photo credit: Milan Ilnyckyj

Have you been following the Tar Sands XL Pipeline Sit-In at the White House? This still-ongoing protest is being described as the biggest environmental civil disobedience action in a generation. It began on Saturday, Aug 21 and will continue until September 3. This action has already led to the arrest of almost 600 protesters to date, with crowds increasing every day.

Some background, courtesy of Friends of the Earth:

The Canadian oil and gas company TransCanada hopes to begin building a new oil pipeline that would trek close to 2,000 miles from Alberta, Canada to Texas. If constructed, the pipeline, known as the Keystone XL, will carry one of the world’s dirtiest fuels: tar sands oil. Along its route from Alberta to Texas, this pipeline could devastate ecosystems and pollute water sources, and would jeopardize public health.

Giant oil corporations invested in Canada’s tar sands are counting on the Keystone XL pipeline to make the expansion of oil extraction operations profitable: The pipeline would double imports of dirty tar sands oil into the United States.

Pollution from tar sands oil greatly eclipses that of conventional oil. During tar sands oil production alone, levels of carbon dioxide emissions are three times higher than those of conventional oil, due to more energy-intensive extraction and refining processes. The Keystone XL pipeline would carry 900,000 barrels of dirty tar sands oil into the United States daily, doubling our country’s reliance on it and resulting in climate-damaging emissions equal to adding more than six million new cars to U.S. roads.

Before TransCanada can begin construction, the company needs a presidential permit from the Obama administration (no Congressional approval is needed.) Alas, Secretary of State Clinton is already on record as being “inclined” to approve the project and Obama has been ominously silent on the issue. Hence, this incredible, inspiring mobilization in DC.

All honor to my friend and colleague, Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda – one of the leading rabbinical heroes of the environmental movement – who was among those arrested today (see above.) In a subsequent press release, he was quoted thus:

We must turn up the heat in a sustained effort against the scourge of climate change, which harms not just our land and water but people here and now, our human future and all earthly creation.

Please: if you aren’t able to join the action, please consider signing this petition or just contact the White House directly.

Last January I addressed the serious ecological dangers of hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) as a method for extracting natural gas from underground shale. At the end of the post, I noted with some alarm that a Louisiana energy company is currently seeking to lease hundreds of acres of farmland for fracking in Edwards County, IL.

Advocacy time. A important new piece of legislation is now being proposed by Faith in Place, an Illinois interfaith environmental coalition. Sponsored by Sen. Michael Frerichs, it is called SB 664 (or the “Fracturing Chemical Disclosure Act.”) and is modeled after a ruling by the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission.

Bottom line, SB 664 would:

• Require companies extracting natural gas from shale in Illinois to disclose their chemical formula to the Illinois Department of Natural Resources and to the public.

• Prohibit the injection of volatile organic BTEX compounds into groundwater.

• Outline safeguards for storing and disposing of wastewater.

In other words, SB 664 would require companies to disclose the chemicals they use in the drilling process. This way, if any polluted water or natural gas finds its way to a faucet, we will know exactly who put it there. And we can hold them accountable.

Faith in Place is looking for more legislative sponsors—and citizen support—to pass SB 664. If you live in Illinois, please click here to learn what you can do.

Those who care deeply for the welfare of the earth have been watching with alarm at the growth of hydraulic fracturing (aka “fracking”) throughout the US.

Fracking (yes, fracking) is a means of extracting natural gas that involves drilling deep into the earth, through the aquifer into hard shale deposits. During the process, a pressurized mixture of water and chemicals is injected into the rock, causing a kind of mini-earthquake. Natural gas is then released through the cracks, eventually making its way to the surface, where it is piped to compressor stations.

During the compression process, toxic chemicals are burned off into the air while the used chemical fluid is either sent away or stored in on-site pits where it evaporates. The rest of the chemical fluid, however, remains deep underground.

As you might guess, communities where fracking takes place have reported increasing incidents of water contamination, environmental degradation and serious health problems. State and federal agencies have received thousands of complaints from people all over the country whose lives, homes and communities have been literally poisoned by fracking operations.

From a June 2010 investigative report by Vanity Fair:

Drilling operations near their property commenced in August 2008. Trees were cleared and the ground leveled to make room for a four-acre drilling site less than 1,000 feet away from their land. The Sautners could feel the earth beneath their home shake whenever the well was fracked.

Within a month, their water had turned brown. It was so corrosive that it scarred dishes in their dishwasher and stained their laundry. They complained to Cabot, which eventually installed a water-filtration system in the basement of their home. It seemed to solve the problem, but when the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection came to do further tests, it found that the Sautners’ water still contained high levels of methane. More ad hoc pumps and filtration systems were installed. While the Sautners did not drink the water at this point, they continued to use it for other purposes for a full year.

