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GreenFaith's Executive Director Fletcher Harper delivered the following testimony in support of the proposed new fuel efficiency standards at a Philadelphia hearing of the Environmental Protection Agency on Jan. 19.

Good afternoon.  I am the Rev. Fletcher Harper, Executive Director of GreenFaith, a national interfaith environmental coalition.  GreenFaith works with over 5,000 faith-based groups nationwide to educate, equip and mobilize them to offer leadership to protect the environment.  I am here today to offer GreenFaith’s unequivocal support for the fuel efficiency standards that are the subject of this hearing.

The world’s great religions – Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Christianity and others – affirm three core values or beliefs that are consistent with the intent and impact of the proposed standards.

First, these traditions teach that the Earth reveals the existence of its Creator.  Therefore, those actions which protect or preserve a healthy environment are morally and religiously significant because they show respect to the Creator and make it possible for others to appreciate the Creator’s majesty, beauty and love.  Conversely, actions that degrade or destroy Creation are wrong because they show disrespect to the Creator while depriving many of the chance to enjoy the beauty of God’s Earth.  By analogy, very few people would claim that defacing the work of a master painter would be a way of showing respect to that artist.  This religious perspective is in certain ways echoed in society’s recognition that there are aesthetic and emotional values inherent in the environment, and that regulations and policies must take these non-financial values into account.  By reducing air pollution substantially, the proposed standards are deeply consistent with this first religious value.

Second, religions teach that society owes a particular duty of care to its most vulnerable members.  Again, the proposed standards supports this value.  Others have testified about the harm to human heath caused by tailpipe emissions.  GreenFaith is particularly aware of the disproportionate impacts of air pollution on Environmental Justice communities, where rates of asthma and respiratory illness are far higher than in wealthier, whiter communities.  The proposed standards would substantially decrease the particulate matter that contributes to these negative health impacts – an outcome clearly consistent with religious values.  In addition, the proposed standards would contribute to lessening our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions as part of the effort to fight climate change.  Reducing the pace and level of climate change will again decrease negative health impacts on vulnerable communities domestically and globally – by reducing heat-related illness and death, slowing the spread of infectious diseases, decreasing damage due to severe weather events, and more.  Clearly, these are morally favorable outcomes.

Third – religions teach that human beings are called to protect, care for and steward an Earth which, in the end, does not belong fully to us.  Whether religions see ownership as residing in whole or in part with the Divine, with future generations, or with the wider community of life – the point is clear.  We are not free to use the Earth’s resources solely for our own narrowly defined well-being – because ultimately the Earth does not belong to us.  Rather than interpreting this as a rejection of the notion of private property, we prefer to recognize that all human societies develop some form of ownership of the Earth’s resources – whether familial, clan-based, governmental, or private.  The issue is not whether or not we will develop these systems of human ownership – we always have and always will. The issue is whether the ownership systems we develop are consistent with our obligation to steward the Earth’s resources consistent with the Earth’s inalienable purpose of supporting life with which it was endowed by its Creator.  Once again, the proposed standards – by reducing pollution, fighting climate change, and protecting human and ecological health - represent an important step in making this ethic of stewardship real.

In closing, let me repeat that the proposed standards are deeply consistent with teachings from the world’s faith communities.  Thank you for the opportunity to testify in their support.

Reading updates about the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Durban, South Africa, felt discouraging to me, with the United States seemingly out-of-touch with the reality of global warming. But I experienced a nagging sense of familiarity as US legislators at home and negotiators abroad ignored scientific truths, communicated through hyperbole, and used obstructionist delay tactics.

Then I heard my almost 13-year-old daughter Maya yell from her bedroom, "I told you 17 times to turn out the light!!!!!"

It hit me: many of the voices in the US Congress and the UN negotiations sound like adolescents when discussing climate change. And I feel like a mother facing a whirling dervish intent on derailing a healthful supper that could sustain the entire family.

Appeals to rational logic and the common good are useless in these domestic situations, often prompted by my daughter's need for power or her fear of change. (Don't get me wrong: I absolutely cherish my middle schooler 99% of the time, but we've all learned the impact of the 1%.)

Within the short span of 24 hours, as I awaited an outcome from the talks in Durban, I witnessed three parallel behaviors:

Communicating through hyperbole

The day before a science project was due, my almost 13-year-old exclaimed to her 6-year-old sister Annie Sky: "You ALWAYS mess with my stuff. Now my model of a cell is RUINED!!!" (The 3-D model was not ruined but had been touched. Let's face it: a ball of Rice Krispies treats that looks like a cell is hard to resist.)

