social action, by encouraging consideration of Christian principles and issues in social, political, economic, cultural and ecumenical fields, and by keeping the congregation informed about and engaged in the broad mission of the United Church of Christ and Eliot's outreach program.

Recently the MSJ Committee sought input from Eliot members about what topics most mattered to them out of a list of five options. The parishioners voted and Climate Change was determined to be the topic they most wanted more information about. 

As a result, a number of talks will be scheduled at Eliot with experts in the field of climate change. For a time they will be posted on the Eliot's homepage. Afterwards a link to the interviews can be found below, in chronological order.

An archive of interviews by date:
​
9/8/2020  Interview with Yonder Gillihan

10/23/2020  Interview with Fred Small

​Can changing what we eat help to 
​combat climate change?

“It’s past time to change what we eat” ​

Frances Moore Lappe’
Boston Globe
Sept 19, 2021

“Diet for a Small Planet” hit the country like a bomb fifty years ago, as it told of the hunger of hundreds of millions around our globe. But its surprise was not that there was a scarcity of food. It told us instead that the reason for the hunger was the waste and injustice in our corporate-dominated and meat-centered food system.

And now, fifty years later, one in five children young children are stunted by malnutrition. Frances Moore Lappe’ tells us what has happened during that fifty years and why the growing global movement toward healthy farming and healthy eating require both our “everyday choices and our courage…” our willingness to: “challenge concentrated economic and political power”, establish rules that put our health and Earth first, and to DO IT NOW!

Lappe’ cites the ways food-related issues, and livestock production in particular, continue or increase the climate crisis.

1. Food and faming have become health hazards, including the ultra-processed food that has increased cases of diabetes, and the toxic pesticides that kill the very insects we need to sustain life of many plants and animals and farmworkers.
2. The food system generates up to 37% of greenhouse gas emissions, with meat and dairy corporations generating more than Exxon, Shell, or BP and food waste generating more than what all but two countries emit.
3. Healthy soil and groundwater are fast disappearing, as are forests. She notes that producing a pound of beef takes 1800 gallons of water, nearly 50 times more than a pound of vegetables.
4. Excess nitrogen, used as fertilizer, runs off the farmed land, including land that grows livestock feed crops, as does manure. The nitrogen runs into waterways and then the Gulf of Mexico and 414 other ocean zones, where it has created “dead zones” killing marine life. The runoff also worsens smog, haze, acid rain, forest loss, well-water, climate warming and the “ozone hole”.
5. By killing animals and destroying habitats, we have eliminated more than eight in ten wild mammals on Earth.​

Hot tips on reducing meat and dairy consumption.
How do we get that plant protein into our families? 

Here are some ways to ease into it:

1. Make meat your side dish. We usually make meat the main event with starch and veggies on the side. Try reducing the meat with larger servings of the veggies.
2. Get into casseroles. Casseroles and baked dishes can be a great way of upping your veggie content and reducing meat and dairy. Recipes abound on the internet.
3.  Steer away from beef, for starters, which has the greatest impact on the environment. Incorporate more turkey, chicken and fish.  Use half meat and half black beans for your next Taco
4. Don’t eat beans and lentils if you don’t like beans and lentils.  Beans and lentils are ridiculously healthy and have an incredibly low environmental impact. But if you have tried them all in various ways and still do not like them, move on to nuts, tofu, mushrooms, seeds, and enticing meat substitutes coming onto the market
5. If reducing meat leaves you hungry, eat more whole foods meaning whole grains, and fruits and veggies with skin, baked potatoes or sweet potatoes, also with skin, brown rice, whole grain pastas,
6. From: Ways to Reduce Meat Consumption…Without Eliminating Meat
7. This is just a start. Share your techniques for moving into a plant based diet and even your successful recipes. We can make what in the old days was an Eliot Cookbook, but full of ideas on changing diet, too. I still have one, almost 45 years old, a treasure.

Excerpted and Adapted from a podcast written by Dr. Michael Greger on July 28, 2020.

