Ecology Means We Belong to Each Other

Dr. King understood the essence of ecology: we belong to each other. Today, people of faith around the world are coming to understand that threats to the environment are threats to the principles of justice and compassion at the core of every religion.

Automobile fuel economy is an environmental issue. But when our dependence on cheap gasoline drives a tanker aground and the spreading slick deprives an Inuit family of seal meat, that's an issue of justice and compassion.

Recycling is an environmental issue. But when a woman who's never smoked cigarettes gets lung cancer from breathing fumes from an incinerator burning recyclable trash, that's an issue of justice and compassion.

Deforestation is an environmental issue. But when tree root systems no longer hold soil in place and a mud slide sweeps away a whole town, that's an issue of justice and compassion.

Energy conservation is an environmental issue. But when our tax dollars subsidize prison construction instead of green job training that could keep at-risk teens out of prison, that's an issue of justice and compassion.

Climate change is an environmental issue. But when people on the island nation of Tuvalu must abandon their homeland before it's swallowed by the sea, that's an issue of justice and compassion.

As we awake to the dangers of global warming, we realize that our profligate use of fossil fuels offends our most fundamental religious precepts. The scientific facts are there to support, if not prove, the inconvenient truth of global warming. Why would someone make it up? It's closing in. It's time to stop joking around ("If global warming is real, why is it so cotton-picking cold anyway?") and change our habits.

Every religious tradition teaches us to hold sacred the wonders of creation, yet we are willing to destroy them for our personal, fleeting comfort and convenience.

Every religious tradition cautions us to temper our cravings for sensation and material things, yet we pursue them addictively, vainly hoping to fill our spiritual emptiness. Are we willing to take the risk that putting aside our personal cravings for one day to help someone else in a meaningful way, to keep one more family here who's on the verge of moving away to seek new opportunity or move in with relatives, to keep a business open, to come together to create a new workplace will fill us in much more lasting ways than sensational experience and retail therapy?

Every religious tradition forbids theft, yet global warming steals from our children and our children's children. Its victims are and will be disproportionately poor and of color--those least able to contend with or to flee the storms, droughts, famines, and rising sea levels to come.

People of faith take the long view. We know that a community survives and thrives not merely in space but also through time, extending backward through memory and tradition and forward through vision and legacy. What legacy will we leave? Our recent ancestors survived the 20th century's Great Depression by bringing their ingenuity to the table for the good of others. Can we do the same? Can we step out of our comfortable homes, away from our televisions, turn off our iPods, look each other in the eyes and say, "I'm here. What can I do?"

According to the Great Law of the Iroquois Confederacy, "In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." Today's political leaders are hard-pressed to consider the impact of their decisions beyond the next election. Like the prophets of old, people of faith must call our leaders to higher values--from our pulpits and pews, in the public square, and at the ballot box. We have a while before the next great election, but we can work for more, real change between now and then.

To heal the wounds of our planet and its peoples, to restore right relations among all God's creatures, to apportion the earth's abundance with equity and generosity--these challenges will demand all our courage, creativity, devotion, and sacrifice.

Will people of faith heed the call? The answer may determine the fate of the biosphere and countless imperiled species--including the miraculous evolutionary experiment called humanity.

Zooming in from the large view of the big green and blue (and increasingly brown and chemical yellow) ball we live on, to see Spencer, Iowa and the surrounding areas, how will we determine the fate of people who live here? Hundreds have lost their jobs. Do we have the ingenunity, the willingness to trust each other and to sacrifice to create new opportunities?

In our churches, lodges, community gatherings, can we be an old city for a new world? We have a spirit of rallying around and helping families in crisis here. Right now, we are the local expression of a global crisis. How can we act to make sure we can stay together, healthy and with all of our basic needs met in the next decade?

There are infinite solutions to the problem, we invite you to create your own.

Here are some ways to Reduce our Ecological Footprint and possibly create a more interdependent community, borrowed from the Unitarian Universalists.

1 Walk, bicycle or take public transportation instead of driving. We don't have a great public transportation system now. Would we use it if we had it? Can we expand it for the common good?

2 Buy locally grown food and locally produced products

3 Consolidate errands for fewer car trips.

4 Reduce meat consumption or go vegetarian and use reusable bags for shopping.

5 Install a programmable thermostat

6 Support habitat conservation, and farmland and open-space preservation.

7 Capture rain water for yard and garden use.

8 Landscape with native plants that provide food and

habitat.

9 Increase AC settings in summer and use fans, decrease

heat setting in winter, put on AaNOTHER sweater!

10 Use compact fluorescent lamps for lighting

11 Use earth friendly cleaning products- for your home and your body

12 Put insulated wrap around your water heater.

13 Maintain you landscape organically.

14 Caulk and improve insulation in your home.

15 Pay bills on line, Send e-cards to friends

16 Avoid using bottled water

17 Use a solar clothes drier ( clothes line)

18 Be an advocate for sidewalks, greenways and bikeways

19 Advocate for in-fill development

20 Avoid using electricity during peak hours ( 7-10 AM and 6-9 PM)

21 Downsize your home.

22 Be grateful and give thanks for the abundance of life every day.

We only get one shot at this. What world will this economy leave to the future? Will our community be decimated by decisions made from panic and desire for comfort in the now?

Be grateful today and think of one way you can reach out to make a difference.