Showcasing a similar addiction to exaggeration, a YouTube video circulated that same afternoon with comments to the UN delegates by Senator James Inhofe, from Oklahoma, the most senior Republican on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He claimed to be "standing up against global warming alarmism" and shared the "good news" of the "complete collapse of the global warming movement."

Using obstructionist delay tactics

In my home, these tactics typically occur at bedtime with the goal of avoiding a deadline: "Brush my teeth? It's only 7 o'clock. I'll wait until 8 o'clock. Besides I'm not brushing my teeth until Annie Sky brushes her teeth."

Likewise, the US became the obstructionist bully of the UN conference, pushing for a 2020 deadline and refusing to concede to a global treaty to decrease greenhouse gas emissions until China and India did as well. "What is really frustrating to see is this conference is again hijacked by the Ping-Pong game between the US and China," said Jo Leiner, leader of the European Parliament delegation to the talks.

Ignoring reality

My seventh-grader volunteers at a day care twice a week, plays the piano, and shares my ability to overhear conversations in public. "How can you listen so well to children, music, and strangers, but ignore me?" I asked this week. "Oh it's easy," she replied, happy to explain. "If I don't want to hear what you are saying, your voice gets kind of fuzzy in my head."

With climate change, many of our leaders possess that same ability to ignore the scientific consensus that human activity is the cause of global warming. Last week, the New York Times reported that global emissions of carbon dioxide rose by almost 6% in 2010, the largest absolute increase in any year since the Industrial Revolution. Yet in his statement, Senator Inhofe bragged to the UN climate change delegates: "You are being ignored."

The hundreds of protesters who stormed into the halls of the climate talks realize that we ignore these truths at the peril of the world as know it. "I am speaking on behalf of the United States because our negotiators are not," said Abigail Borah, a Middlebury College student who took the floor, disrupting US envoy Todd Stern's comments.

The living hell that persists as a stereotype of adolescence does not have to be our reality for confronting climate change. Delegates worked for days on a European Union proposal for a new global commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, yet the three biggest polluters -- the US, India, and China -- stalled progress until the talks went into overtime.

Finally on Sunday, the conference reached an agreement to extend the Kyoto Protocol, develop a Green Climate Fund, and mandate that all countries sign a deal by 2015 to cut emissions no later than 2020. Unfortunately, many critics say the agreement lacks the substance to curtail the impacts of climate change.

"It's a strange world when the US is aligning with China and India to block action on global warming," said Jake Schmidt with the National Resources Defense Council. Unless we can harness mature, rational thought to confront climate change, our world will become even more unpredictable with every year, with impacts on food security, water supplies, sea-level rise, and catastrophic weather events.

In contrast, raising a teenager in today's world will seem like a walk in the park.

This blog posting appeared originally in the Huffington Post.  Mallory McDuff is a GreenFaith Fellow.

For the past year, I have had the privilege of developing my thinking in religious environmentalism as a member of GreenFaith's Fellowship program. The program brings together leaders from multiple faith traditions to develop religious and moral voices in safeguarding the environment. Three pillars of study are Spirit (the sanctity of the earth and the natural world found in all religious traditions), Sustainability (harnessing the teachings of respective religious traditions to safeguard our planet) and Environmental Justice (adapting religious teachings of social justice to ensure clean, safe environments for all people wherever they live, work, study or pray). During the course of the program, I wrote a personal eco-theology that I am now sharing.

In reflecting on my commitment to safeguarding our environment as a mitzvah (sacred commandment) in Jewish tradition, three foundational verses in the Torah come to mind:

1. Genesis 1:26-27: Humanity is created in the image of God. While I understand the desire by some environmental theologians to reject an anthropocentric approach to environmentalism, I embrace it. I cannot imagine a world without human beings. I believe our purpose on earth is to act as partners with God in the betterment of the world.

2. Leviticus 25:23: "[God said], 'For the Land is Mine. You are but strangers and sojourners with Me.'" While humanity is unique among all creation, in the final analysis, we are mortal, finite beings. We come from dust and return to dust. We must resist the temptation of hubris that we own the planet and can do anything with impunity.

3. Deuteronomy 16:20: "Justice, justice you shall pursue." Bringing justice and righteousness into the world and fighting against injustice resulting from human inequity should be at the fore of our actions. Environmental justice speaks to me because it calls for us to create a just and equitable environment wherever we are.

Jewish religious teachings that have influenced my eco-spirituality

1. Abraham Joshua Heschel's notion of radical amazement is a compelling concept for me because it calls to mind the divine spark found in all of creation. It also calls for a sense of awe in the universe that is sorely lacking in an age of massive oil spills, nuclear reactor meltdowns and human trafficking of tomato pickers. If more people would have a sense of this radical amazement of nature, there would be greater appreciation of the limits of nature and risks posed by pushing nature beyond its limits.