“It was so bad sometimes that my daughter would be in the shower in the morning, and she’d have to get out of the shower and lay on the floor” because of the dizzying effect the chemicals in the water had on her, recalls Craig Sautner, who has worked as a cable splicer for Frontier Communications his whole life. She didn’t speak up about it for a while, because she wondered whether she was imagining the problem. But she wasn’t the only one in the family suffering. “My son had sores up and down his legs from the water,” Craig says. Craig and Julie also experienced frequent headaches and dizziness.

By October 2009, the D.E.P. had taken all the water wells in the Sautners’ neighborhood offline. It acknowledged that a major contamination of the aquifer had occurred. In addition to methane, dangerously high levels of iron and aluminum were found in the Sautners’ water.

If you’re dismayed to learn about this dubious process (which was developed by Halliburton) you’ll be even more alarmed to learn that fracking is fast proliferating across the country, thanks to the federal deregulation of energy laws. In filming his documentary “Gasland,” (which was just nominated for an Academy Award this week), filmmaker Josh Fox traveled to 32 states to meet rural residents whose communities where decimated by fracking. His film documents toxic streams, destroyed aquifers, dying livestock, devastating illnesses, and kitchen faucets that shoot flame.

And if you live in the state of Illinois, you’ll be even more alarmed to learn the following:

A Louisiana energy company has sent a team of workers to Edwards County, Ill., to lease hundreds of acres of farmland for a natural gas exploration project. The company is targeting a gas-bearing shale formation known as the New Albany Shale Group that lies about 5,000 feet beneath the surface.

What else is there to say except it’s time to fight fracking – or at the very least unregulated fracking – in IL?  To this end, I’m extremely happy to see that my friend and colleague Reverend Clare Butterfield, Executive Director of Faith in Place is currently seeking co-sponsors to introduce the necessary legislation in Springfield. We’re hoping our state will join New York, who recently became the first state to ban hydraulic fracturing as well as Wyoming who last June passed a law requiring the disclosure of the chemicals used in fracking fluid. (As the Vanity Fair article points out, drilling companies refuse to fully reveal what fracking fluid is made of, claiming such information is “proprietary.”)

Faith in Place will be devoting its annual Environmental Lobbying Day in Springfield to this issue on March 30. If you belong to a congregation in Illinois, please join us.

I’ll posting updates on this issue regularly. Stay tuned.

The massive scale of the project is fairly breathtaking. Organized by activist Bill McKibben and his 350 Earth environmental advocacy group, thousands of volunteers ranging from New Mexico to China, Egypt, India and Spain, have gathered for a week long photo-performance project – using human bodies as the main media.

Click here for some amazing pix of the projects. The picture up top was taken of the effort in Santa Fe, in which over one thousand residents held blue posters in a dry riverbed to depict what it would (should) look like if there was actually water flowing through it.

In his email to 350 Earth supporters, McKibben wrote:

We’re not going to solve the climate crisis with art. We know that–we’re deeply based in science and politics. But we’re not going to solve the climate crisis without a movement. And art is one of the ways that movements express themselves, one of the things that reach human beings in powerful and deep ways. So by next week, when the UN climate conference in Cancun opens, we’ll be focused on a new set of ideas and tactics, asking your help for all sorts of practical and political things.

But today–today just know you’re part of the largest art project the world has ever seen.

Evanston has long made environmental concern a top civic priority.  In October 2006, the city unanimously voted to sign the US Mayor’s Climate Protection Agreement. The city has also partnered with the Network for Evanston’s Future, a local coalition of citizens’ groups, to jointly develop a climate action plan through a citizen-based process.

Mazel Tov, Evanston – we’re proud our city is leading the way!

Check out this nice video piece produced by Faith in Place - a coalition of over 400 faith communities throughout Illinois committed to the sacred practice of environmental and economic sustainability. I’m proud to say that JRC (who is featured in the clip) is a longtime member.

From the FIP website:

Our mission is to help people of faith understand that issues of ecology and economy—of care for Creation—are at the forefront of social justice. At Faith in Place we believe in housing the homeless, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked. But even if we do all those things, and love our brothers and sisters with our whole heart, it will not matter if we neglect the ecological conditions of our beautiful and fragile planet.

As temperatures rise and fossil fuel supplies fall, the burden of climate change and scarcity will land primarily on the poor, and eventually will come home to us all. We must practice love and justice in the way we use the ecological commons of air, water and soil. We must be willing to make sacrifices for a sustainable economy.

