408 results for tag: Climate Change

White House Arrests; Bitter Herb, Matzah, & Healing Climate

Yesterday (March 21, 2013), along with 14 other religious folk, clergy and committed "laity," I was arrested for standing at the White House with Bitter Herb and Matzah, signs and songs, reciting the names of more than 100 people who had been killed by one result of the climate crisis: Superstorm Sandy. The action was organized by Interfaith Moral Action on Climate, of which The Shalom Center is a vigorously active member. We were calling on the president to act swiftly to heal our Mother Earth from the climate crisis, from the plagues that modern Pharaohs -- Big Oil, Big Coal, Unnatural Gas -- have brought upon us. Among those arrested ...

Environmental connections to Passover

Environmental Connections to Passover By Richard H. Schwartz In view of the many current environmental crises that face the world today, this pre-Passover period is a good time to consider environmental messages related to the holiday and the events and concepts related to the liberation of the Israelites from Egypt: 1. Today's environmental threats can be compared in many ways to the Biblical ten plagues: * When we consider the threats to our land, water, and air, we can easily enumerate ten modern "plagues". For example: (1) climate change (2) rapid melting of glaciers and polar ice caps (3) destruction of ...

Jewish Energy Guide: The Science of Climate Change

By Dr. Daniel Ziskin Everybody knows what weather means. What’s the temperature? Is it raining? Snowing? Just poke your head outside and you’ve got weather. Weather is the instantaneous atmospheric conditions we experience. Climate, however, is something different. Climate is the average of the weather over time and space. But taking the average of a constantly changing and location-specific phenomenon is complex. Are we talking about a monthly average? Seasonal? Yearly? Of a county? A state? The northern hemisphere, or globally? Climate depends on the temporal and spatial domain you’ve selected so there isn’t just ...

Jewish Environmental Response to the State of the Union

New York - The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life welcomed President Obama’s affirmation of his commitment to renewable energy and reducing our nation’s contribution to climate change, announced in his State of the Union address on Tuesday. “We praise President Obama for proposing the Energy Security Trust and prioritizing our nation’s response to the threat of global climate change,” said JCPA President and COEJL Co-Chair Rabbi Steve Gutow. “The President has highlighted his understanding of the moral urgency of reducing our contribution to the climate crisis. We hope to see regulations that ...

Launch of Jewish Energy Guide: “Director’s Introduction” by COEJL Director Sybil Sanchez

Short summary: Sybil Sanchez, director of COEJL, welcomes you to the Jewish Energy Guide with a reflection on recent environmental calamities and a look forward to creating a balance between our energy needs and our commitment to protect the Earth. Excerpt: While we cannot remove ourselves from the necessity of using energy, we have a moral obligation to work toward protecting our environment. There must be a sustainable alternative to how we live now. The need to address our dependence on fossil fuels and increase our energy security has become central to our time. Although international commitments and legislation in ...

Time For Faith Communities to Step Up the Fight

I was surprised to learn that President Obama had focused part of his inaugural address on climate change. When I heard the speech I was particular struck by the language he used in calling for action. President Obama stated the following: "We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more ...

Celebrating Tu Bishvat as if Environmental Sustainability Matters

Celebrating Tu Bishvat as if Environmental Sustainability Matters Richard H. Schwartz Since Tu Bishvat, the “New Year for Trees,” has increasingly become a “Jewish Earth Day,” why not use Tu Bishvat Seders as, among other things, a time to consider how we can effectively respond to current environmental crises that threaten all life on the planet? The world is rapidly heading toward a climate catastrophe, severe food, water, and energy scarcities, and other environmental disasters. This is a strong consensus of almost all climate scientists and science academies worldwide. The warmest year for the US since temperature records ...

From Light Green To Dark Green: Committing to An Effective Jewish Environmentalism

Tu Bishvat which takes place later this month has become over the last 40 years the Jewish Earth Day. Whatever its origins, Tu Bishvat is the most likely time that synagogues “do” Jewish environmentalism. And while this is a good thing, it tends to isolate the environment as an issue like any special Shabbat program that happens once a year. And while the present Jewish environment movement has been doing a very good job on educating and activating the Jewish community on the issues of food sustainability and energy conservation, there is still a great deal of work that needs to be done. I find that much of Jewish environmentalism ...

Parashat Sh’mot – Heirloom Seeds, Our Ancestors, and Friendship

by Rabbi Katy Z. Allen My first seeds from the Seed Library arrived in the mail today, part of a gift membership that I had given to myself. Gift packets to my two sons arrived in their mail as well. The packet is artistic, aesthetic, and pleasing not only to the eye, but also to the heart and the soul. Every packet is designed by a different artist. Inside are heirloom seeds, in the one I received are Purple Podded Peas. These are peas that grow 5-6 feet high, have scarlet blossoms, and produce dried peas good for soups and other winter dishes. I am reminded of the scarlet runner beans my father always planted in his garden, also tall ...

Faith Communities Must Protect the Vulnerable During Land Use Discussions

With every passing day I become less of an optimist and more of a realist. This past year has provided many of us a glimpse of the chaos and destruction that might be in store for us all if no meaningful action is taken on climate change mitigation and adaptation. Although I am encouraged by the outpouring of support for devastated regions, I am losing faith in our government's ability to pass any legislation, nevertheless a meaningful energy/climate bill. There will be no national strategy to tackle the inevitable consequences of climate change, and as we just witnessed in Doha, an international solutions continues to be unlikely. The ...