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Who knew the third and fourth-ranked best solutions for climate change, of 100, had to do with food? To the surprise of its founders, a coalition of 70 of the world’s scientists and researchers from 22 countries, pulling together and ranking the 100 best solutions to climate change:
​
#3 - reducing food waste and
#4 - switching to a plant rich diet!

Actually two more on the list were also food-related:

#11 - regenerative agriculture and
#60 - composting.

This information is the result of Project Drawdown, founded by environmentalist Paul Hawken and now available in his book “Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.”
​
Not only was food so high on the list of ways of reducing greenhouse gasses, but also within our personal ability to affect. In coming articles we shall look in some detail at ways we can affect climate change ourselves, learn from each other, perhaps making ourselves healthier in the process.  

Ways to Reduce Climate Change
by Ginny Robinson
for Eliot’s MSJ Commission

Subject: Public Citizen’s Climate Change Work

The Ralph Nader organization, Public Citizen, is working to incentivize investment in clean energy and disincentivize investment in dirty energy by forcing polluters to account for the cost of climate change and the impacts of their pollution. This is also true for insurance coverage — increase the liability that companies have for their pollution. They believe that financial regulators already have this power given the risk overinvestment poses to the financial system as a whole.

To support the important work being done by Public Citizen on their effort to change the major insurance company, AIG, you can sign this petition:

HTTPS://publiccitizen.salsalabs.org/aigpetition/index.html

To read Public Citizen's Climate Roadmap for U.S. Financial Regulation click here.

Time to Consider an Electric Vehicle (EV)?
Lookin' Good
And more improvements coming up!

An Israeli company has announced new batteries for electric cars that can be recharged in just five minutes. Cost and range, sometime barriers to the adoption of electric vehicles (EVs), no longer matter, according to Daron Myersdorf, CEO of StoreDot, the company that made the breakthrough.
 
By using silicone instead of graphite in developing the new Store-Dot batteries, overheating of batteries would no longer be an issue. Dozens of other companies are also developing fast-charging batteries, using varying compounds and with varying battery life. Another issue concerning people has been the mileage range an EV has before needing a charge. If charging stations can offer five-minute charges and that charge can take you 100 miles, the anxiety about limitations on driving distance will no longer exist.

By 2025, StoreDot aims to deliver 100 miles of distance with a five-minute charge, and is now working with BP to deliver it. President Biden has big plans for putting in new charging stations, more high-powered than those used today, promoting trade-ins, and switching to electric cars for the entire Federal fleet.

Are EVs are better for the environment given the high emissions rate for EV car production and dismantling. Let's look a little closer.

• The production of any car takes energy.

For each gasoline engine car, the manufacturing phase creates 10.5 tons of CO2 (tCO2). The making of an EV car creates 13 tCO2 in comparison. The making of the battery itself (from rare earth elements like lithium, nickel, cobalt and graphite – obtained through mining, a very polluting activity) accounts for 3.2 tCO2 emissions of the total. The EV is more polluting at this stage than a gas powered vehicle.

• Charging the battery of an EV takes energy.

Though it matters what the energy source is for charging, driving an EV does emit less CO2 than a gas-powered vehicle – it’s just a question of how much less. An example can be seen in comparing two countries with different energy sources: in Australia, where about 21% of energy is from renewable sources, the amount of CO2 emissions from an EV is about 170g/km. In New Zealand, where much more of its energy is from renewable sources (84%), the emissions from the generation of electricity used to charge an EV battery are only 25g/km. Both are lower numbers than the 251g/km of CO2 emissions from a gasoline engine vehicle. Here the EV scores well.

• Recycling Phase.

The emissions from dismantling and recycling materials from a gas-powered vehicle produces 1.8 tCO2. Dismantling an EV produces 2.4 tCO2 – the emissions from recycling just the battery of an EV is almost .7 tCO2. Here we see again the higher emissions from an EV.

Putting all this data together, the math tells us that gas engine vehicles indeed emit more CO2 over the lifetime of the car than EVs. In Australia the carbon footprint of an EV vs gas engine vehicle is 273g/km vs 333g/km (an 18% improvement over gas engine vehicles). In NZ the EV carbon footprint is just 128g/km (a 62% improvement over gas engine vehicles) due to the high percentage of renewable energy used to charge the battery.
 