Click below to read:

Before I begin my remarks to you today, I’d like to do a brief review of my words from last night. For those of you who weren’t here, or who might have forgotten overnight, I talked about the concept of “sustainability”  and I shepped some naches over the ways that JRC has committed itself to the sustainability of our world. I also explored the concept of spiritual sustainability and how critical I believe it is for our lives. And toward the end of my remarks, I suggested briefly that our recent financial meltdown might well a sign that our country has been living an unsustainable manner – and that we’re currently experiencing the dire consequences of our behavior.

Now I know this word, “sustainability” is bandied about a great deal these days, in a variety of different contexts. Some might even consider it to be something of a buzzword. But the thing about buzzwords?  Sometimes it’s true, they do reflect temporary fads or the concept du jour. But in some instances the popularity of a particular word might just indicate an idea whose time has come.

So what does it mean when we say that something is “sustainable?” In the most basic formulation it simply means that something has the ability to thrive with permanence and continuity without exhausting limited resources. This is a fairly straightforward concept, but it is obvious that it becoming increasingly difficult for us to grasp.  In the Western world we tend to take our sustainability for granted.  In our country in particular, I believe our power and privilege creates the illusion of permanence – we take for granted that our resources are somehow inexhaustible; that everything upon which we’ve come to depend will somehow be magically sustained on its own accord.

But of course it isn’t so. The earth’s natural resources are not inexhaustible. Nor are the human resources of our communities. Nor are the economic resources of our nation. And if we continue to plunder or exploit any of these impermanent commodities, our wells will eventually run dry. This may seem patently obvious, but if it is, we certainly don’t seem to be getting it. The only way we will sustain the precious but limited resources of our world is if we ourselves take responsibility for their sustenance.  If we understand that their care and maintenance are up to us and only us. If we live mindful disciplined lives, taking care at every turn not to squander our blessings. Indeed, it is only when we see ourselves as primary agents of sustainability that we truly ensure a future for ourselves and our world.

The notion of a sustainable world is also a profoundly religious concept.  As a matter of fact, it’s the very first teaching in the Bible. In the first chapter of Genesis, we read that God creates an ordered and orderly world – and along with it, God creates the means for its ongoing sustenance. The earth, in turn brings forth “seed-bearing plants…each true to its type, with its seed in it.” (1:2) God also creates the various species of the animal world each with the power to procreate and commands them to be fruitful and multiply. When God creates man and woman, God also commands them to be fruitful and multiply but then God goes one step further. God puts the ongoing care and sustenance of the earth in their hands.

For whatever reason, God doesn’t just take care of the world alone, nor does God create a world that can simply take care of itself. This sacred job is given to humanity just as creation is barely out of the starting gate. A famous Midrash – an early Rabbinic teaching – makes this point radically clear for us:

When God created the first human beings, God showed them around the Garden of Eden and said to them, ‘Look at my handiwork, my creation, how beautiful and balanced it is. Be careful not to ruin or destroy my world, for if you do, there will be no one to repair it after you.

The point here, I think, is clear. The world was designed to be sustained, but it is not self-sustaining. The future of the world, quite simply, is up to us.

By now, we are all too familiar with the environmental implications of this teaching. And it’s gratifying that we seem to be witnessing a major sea change in green awareness in this country. The explosion in sustainable building and the increased production of hybrids and fuel-efficient cars could be a sign that maybe, just maybe, we’re starting to get it. Of course, as important as it is for us to promote green living as private citizens, we won’t see a true environmental impact in our world until nations themselves make policy to fundamentally change the way they consume energy.

And as a nation, America has to come to grips with the fact we are by far the most extravagant consumer of the world’s energy. In fact, we’re the most extravagant consumer of energy in the history of the world. America, a country with less than 5% of the world’s population currently uses 25% of the world’s energy.  Of course it is true that since our economy is larger than any other country, it requires more energy to sustain it. But it is also true that our lifestyle is twice as energy-intensive as that of other affluent countries – and about ten times the average globally.

Personally, I believe that energy over-consumption is only part of a larger sustainability problem in our country. It’s not simply an environmental issue. If we’re going to be totally frank, we’ll have to admit that our country is squandering precious resources on almost every level at an ever-increasing rate. In this regard, we’re heading down the road in which empires have traditionally traveled. And like all empires, we’ve begun to buckle under the weight of our own power and ambition.