2. Martin Buber differentiation between "I-Thou" relationships and "I-It" relationships is central to my eco-spirituality. In a consumerist age, we are inundated with goods and services, but meaningful relationships have suffered. I believe that cultivating a greater sense of human dignity for people in our midst is vital to comprehensive ecological stewardship.

3. A high point of the High Holiday liturgy is the liturgical poem "Un'taneh Tokef" that spells out the decrees to which every person will be subjected in the coming year: Who shall live and who shall die, who by fire and who by water. The poem then adds: "But repentance, prayer and righteousness can help the harshness of the decree pass." There are bad things that happen in the world over which we have no control: illness, death, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc. We can't prevent these things, but it is in our power to take away the sting. We can't prevent earthquakes, hurricanes and tsunamis, but we can rally to help those who suffer, and we can alter our consumption habits so that energy sources (e.g., nuclear reactors) do not pose threats to entire cities.

Challenges to my eco-spiritual development

The false god of consumption plagues America and the American Jewish community in which I serve as a rabbi. Our society's culture of consumption challenges the Torah's values of humility and justice and promotes an ethos of hubris and self-interest. I rejoice that America has allowed my people to escape tyranny and persecution in Europe and elsewhere and to prosper here. I cannot take for granted that my great-grandparents came to America to escape pogroms and vile treatment in Russia. Their values of hard work, sacrifice and delayed gratification continued with the generation of my grandparents, the "Greatest Generation" who fought WWII and built our country into a major power. My generation to a great extent has lost these values and our nation and the world suffers as a result. Eco-consciousness reintroduces these values in what for me is a compelling way, but many in the broader community feel threatened and their sense of entitlement under assault. I see the current economic recession as an opportunity re-engage with time-honored values and to begin to reverse the damage that conspicuous consumption has wrought on society.

Another challenge relates to public policy. As an adult, particularly after the seminal moment of 9/11, I was drawn into environmentalism through my desire to achieve energy independence. Our society is dependent on petroleum from totalitarian countries that sit on most of the world's oil reserves. Because of principles I hold dear regarding democratic freedom, I knew America needed to wean itself off its dependence on foreign oil. Until the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, I wasn't totally convinced that exploration of new domestic oil fields was a bad thing. I'm now totally convinced. I've felt challenged again recently regarding oil exploration in Israel. The State of Israel, whose existence and security is vital to modern Jewry, has a lot to gain through energy independence and is a light unto the nations for its efforts to do so through sustainable means. Indeed, Better Place's leadership in developing infrastructure to support electric cars throughout the country is most inspiring. At the same time, efforts are hastily afoot to introduce fracking in Israel based on the discovery of rich oil and gas deposits in rock. This process has already poisoned water systems in the United States. I fear that Israel's adoption of this system will lead to environmental disaster in an area where water is already in deep shortage. Whether in America, Israel or around the world, I believe it is essential to keep the dual values of environmental stewardship and energy independence in sync with each other rather than in conflict with each other. We will be most successful fulfilling the precepts of the Torah described above when we reduce and hopefully someday eliminate our dependence on fossil fuel.

Ritual practices that strengthen my connection with Creation

As an observant Jew, I pray daily, and the discipline of prescribed daily prayer reinforces the concepts outlined above: We're created in the image of God, yet the earth is ultimately God's; our task is to help God maintain justice and repair the earth. Other specific Jewish rituals ground me with appreciation for creation. Kashrut, the Jewish dietary laws, provides me with a framework of mindfulness in how I eat. The various blessings said before and after eating various foods remind me of the ultimate Source of the food. Shabbat is a weekly set of rituals geared toward slowing down and appreciating creation rather than creating. My increased involvement over the years in environmental activism has seemed to make so much sense because it flows seamlessly out of rituals that I was already observing and, in turn, breathed new life into the rituals.

Power tempered by humility

In conclusion, a piece of Hasidic wisdom instructs people to hold in each hand a slip of paper: on one is written, "For my sake was the world created." On the other is written, "I am but dust and ashes." The teaching flows out of the principles in the Torah I outlined above. We are created in the image of God, but we are not God. Humanity's unparalleled wisdom and power needs to be tempered by humility. Together, we are channeled towards a life of purpose in restoring justice and repairing the world.

To read the original posting and to read Rabbi Bernstein's other blog postings, click here.

