201 results for tag: Energy Policy

Really?

One of my favorite bits on Saturday Night Live is entitled “Really?” where the comedians address some issue they view as absurd. I want to suggest they take on the recent legislation being debated in Washington D.C. this week. The Washington Post reported that “The two-year, $109 billion transportation bill before the Senate has wide, bipartisan support, but has become a magnet for lawmakers’ favorite causes and partisan gamesmanship. Among the amendments batted aside were GOP proposals to bypass Obama’s concerns about the Keystone XL oil pipeline, to delay tougher air pollution standards for industrial ...

A Jewish Environmental Proclamation

When God created the first human beings, God led them around the Garden of Eden and said: “Look at my works! See how beautiful they are – how excellent! For your sake I created them all. See to it that you do not spoil and destroy My world; for if you do, there will be no one else to repair it. - Midrash Kohelet Rabbah 1 (on Ecclesiastes 7:13) We are witnessing a time in which the future of the planet is at stake. The climate crisis is escalating, and it is upon each one of us to do what we can to change course. In the Torah it is written, “And you shall choose Life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Today ...

What was Wrong with the Tarsands Fight

On January 18, after a months-long political battle, President Obama rejected a Canadian firm’s application to build and operate the Keystone XL pipeline, a project that would have carried tarsands oil from Canada to Texas. Since the summer, Bill McKibben had organized a tremendous environmental battle against the pipeline. Why this fight? McKibben quoted James Hansen, the government’s premier climate scientist, as saying that this pipeline would essentially mean “game over for the climate,” because the oil coming from the tarsands are so dirty and so energy intensive to capture – and because the pipeline would ...

Educating Teens About Environmental Issues (CJN November 2011)

This "Sustainable Jew" article appeared inthe Canadian Jewish News November 3, 2011 During the time surrounding the High Holiday period, I had the opportunity to speak to Grade 8 Science classes at a number of the Toronto Jewish Day Schools. My talks are generally drawn from materials I have access to as a result of being trained by Al Gore as a Climate Reality Project volunteer presenter. Recently, Mr. Gore hosted a 24 hour effort, 1 for each time zone in the world, where local speakers would explain climate change and global warming in the global and local context. What was new this time were some of the videos and ...

Energy Conservation in Israel (CJN March 2011)

This "Sustainable Jew" column originally appeared in the Canadian Jewish News March 17, 2011 I was recently in Israel to represent the company I am currently on contract with, and to speak at a renewable energy conference in Eilat, co sponsored by the UJA Federation of Toronto. As part of a delegation, put together by Canada's National Research Council, I wanted to understand the current Israeli state of mind with respect to energy conservation and advances in renewable energy. At the same time I was tasked to determine if there was an opportunity to expand my client's energy consumption benchmarking software to Israel. ...

My Hope That More Jews Will Engage on Energy Related Issues

I recently wrote an article for the Pace Environmental Law Review Blog that I have posted below. For this post on Jewcology, I wanted to expand on my Law Review post by expressing how I view these events from a Jewish standpoint. Hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," is a very hot topic these days in many different circles. This is an issue being debated by politicians, lawyers, community zoning boards, landowners, corporations, neighbors, and religious communities. In each of these situations the individuals involved are bringing different priorities to the table. Some view fracking as a great economic opportunity, others view ...

Year of Jewish Learning on the Environment

Core teachings on 18 topics linking Torah and the environment were released between Tu b'Shevat 5772 and Tu b'Shevat 5773 as part of Jewcology's Year of Jewish Learning on the Environment, in partnership with Canfei Nesharim and a host of other organizations who shared materials across the Jewish community. The materials were shared at least 145 times on the web, in at least 99 social media postings, and reached over 51,000 people during the course of the year, as part of a Year of Jewish Learning on the Environment. The materials comprise the most comprehensive set of learning materials on Torah and the environment ever created, and are intended ...

Maccabees Redux: Oil-Fracking Fight in Israel

NEW YORK (Dec. 22, 2011) — We need another Chanukah miracle. On Chanukah we recall the victory of the few over the many and the weak over the powerful. We celebrate the miracle of the oil and of the reassertion of control over our historic homeland, the present-day land of Israel. But, as history repeats itself, this Chanukah, the role of the Greek Assyrians and local Hellenized is being played by telecommunications-giant IDT Corporation, a multinational New York Stock Exchange-listed company that aims to frack for oil across Judea through its subsidiary Genie Energy, which owns Israel Energy Initiatives. Mega-philanthro...

The Festival of Lights: The Spiritual Dimension of Energy

Oh, Lord, my God, You are very great; You are clothed in glory and majesty, Wrapped in a robe of light; You spread the heavens like a tent cloth. (Psalm 104:2) Hanukkah which means “(re)dedication” has also been called the “Festival of Lights” at least since the 1st Century CE as the earliest reference to this name is found in the historian Josephus: And from that time [the purification of the Temple by the Maccabees] to the present time we celebrate this festival, and call it Lights. I suppose the reason was, because this liberty beyond our hopes appeared to us; and that thence was the name ...

Official Launch of Jews Against Hydrofracking: Learn how you can help combat this Environmental & Public Health crisis!

If one Jew sins, all of Israel feels it….This can be compared to the case of men on a ship, one of whom took a drill and began drilling beneath his own place. His fellow travelers to said to him:what are you doing?’ He replied: ‘What does that matter to you, I am drilling only under my own place?’ They continued: ‘We care because the water will come up and flood the ship for us all. Midrash: Vayikra (Leviticus) Rabbah- 4:6 First off, open http://www.facebook.com/jewsagainsthydrofracking in a new window and like us. Now read on: This teaching of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai seems ...