The most recent example of this, of course, is our recent financial meltdown. It’s true, Wall St. has been living in an economically unsustainable manner for some time, and now their chickens are coming home to roost. But what did we expect?  If we want to be entirely honest, our entire nation has literally been living on borrowed time. Though our GDP for now is still the highest in the world, the world’s only so-called superpower now has a national debt that is nearly $10 trillion and increases at an average of $2.32 billion every day.

And look at how we’ve set our national priorities – we’re squandering our nation’s wealth the way all empires historically do: on increased military power. We maintain a military presence in virtually every corner of the planet.  Our country’s 2009 defense budget is $515.4 billion, roughly equal to the total military budgets of all the rest of the world’s nations combined.  But this doesn’t include money for fighting the so-called “War on Terror.” Since 9/11, Congress has approved a total of about $859 billion for the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and for military base security. We’re spending $500,000 a minute on the Iraq war alone.  By the way, it’s been estimated that the money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families, health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity.

In other words, we’ve been spending more and more money we don’t have to shore up our power and privilege at the expense of our own citizens. As is typically the case with empires, our nation’s wealth been has increasingly controlled by an ever-narrowing elite. In the last twenty-five years, 60 percent of American households have lost real income despite working longer and harder.  At the same time, all gains in income went to a mere five percent of the population. And for the top one percent, income quadrupled between 1979 and 2004.  Meanwhile, the financial safety net for the most vulnerable among us is disappearing quickly.

This is the inevitable outcome of an overall system that offers breaks and rewards almost exclusively to the wealthy and powerful, while assuming the rest will simply trickle down to everyone else. Meanwhile the wealthiest nation in the world cannot find the financial wherewithal to ensure basic health care for all its citizens. Our job market is shrinking, we’re making increasing cuts in education, social service programs for the growing numbers of hungry and homeless – you certainly know the list as well as I do…

And in addition to the well-being of our citizens, we’re also failing to ensure the well-being of our country’s essential infrastructure. While so many other nations around the world are investing in 21st century technologies, our levees are bursting, our bridges are collapsing, our transit systems are decaying. It has become so serious that many are suggesting we cannot reasonably be considered a developed nation in certain parts of our country. A non-partisan coalition of local and state leaders, recently estimated it would take at least $1.6 trillion dollars over the next five years to address the US infrastructure crisis.

We’ve all been deeply shaken by this current crisis, but I hope we are able to understand that it’s really only the financial symptom of a larger road our nation has been going down for some time. We’ve been living in an unsustainable manner. We’ve been living literally on borrowed time. Like all empires, we’ve been operating under the illusion of invulnerability, but it was inevitable that sooner or later, our bubble was going to burst.

So what’s a crumbling empire to do? Where do we go from here? What are the alternatives?  Well, one thing I’d like to point out is that we Jews have had a long history with empires. Whether it was the Babylonian Empire, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires – we’ve lived among them, we’ve been oppressed by many of them, and we’ve witnessed many a mighty empire rise and fall over the centuries.

This, in fact, is one classical rabbinic interpretation of the story of Jacob’s dream. A well-known Midrash tells us that the various ascending and descending angels on Jacob’s ladder represent the rising and falling fortunes of the various empires to which the Jewish people would be exiled. First the angel representing Babylonia ascends 70 rungs, (for seventy years of exile) then falls down. Next the angel representing the Persian Empire ascends and falls, as does the angel representing the Greek empire. Only the fourth angel, representing the Roman Empire keeps climbing higher and higher into the clouds. Since Rome was represented in the Rabbinic imagination by Jacob’s twin brother Esau, Jacob fears that his children would never be free of Esau’s domination. But God assures Israel that in the end, even the mighty Roman Empire will fall as well.

I’d also like to point out that Biblical tradition has a great deal to say about the sacred importance of building a sacred nation. Before they enter the Promised Land, God tells the Israelites they are about to enter a land flowing with milk and honey – a land that contains all they will ever need. But God also says it will all be lost to them in a second if they do not uphold the covenant and create the kind of holy nation they have pledged to create.

God commands the Israelites repeatedly that they will have a future on the land only if they are worthy of it. If they ensure the sustenance of all their citizens. If they commit to the equitable distribution of resources. If they protect the vulnerable in their land: the orphan, the widow, the stranger. And most of all, if they realize that in the end, this land does not ultimately belong to them. The land belongs to God and they will always be but resident aliens upon it. And what happens if they forget all this? If they refuse or fail to live up to this sacred covenant? The Bible describes the consequences with its inimitably colorful language: the land will surely vomit them out.