[Episcopal News Service] The proposed Keystone XL pipeline would pass through six states, carrying diluted bitumen from the Athabasca Tar Sands in Alberta, Canada, to refineries along the Gulf of Mexico. Because the pipeline would enter the United States from another country, TransCanada can build the pipeline only if the President of the United States issues a permit. The State Department will give a recommendation for or against issuing the permit sometime this fall.

Many Nebraskans are concerned about the proposed pipeline route, which passes through our Sandhills region and over the Ogallala aquifer. The Sandhills is a unique and fragile ecosystem, subject to erosion in the form of blowouts when the top layer of grasses is removed. The Ogallala aquifer provides drinking water for a large area of our state and water for agriculture. There is fear that a leak in the pipeline could pollute the water in the aquifer, resulting in serious economic consequences for farmers, ranchers, and towns in Nebraska.

With State Department hearings about the pipeline recently finished in the states along the pipeline route and in Washington, DC, we have been hearing arguments for and against construction of the pipeline. The State Department's question is whether granting permission for the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline is in the national interest; that has brought to the forefront of the debate in Nebraska questions about economic gain or loss and questions about a foreign company being able to pass a pipeline through private ranchland.

Both the Rev. Don Huber, rector of St. Matthew's in Alliance, Nebraska, and I had been thinking about this issue. Talking about it late this summer, we realized that while our reasons for opposing the pipeline included the concerns we heard others express, there were other questions we were asking as Christians that compelled us to speak to the issue. Being mindful of both Christ's commandment to love our neighbors and the Scriptural call to be tillers and caretakers of the earth, stewards of creation, we asked: Does the proposed pipeline harm or hurt humanity as a whole? Is building it consistent with the wise and reverent use of creation? If we as a people and a nation agree to the building of this pipeline, will we be acting as good stewards of creation?

We answered the questions in an op-ed piece we sent to several newspapers in Nebraska. Before sending it, we circulated it among other Episcopal clergy in the Diocese of Nebraska we thought might have an interest in the issue. We ended up with the names of 21 priests and deacons who supported our statement.

The local concerns, especially concerns about the Ogallala aquifer and about appropriating land to build the pipeline from people who depend on the land and water for their livelihoods, partly answered our questions, leading us to conclude that the project was "at its best risky business and at its worst morally reprehensible."

Beyond these local concerns, we considered the impact of the mining of the Athabasca Tar Sands on the First Nations people who have lived along the Athabasca River for generations. Contamination of the land and water along with reduced river flow has negatively affected their hunting, fishing, and health. The Tar Sands region is in the Canadian boreal forest, an ecosystem whose continuing ability to function as the largest carbon storage area on earth is essential to mitigation of global warming that causes climate change. The boreal forest is also an essential habitat for migrating birds. Furthermore, the impact of mining and processing the tar sands and burning the refined oil is predicted to significantly raise greenhouse gas emissions that result in increased global warming. A project that harms indigenous people, endangers migratory birds, and accelerates global warming seems to us not to serve God and God's purposes for humankind and the rest of creation.

I've been asked why Episcopal clergy chose to speak out on this issue. When the livelihoods and even the very lives of people near and far are risked for economic gain, and when all living things are threatened by increased greenhouse gas emissions, remaining silent seems inconsistent with love for our neighbors and love for God, the Creator. Moreover, as climate change accelerates and changes our world in ways we are only beginning to comprehend, we hope future generations won't have reason to ask why people in the church now failed to speak and act.

-- The Rev. Betsy Blake Bennett is a deacon at St. Stephen's Church in Grand Island, Nebraska.  Her original blog posting can be found at the Episcopal News Service.            

No other month has as much sacred choreography as the seventh month of the Hebrew calendar, Tishrei: the month of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, ancient Israel's fall harvest festival.

Rosh Hashanah, perhaps the most universalist of the Jewish holidays, celebrates the creation of Adam and Eve, and inaugurates a period of deep introspection, reflection and personal accountability (heshbon ha-nefesh), leading to Yom Kippur, a day of at-one-ment with one's God and one's fellow human beings. Five days later we celebrate z'man simhateynu, the season of our joy. It is a celebration marked by liturgy and choreography taking us back to the agricultural origins of the Jewish people. Our Sages suggest that the 70 bulls offered in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem on Sukkot represented each of the then-known nations of the world. Prayers were offered for rain to fall as a blessing in its proper season.