Pray-in for Climate at White House — Tuesday January 15

Call To Action: A Pray-in For the Climate Dear Friends, We are facing a Climate Cliff, and we are calling upon religious and spiritual leaders, other believers and all people of good will to join us to address its danger by participating in “A Pray-in for the Climate” in front of the White House on Tuesday, January 15, 2013. Super-storm Sandy, the drastic droughts in our corn country, record-breaking Arctic ice melt, and unheard-of floods in Vermont, let alone disasters in Australia, Russia, Pakistan and Africa, all warn us: the disruption of our planet will not wait for our “normal” political paralysis to ...

Working Together Towards Adaptation

A new report just released this week says the ice sheets are melting five times faster than in the 1990’s and occurring more rapidly than scientists believed in 2007 (http://science.time.com/2012/11/30/climate-change-polar-ice-sheets-melting-faster-raising-sea-levels/) . At the same time climate discussion occurring over the last week in Doha have been unfruitful and hope that a meaningful agreement can be reached is fading (http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/doha-talks-after-6-days-no-consensus-yetclimate-issue/494234/). At the same time meaningful discussion is starting to take place in the Northeast regarding whether to ...

Are We Really Stewards of Creation?

Post by Rabbi Jacob Fine, Let’s face it. Our Jewish communities are failing miserably to respond to the greatest threat that humanity has ever known. For a people that (rightfully) prides itself on the utmost value that our tradition places on the preservation of life, our unwillingness to respond collectively as a people in any significant way to the threat of global warming is as hypocritical as it is suicidal. With each new report that points to how little time we have left if we want to try and sustain life on this planet as we know (and like) it, the persistent Jewish narrative about our being “stewards of creation,” ...

Climate Action at White House on Jan 15

Acting for The Shalom Center, I have been named to the steering committee of Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC ). IMAC has a major project under way that may be especially interesting to environmentally committed members of the Jewish community. IMAC is planning a prayerful gathering the afternoon of January 15 at the White House to call on the President to take five steps on the climate crisis: 1. Permanently refuse permits for the XL Tar Sands pipeline, because tar-oil is among the most dangerous of the planet-heating forms of carbon. 2. Speak in a major national address on climate change as a crucial issue facing ...

Making Hurricane Sandy a Teachable Moment

How to Make Hurricane Sandy a Teachable Moment In the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy, the prime concern of course must be to help the many people who are suffering greatly from its effects. At the same time we should not miss an opportunity when appropriate to respectfully and cordially increase awareness of the many important lessons related to the monstrous storm. For example: Climate change can have disastrous consequences. In addition to the tens of millions of people who are greatly suffering due to Hurricane Sandy, please also consider how food prices are spiking because the US corn crop was devastated as almost 2/3 of ...

Lessons From Sandy

As a New York City resident with friends living through New York and New Jersey, the past week has certainly been intense and tragic. The truth is that for my wife and I, Sandy brought days of downtime because we did not lose power or suffer any damage to our apartment or car. We feel incredibly lucky but at the same time so awful for the millions impacted by the storm. During the past week I have seen images on television and heard stories on NPR about so many heartbreaking experiences. But at the same there have been an equal amount of stories about people working together, something I saw firsthand yesterday at a church in Brooklyn ...

Sandy, Noah, Abraham and Bibi Send a Message about Climate Change

In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, those of us who work at the Green Zionist Alliance from New York and New Jersey have been fortunate to have been able to move to safer ground. But in the wake of climate change, there is no other planet to which we can go. Yet if we succeed in what has been our communal effort at unintentionally warming our atmosphere, and thereby wrecking havoc on our climate, then Sandy is just the beginning — for New York, for Israel, and for the world. There is scientific consensus: To stave off the worst effects, we have to act now. Click here to continue reading this article.

An Open Letter to My Friends Who Are Climate Skeptics

Note: it turns out this blog posting was misguided, and did not achieve what I intended. Here's what I learned from this experience.

Earth Etude for 26 Elul

Hashem's "Gaslands"* by Judith Feldstein My Lord, You sent us not a burning bush, but Your flaming water; a fire that lives in gas and is not drowned in H2O, with flames that are not quenched, and danger not consumed until we hear and live your will and love Your home as part of You. Last year You gave us Elul with the kiss and aftermath of Your Irene's with all the might of ordained winds and rains and floods. You offered us tsunamis to remember as the earth was shaken, and our towers crashed and crumbled while our people fled or died. Our forests burned, our wildlife trapped in ...

Earth Etude for 24 Elul

MEDITATION on ELUL by Richard H. Schwartz Elul is here. It represents an opportunity for heightened introspection, a chance to consider teshuva, changes in our lives, before the “Days of Awe,” the days of judgment, the “High holidays of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. The shofar is blown every morning (except on Shabbat) in synagogues during the month of Elul to awaken us from slumber, to remind us to consider where we are in our lives and to urge us to consider positive changes. How should we respond to Elul today? How should we respond when we hear reports almost daily of severe, often record-breaking, heat ...