On his new album the great Randy Newman sings, “The end of empire is messy at best.” That may historically be true, but it doesn’t have to be.  The world is indeed changing quickly and we seem to be realizing that we’re approaching a critical turning point. Other countries are quickly leveling the playing field and I believe it is safe to say there are going to be drastic and dramatic changes in the international community over the coming decades.   This change may indeed be painful, profoundly painful for many of us, but also represent an opportunity. Indeed, some of the most important movements of social change in this country have emerged from periods of social turmoil. Though it can often be difficult for us to see when we’re in the midst of it, crisis can very often be the midwife of rebirth.

We’re hearing a great deal about change these days, so I might as well weigh in myself: I would suggest the most critical change we need is a change from the culture of empire to a culture of sustainability. We can either do down like all empires, kicking and screaming, or we can recognize that the world is changing and if we are to survive we’ll have to change as well. We’ll have to make some sacrifices in the way we live, we’ll have to accept that amassing power and privilege will not make us stronger. And like the ancient Israelites, we will have to learn to live covenentally: to create a nation in which the community is accountable to the individual just as much as the individual is accountable to the community.

I’m not naïve. I have no illusions how difficult this is going to be. So I’ll end with just a few suggestions. And as tempted as I am, I’m not going to trivialize this issue by discussing the election. Now, I don’t disagree with those who say this is the most critical election any of us will ever face in our lifetimes and I also agree that there is so much riding on this election. But in the end, we need to accept that the problem goes much deeper than can be solved by the changing of just one leader.  Please don’t get me wrong: I want a change in the White House as much as anyone, believe me. But I think we also need to come to grips with the truth that in the end, wise leadership is only part of the answer.

Indeed, the day our new President takes power, these profound structural problems are not going to magically disappear.  We need to remind ourselves that we entrust our leaders with enormous power. And if are going to turn back the road to empire, if we do seek to promote a culture of sustainability for our country, then it will be our job to speak truth to power, to keep the power honest, to demand that the power remain accountable to those they serve, no matter who our leaders might be.

In this, I believe our religious communities have a critical role to play. As the popular saying goes, religious communities don’t only exist to comfort the afflicted, they also exist to afflict the comfortable. Hasn’t this been the job of religion at its best from time immemorial? To warn against the deification of human power? To affirm that no matter how powerful we may become, there will always be a Power greater than even our own? To remind leaders and nations that in the end, it is not by might and not by power that God’s world will be sustained?

For the Jewish community, it is a season of new beginnings, of new opportunity, new hope. If this will be a truly new year, it will not just be up to our leaders to make it so – it will be up to us as Americans, as people of faith, as communities of conscience – to do what we must to promote a vision of sustainability in our country.  In the meantime, whatever change may come in the short term, I know that you join me in my prayer for the most vulnerable members of our nation: the homeless, the unemployed, the uninsured, the undocumented. During the terribly difficult days ahead, may they find sustenance and security, comfort and hope.  May our country come through this painful time even stronger in spirit. And may we all do we can to make it so.

Ken Yehi R’tzoneinu – May it be our will.

From this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Behar:

“But the land must not be sold beyond reclaim, for the land is Mine; you are but strangers resident with me.” – Leviticus 25:23

In the middle of a litany of laws dealing with how to treat the resident alien (in Hebrew: “ger toshav“) we find this remarkable verse that suggests that at the end of the day, we are all really resident aliens after all.

This short verse has a myriad of spiritually radical implications. Just think of what our national priorities might look like if we truly took this idea to heart. Consider its impact on environmental policy, on immigration, on foreign policy, on trade…

As I mentioned in my last post, I believe this concept is absolutely intrinsic to the Jewish world view. The earth does not belong to us – it belongs to a greater and more transcendent Good. In the end, redemption will only come to the land when we truly come to realize the extent to which we are all but strangers upon it.

Just finished playing an on-line quiz called “Consumer Consequences” – a test sponsored by American Public Media that helps you determine your personal environmental footprint. Based on your consumer habits in various categories (i.e. use of public transportation, energy bills, eating consumption, trash disposal) the quiz calculates how many earths it would take to sustain your personal lifestyle.

I’ll warn you ahead of time: your results will sober you up. To state the obvious, the earth simply wouldn’t be able to support its 6.6 million residents if everyone lived like a typical over-consuming American. (A critical statistic: we Americans constitute 5% of the world’s population, but consume 25% of the world’s energy).

Despite the seriousness of the subject matter, the test itself is actually pretty fun to take (they even let you pick a goofy avatar persona). Along the way it also includes important insights about American consumption and tips on how you can reduce your footprint. One especially interesting feature: you can compare your footprint with reporters from various American Public Media programs. (Full disclosure: mine is almost equivalent to the the footprint of Krista Tippett, host of “Speaking of Faith“).