For an agrarian society, highly dependent on rainfall, Sukkot marked the end of the annual harvest: the barley of Passover, the wheat of the Feast of Weeks, the vintage in anticipation of the fall festivals. Only for the festival of Sukkot does the Torah mandate joy three times: "You shall celebrate in your festival ... and you shall have nothing but joy" (Deuteronomy 16:14, 15) and "you shall rejoice before the Lord your God seven days" (Leviticus 23:40). There is not even one command to rejoice on Passover, and there is only one command to rejoice on Shavuot seven weeks later. A fifth-century rabbinic compilation, the Pesiqta de-Rav Kahana, suggests that on Passover, the beginning of the harvest cycle, we do not know whether crops will be plentiful or not. On Shavuot, while field crops have been brought in, we do not know whether our fruit harvest will be successful. Since we are more anxious about our lives than our possessions, there is no command to rejoice on Rosh Hashanah, the traditional Day of Judgment. Having received pardon on Yom Kippur, the Day on Atonement, field crops have been gathered, as have fruits of the tree. The harvest year has come to an end: we rejoice either in its plentitude and abundance or in the awareness that the next agricultural cycle may be more productive. In either event, we rejoice. As we became more urban, the Jewish community lost sight of the vital connection between the New Year, the Day of Atonement, personal accountability and the prayer for rain that concludes the sacred days of Tishrei, on Shemini Atzeret, the eighth day of solemn assembly.

Long before the Star of David came to be associated with Jews, the arba'at haminim -- the four species of the lulav (festive bouquet of willow, myrtle and palm) and the etrog (citron) -- were among the quintessential Jewish symbols in the rabbinic period. They still are to be found on the mosaic floors of late antiquity synagogues and in the Jewish catacombs of ancient Rome. Most of the oldest liturgical choreography continues to be practiced during Sukkot, with the ritual waving of the lulav and etrog, and festive processions around the synagogue, culminating in a seven cycle procession on the last day of Sukkot, Hoshannah Rabbah. As worshippers sway with the festive branches, singing the words of Hallel, psalms of praise, it is not difficult to imagine one's self intimately and intricately tied to the natural world.

Each item in the bouquet requires differing degrees of water: the palm requires very little; the willow a great deal, myrtle suffices with rainwater, the etrog depends on human irrigation. On Sukkot, at the turn of the season from dry to rainy, we emphasize the importance of water and its impact on how things will grow. A prayer for rain is inserted into the liturgy, imploring that rain will fall at its proper time. On Shemini Atzeret, the Eighth Day of Solemn Assembly, the concluding festival of Sukkot, Jewish tradition inserts a prayer for rain as we add the phrase "Who causes the wind to blow and rain to fall" to daily prayer. Congregation and reader ask for rain as blessing, not curse; for life, not death; for abundance, not famine. Witness the devastation of the Midwest this past summer, the devastating rains, winds and floods of Irene and Lee, cycles of drought, wildfires burning out of control across parched, once-verdant farmland -- evidence of climate change above and beyond El Niño and La Niña. While much can or may be ascribed to natural quasiperiodic fluctuations, pattern and recurring patterns, it seems increasingly clear there is more than passive human intervention and involvement in the warming of our planet.

Sukkot reminds us of our connection to God from whose universal design the rains come, and the need to acknowledge personal responsibility in assuring that the rains come in season. Among the interpretations given to the arba'at haminim is that the myrtle represents the human eye, the willow the mouth, the etrog the heart, and the palm the spine. With but a slight variation, Sukkot and its festive bouquet serve as an annual reminder of the need for head, heart, soul and spine, using that which animates us to animate others in active stewardship of this planet we call home.

GreenFaith Fellow Rabbi Barry Kenter's original blog posting can be found on The Huffington Post.

Writer, farmer and modern-day prophet Wendell Berry will visit the college where I teach and live this fall, and I'm trying to remain cool and level-headed. For me, that's a challenge because I marvel at his poetic prose that challenges us to hold our spiritual values at the center of our sense of place.

During his short stay, I fear becoming part of an agrarian paparazzi, planning my jogging routes around his campus tour or visit to an Appalachian Studies class. While I plant my fall garden, I visualize him strolling past my on-campus duplex when I'm harvesting kale with my two daughters.

Yes, this hero worship is amusing on some level, if you consider that I'm a 45-year-old mother, writer and academic. But I believe that we need to feel reverence for those voices calling us to put our religious values to work in local communities to sustain God's earth. And I believe that because I am a mother, teacher and a person of faith.

I want my daughters and my students to connect with people who are discussing, writing about and ultimately creating a healthful, sustainable world. I remember when the first fast-food restaurant -- Hardee's -- came to my hometown of Fairhope, Ala., in 1979. Yet my children have never seen a major highway exit in this country without signs signaling the location of every Taco Bell and Burger King within a half-mile radius.

We need alternative road signs and luminaries if we are going to reconnect human communities with places. Berry's writings -- all 30 books of poetry, novels and prose -- provide some direction: "What I stand for is what I stand on," he writes. He implores us to "practice resurrection."