My arrest at theTar Sands Protest

This was one adventurous day. There was the earthquake. Where were you when it occurred? I was just outside the Park Police holding cell after being released from police custody. I joined in today, very unexpectedly, with about 60 others to be arrested for “failure to obey a lawful order”. We stood in three long lines in front of the White House singing and chanting our protest of the Tar Sands oil pipeline that would extend from northern Canada, down through the heartland of the West, and directly through Yellowstone National Park, to Texas. This will be a dirty, toxic pipeline. Just the extraction of the oil in Canada ...

“This is our nation’s Yom Kippur moment.” Testimony to State Department against Keystone XL Pipeline

Joelle Novey, Director Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light Friday October 7 Testimony to State Department Against Keystone XL Pipeline Through Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light, hundreds of congregations of all religious traditions work together on energy and climate issues. I am submitting into the record today hundreds of comment cards from local churches and synagogues where good folks have concluded that the Keystone XL Pipeline would do great harm, and that their religious traditions call them to speak out. These cards join thousands of online comments sent from religious folks around the country, ...

“Is this the pipeline that is desired of us?” Talk to Rally Against Keystone XL Pipeline

Joelle Novey, Director Greater Washington Interfaith Power & Light Delivered to Sept 2 2011 Rally Against the Keystone XL Pipeline Behind the White House I speak this afternoon on behalf of hundreds of congregations in the DC area that are working to respond to climate change in their sacred communities. These congregations work together through an organization called Interfaith Power & Light. And I speak as one of dozens of religious people – priests and ministers and rabbis, Christians and Jews and Muslims and Unitarian Universalists and Buddhists – who put their faith into action over the past two ...

Bill McKibben Calls for Civil Disobedience Campaign in Washington DC in August 2011

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow Bill McKibben and several other leaders of the USand world-wide movement to prevent climate disaster have called for a wave of nonviolent civil disobedience at the White House gates between August 20 and Labor Day. The action will focus on convincing President Obama to withhold permits for the so-called ‘Keystone XLPipeline’ from Canada’s tar sands to flow to Texas refineries, thence to add enormously to planet-scorching CO2. Below you will find McKibben’s letter. More than 1100 people have signed up already. I am intending (God willing & the creeks don’t rise, or ...

4 Jewish Summer Camps Sell “Fracking Rights” that Endanger Drinking Water, Food, Health, & Climate

By Rabbi Arthur Waskow (7/14/2011) The Forward, the leading national Jewish weekly, on July 14, 2009, reported that four Jewish summer camps in Pennsylvania have signed leases with gas exploration companies to allow “fracking” –- the hydro-fracturing method of pouring tons of highly chemicalized water to smash shale rocks into releasing natural gas. The four are Starlight’s Perlman Camp, which is owned and operated by B’nai B’rith; Camps Nesher and Shoshanim, which share a property in Lakewood and are owned and operated by the New Jersey Federation of YMHAand YWHA; and Camp Morasha, an independent camp in Lakewood. The Forward reports ...

The Tar Sands, Hydro-fracking, and Climate Reality

After the failure of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen 18 months ago, it seemed to me that the environmental movement was taking a long pause, trying to figure out how to engage the American population in the greatest challenge of our time. It seems to me now that this pause has ended, with a flurry of new activity that I’ve seen recently encouraging action on energy and climate change. There are three campaigns that I’ve recently become familiar with, and I will mention them with an eye toward what they are fighting and the difference they hope to make. The first campaign is the Tar Sands Action, which ...

On Technology and Faith

I have worked myself up into a state of near-frenzy lately, driven by my concern for the state of the world and its inhabitants. Despite my best efforts to remain calm, it seems to me that Chicken-Little’s call of, “The Sky is Falling” rings truer every day. From widespread environmental destruction to pending economic collapse to illegal and unconstitutional U.S. military aggression, the future of the humanity is looking gloomier on a daily basis, headed, it seems, for a catastrophe of biblical proportions. This is perhaps an appropriate feeling for this time in the Jewish calendar, as we have just entered the period of ...

A Sense of Place

Modern American culture doesn’t have much to say about the importance of place. Of course, we have landmarks: the Statue of Liberty, the Washington Monument, Mount Rushmore, to name a few. But what is important about those places is what is there, or what once happened there. It’s not the place itself that claims us. It’s a combination of monument and memory. As Jews we are more likely to have a real sense of what place means. We’ve been to Israel, a land that has been a part of our history for millennia, and that today represents all sorts of dreams and magic and meanings. A land infused with holiness. ...

Playing Politics With The Environment

Following politics can be frustrating, to say the least. Whoever said that ignorance is bliss may have hit the nail on the head when it comes to ordinary citizens and their choice whether to take an interest in elections and the decisions that our elected leaders make in regards to policy. This is especially true when there is a leader who gains your respect because he/she bucks their party (either Democrat or Republican) and makes a decision based on both the information presented and on that elected officials set of values. It seems to be me, that more often than not, the environment is an area where politicians who have taken a stand ...

The Future of Nuclear Energy and the Threats of Coal & Natural Gas

Like most of the world, I have been giving a lot of thought recently to the question of nuclear energy. Just 4 weeks ago, before the Fukushimadisaster, I was asked a question about Nuclear energy while presenting at Tribefest in Las Vegas. I gave my standard answer, an answer that has been haunting me for weeks. “Unfortunately, while nuclear energy may have long term environmental consequences, the imminent threat of climate change and the economic realities of the energy markets make nuclear a necessity in the short term.” What is clear in my answers was a miscalculation of the short term threat of nuclear energy, especia...