Efficiencies in manufacturing, battery technology (like the one described in the opening paragraph), and more readily available renewable energy sources for recharging will continue to make EVs an even smarter choice. But for now, it seems merely a smart choice.
 
For more information on electric vehicles, see Marcia@GreenNewton.org or Google, and to learn much more about the new batteries, see The Guardian, Jan 19, 2021, Electric Batteries With 5-Minute Charging Times, by Damian Carrington for Environmental Education and https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-the-environmental-footprint-of-electric-versus-fossil-cars-124762, by Md Arif Hasan and Ralph Brougham Chapman, Victoria University, Wellington, 10/15/19.
 
--Ginny and Natasha

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Solar Panels on Eliot Church

Eliot Church is a Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light (MassIPL) Success Story, and our boilers are one of the reasons. In December 2014, The Eliot Church building received the EPA’s Energy Star designation! From MassIPL's profile of Eliot: "The net results of all the improvements? Eliot has reduced its carbon dioxide emissions by 46%. Although conversion to a high efficiency gas-fired heating system accounts for much of that, Eliot’s overall energy efficiency is also high. The average house of worship in the Northeast U.S. uses 50 kBTU of energy per square foot. In 2013 Eliot used 28.9 kBTU per square foot."  Read the full report.

This is only one aspect of Eliot's efforts toward stewardship of God’s beautiful creation, and our efforts to address climate change. Environmental Stewardship is a shared core value in our congregation. Here's an overview of what we've done in the last decade, and what's happening now:

2003   Joined MassIPL
Installed programmable thermostats and new zone values for five heating zones within the building

2006   Hosted a community showing of “An Inconvenient Truth” sponsored by MassIPL
Installed roof insulation and high-energy fluorescent lighting
Members held a community work day to clean radiators and seal fireplaces
 
2007   Members walked across the Commonwealth in the Interfaith Walk for Climate Rescue organized by Religious Witness for the Earth

2007   Eliot Energy Efficiency Evangelists lowered their personal carbon footprints by engaging in a Lenten Carbon Fast using David Gershon’s “Low Carbon Diet” workbook

2008   Planted 70 street trees in Newton in cooperation with the UCC’s Re-leaf Ministry, MassIPL and Andover Newton Theological School

2009   Rev. Tony Kill active in promoting a resolution at the annual meeting of the MA Conference which endorses 350.org, Bill McKibben’s grassroots organizing campaign

2009   Made a large capital investment in new high-efficiency, gas-fired boilers and heating distribution system

2010   MassIPL’s Leadership by Example Award awarded to Eliot, and accepted by Rev. Tony Kill and Doug Stuart at MassIPL annual meeting

2010-2011 Members obtain Mass Save home energy assessments as part of MassIPL’s Noah Challenge

Many Years: Participate in Charles River Cleanup work days on Earth Day

2014  Multiple Sermons and Adult Forums on Climate Change; September observed as a Season of Creation in Worship and Sunday School; Five Eliot Members walk in the People’s Climate March. Plans continue on new ways to reduce Eliot's Carbon Footprint and to support those affected by climate change.  

2014   Earned EPA’s Energy Star certification

2015  At Eliot Church’s fall congregational meeting, Eliot members voted: 

"YES" on installing solar panels on our roof (hopefully by Earth Day 2016)! Thanks to Betsy Harper and Dave Persampieri for their time, efforts and expertise putting that resolution together;

"YES" to working in the coming year to increase our divestment from fossil fuels from 15 to 20 percent.

Thanks to Ginny Robinson, Patrick O’Reilly, Pastor Reebee and and a cadre of others for moving us forward, and thanks to our investment team for tackling how to implement it.

Eliot is part of Answering the Call: An Interfaith Gathering for Climate Action - and participates in the Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action.

Associate Pastor Reebee testifies at the State House as part of an interfaith delegation in favor of Carbon Pricing.

2016  Eliot partners with MassIPL for a Sustainable House of Worship (SHOW) Forum to share best practices with other churches, and with 350MA/Newton to host a Carbon Pricing Forum.

Solar panels are successfully installed, providing 95% of our electric needs.