To that end, his life with his wife Tanya on Lanes Landing Farm in Port Royal, Ky., reflects actions that back up his words. Famously, the 77-year-old Berry does not use a computer (my feminist students are surprised to learn that his wife apparently types his manuscripts).
He tackles contentious political issues, such as joining the Feb. 12 sit-in with 14 other activists at the Kentucky governor's office to ask for an end to mountaintop removal. In one YouTube video, Berry wears a blue button-down shirt and tie, while a younger protester in a T-shirt and jeans tweets about the event. Just this month, he joined the voices of Bill McKibben and James Hansen, calling for civil disobedience in protest of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline from the tar sands of Canada to Texas.

We can lose our connection to places in one generation, he maintains. I think about this prediction as I watch my students explore ways to regain the local economies described in his writing. On most days, I have more faith than fear, more optimism than skepticism. primarily because of the work of both faith communities and my own students who are letting their spiritual connection to places guide their life's work, whether they consider themselves religious or not.

Here in my current home of Asheville, N.C., First Congregational United Church Of Christ installed 42 solar panels as a public witness to renewable energy. Oakley United Methodist Church started a community garden. Yet, Berry writes that even if we had an unlimited supply of sustainable energy, we would continue to degrade the earth -- until we adapt to local economies that recognize the impossibility of infinite growth as an economic principle.

As a mother whose days are marked by breakfast, work, dinnertime, bath time and bedtime, I have thought about what this means to me on a practical level. I can't come close to replicating Berry's life with a family farm and countless books to my name. But I am making an effort to live in community with others in one place, recognizing that this is my privilege and hence my responsibility.

When my former students grow food, teach children or start businesses like "The Organic Mechanic," I want them to realize that our heroes are real people in place and time. In class, I pass around a hand-written letter, a kind and diplomatic note from Berry declining my invitation to write a preface to my last book. This rejection note thrilled me because it represented an encounter with a real person on a similar journey, rather than some imaginary friend I talk to while gardening.

Watching for modern-day prophets and signposts will help us create the faithful communities we want to inhabit. This is the real work of our daily lives, not only in our imaginations. "There are no unsacred places; there are only sacred places and desecrated places," Berry writes.

Now, I think it's time to plant that kale.

Read GreenFaith Fellow Mallory McDuff's original post on the Huffington Post.

The Jewish liturgy on Rosh Hashanah declares, hayom harat olam, "today is the birthday of the world." The phrase evokes the majesty of creation. It reminds us simultaneously that we mortals are mere specks of dust in the broader universe. At the same time, we have great significance. The overall message of the penitential period from Rosh Hahhanah through Yom Kippur is that we can change ourselves through teshuvah (lit., "return") and thereby change the world. Thus, these days of awe are meant to inspire us to engage in the ongoing creation of the world, not cower from it. The tone of the Holy Days may be solemn, but the purpose is optimistic.

Awe of creation and the Creator permeates one of the central biblical texts in the Rosh Hashanah liturgy: Akeidat Yitzhak, the binding of Isaac (Genesis 22). Throughout the ages, there has been no shortage of interpretation of this harrowing tale. In the Jewish-environmental context of this blog, one rabbinic midrash has special poignancy, what might be called an "eco-conscious" reading.

As Abraham and Isaac, along with the two unnamed lads who accompany them, near the end of their journey, the text reads: "On the third day Abraham looked up and saw the place from afar" (Genesis 22:4).

Midrash Tanchuma (Vayera 23) offers the following comment:

As they approached the place and saw it from afar, Abraham asked Isaac, "Do you see what I see?" And Isaac answered, "I see a beautiful, majestic mountain, and the cloud of glory hovers over it."

He then asked his two young servants, "Do you see anything?"
They answered, "We see nothing but a wasteland." Abraham said to them, "Remain behind here with the donkeys."

The two lads are supporting cast members who typically get lost in the psycho-drama of the narrative. Yet, the rabbis in their careful reading of the text take note that they were left behind as Abraham and Isaac ascend the mountain. The rabbis ask why that is, and their answer is that they were not filled with a sense of awe. They did not sense the presence of the divine in creation. Abraham saw the makom, the Place (which, in rabbinic Hebrew, becomes another name for God); the lads saw a wasteland. Therefore, Abraham excluded them from further participation in this momentous occasion.

Of course, we can ask numerous questions about the lads and presume our own course of action if we were in their shoes. We might gather from the text that of course Abraham excluded them. Why would he want them snooping around, given what unfolds? If we were there, would we surreptitiously follow our masters up the mountain? Would we call the police when we saw Abraham raise his knife? Would we run and tell Sarah? (Oh, yes, she does die suddenly in the next chapter, doesn't she?) This particular midrash overlooks all of these questions and directs our attention to the broader atmosphere.

Abraham and Isaac are not without their faults. Abraham follows God's instructions in an unquestioning way that is incongruent with the Abraham who argues with God over the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. Isaac, for his part, is passive. He may well be an adult already but is willing to go along with his father's plan. His willful passivity (assuming that to be the case) demonstrates his own lapse in concern of the sanctity of life in the name of serving his God. In reading the text one is left with little doubt that the main characters were deeply scarred by this episode. God never speaks to Abraham again. Abraham and Isaac never speak again. Sarah dies.

All of this is true, and still the rabbis writing the midrash above were bothered by those two anonymous youths at the bottom of the mountain whom we never hear from again. Abraham and Isaac, for all their faults, are looking for the spark of the divine in their lives. They are imperfect in their comprehension of it, and they are hurt in the process; however, they still care. The rabbis interpret the two lads as indifferent to the divine presence, and indifference is taboo in the Torah and in the annals of Jewish interpretation.

Deuteronomy commands: lo tuchal l'hita'lem, "you may not be indifferent" (22:3). In this specific context, it's ignoring someone in anguish over losing an object, but the prohibition of indifference can be interpreted more broadly.

As stated eloquently by Elie Wiesel: "The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference. The opposite of beauty is not ugliness, it's indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it's indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, but indifference between life and death.

As the rabbis interpret, at a momentous time in the Bible, two youths were pessimistic and indifferent and were excluded from further participation. At the dawn of the Jewish New Year, a message we can take from the Binding of Isaac is to infuse ourselves with renewed optimism that we can make the world a better place. It's in our power to work in partnership with the divine to make a difference in mankind's stewardship of the earth and in our treatment of one another.

Read Rabbi Bernstein on The Huffington Post.

I sometimes think of myself as an accidental environmentalist. On the occasion of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, I can draw a direct, if not perfectly straight, line to my efforts today to live an ecologically sustainable lifestyle.

Ten years ago, I lived in the New York area where I was serving in my first rabbinic pulpit. It's become cliché, but I remember exactly where I was on 9/11 when news of the first plane crashed. I heard it on the car radio on the way to work. Like so many others, I thought it must have been a small private plane that lost its way. When I got to the office, I asked my colleagues if they heard the news. They informed me that the second tower was just struck. Then we knew. America was under attack.

9/11 was a pivotal moment for me in my development as an environmentalist. As an asthmatic, I had always been concerned about air pollution and wanted more to be done to clean up our atmosphere. I remember buying a car in 1998. Gas mileage was a factor in my purchase, but at less than $1.00/gallon, it wasn't the most decisive factor. 9/11 changed my perspective. All of the hijackers and their superiors were from lands controlled by despotic regimes that were and remain among the world's largest suppliers of oil. In the case of Saudi Arabia, it was clear that the kingdom was using its vast oil wealth to bankroll a fundamentalist religious educational system that was sowing seeds of hatred, particularly for the West. It made perfect sense to me from a national security perspective that America's response to 9/11 had to include weaning our nation off our dependence of petroleum.

I believe that President Bush committed a historic error by failing to call upon Americans to sacrifice in service to our country. Such a call should have included a call not only to drive less but also a 21st century "Manhattan Project" to retool our nation to produce and use clean energy. That call never came. I remember speaking about this from the pulpit in the aftermath of 9/11. I called on congregants to drive less and to make gas mileage an important factor in their car purchases. In retrospect, these sermons had little if no effect. Months and years passed, and I still saw my synagogue parking lot full of "light trucks," i.e., SUV's and minivans. Occasionally, I would see a Prius, usually owned by an empty-nester couple who had no children to shuttle around. The reality of suburban family life, however, practically necessitates a large vehicle. It got to the point where by the time our third child was born, my wife and I caved in and traded in one of our two sedans for a minivan. In retrospect, my use of the pulpit to promote national security was not touching the soul in a profound religious way and was not promoting an action, noble and important as it is, that was practical for most people within the society in which we live.

As the last decade unfolded I found myself increasingly drawn to reduction of fossil fuel in the name of environmental stewardship. While I would have expected people's visceral anger from 9/11 to spur action, I found that the more positive call to safeguarding our planet to be a religious message to which people can better relate.

My perspective started to change when my children's multiple food allergies spurred my curiosity as to why so many children today have severe food allergies. I have no recollection of such an epidemic when I was a kid. I eventually found Michael Pollan's 2006 classic, "The Omnivore's Dilemma." While he doesn't specifically address food allergies, his reporting on the large scale industrialization of American agriculture brings a new dimension of clairvoyance to our nation's dependence on petroleum. When we factor in the petroleum used in producing fertilizer, pesticides, herbicides, transportation of goods, and food processing, it's not too much a stretch to say that we are essentially eating petroleum (no wonder we have food allergies!). In fact, he reports that it takes ten calories of petroleum energy to produce one calorie of beef energy. This formula is unsustainable on multiple levels. This book opened my eyes to the carbon footprint that industrial agriculture has produced.

Pollan's insight on a large level is a "downer" when factoring in the pervasiveness of Big Agriculture in our society. At the same time, his writing was transformative for me in helping me become more aware of where my food comes from. This renewed mindfulness of the earth has enriched my spiritual connection with the earth. As I have broadened my preaching and teaching in the last few years on Judaism and the environment, I have rediscovered the eternal truth that people are more open to change for positive reasons than negative. Finger-wagging admonishments to drive cars that get at least 35 miles per gallon fell on deaf ears. Much more effective have been calls to join and volunteer in a synagogue's Community Supported Agriculture co-op where there is positive community energy generated around fresh, local, organic food. In the process, the community's carbon footprint is greatly reduced.

On this tenth anniversary of 9/11, I still am looking for inspired leadership by elected officials to fundamentally change the way in which energy is produced. At the same time, I can't wait for them to inspire our community towards meaningful action. At first I thought 9/11 would spur our leaders to lead us toward energy independence. Maybe instead it will lead us toward a renewed sense of interdependence among people and between people and land. A renewed commitment to reclaiming our planet from the damage caused by humanity will restore our collective soul as a nation and bring honor to the victims of 9/11 that they did not die in vain.

This blog posting appeared originally on the Huffington Post.

Bill Clinton wrote about jobs creation in Newsweek earlier this summer. It's a hot topic these days. Facing stubborn high unemployment numbers and the sluggish economy overall, I am as interested as the next person in jumpstarting our economy. Having been unemployed for some time this past year, I understand the distress and frustration that many people feel. Families and communities depend on gainful employment. At the same time, I believe that strength and resiliency in our economy is more important than jobs per se.

This is a deeply moral issue, which is why we must be concerned about getting it right, now and tomorrow, accounting for the complexity of factors and benefits that mark a healthy economy. In other words, there can be no quick fixes, no magic bullets and no wearisome blame games. A conversation about what constitutes an enduring economy abounding in decent paying jobs is something that we all have a vested interest in.

In this blog, I touch on four specific factors I see as critical in building long-term foundations for a healthy economy. Each demonstrates multiple benefits and systemic strength. Each reflects spiritual values, such as thoughtfulness, renewal and vitality. The last one has the added bonus of jobs stimulus on a large scale and in the short-term. There are many factors for growing an economy that is trustworthy and lasting, such as national investment in our decaying infrastructure and even extending reductions in our national payroll tax, which benefits everyone. But here are four: fair trade, bio-conscious manufacturing, whole foods and clean energy.

To begin, fair trade is not "free trade" and should never be confused. Equal Exchange Coffee was the pioneer of fair trade java in the United States in the mid-1980s. Fair trade removes from the profit chain wealth-draining intermediaries such as speculators and brokers, empowers poor coffee-producing communities in the Global South and benefits small gourmet coffee companies in the United States, as well as larger companies like Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. Since the 1980s, fair trade has diversified beautifully, everything from sugar and bananas to flowers and spices. But fair trade remains a small fraction of global commodities sales.

From a policy perspective, strengthening fair trade does at least two things well. First, it improves the local economies in the developing world, thereby reducing pressures for poor populations to support an illicit drug trade or to seek citizenship in the United States. This helps solve both our immigration and drug problems. Secondly, it creates jobs in fair trade companies and stores around the United States. Equal Exchange sales and operations have grown and investment returns have remained steady since the 1980s. Among other successful fair trade organizations is Ten Thousand Villages, a non-profit arts and crafts chain.

Next is bio-conscious or "cradle to cradle" manufacturing. Imagine clothing and textile factories, automobile and appliance factories, reproducing amazing goods and services while purifying the outflow of water in a "closed-loop" system, not fouling our waters. Such industries are learning to imitate the genius of living systems, wetlands for example. None of this is futuristic economics or science fiction. In Spring 2010, Newsweek reported the industrial advances in such green designs. Biologist Janine Benyus writes about this manufacturing and business revolution in her book, "Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature." Global industrial leader Ray Anderson, who died this month after a long battle with cancer, successfully applied these principles at his commercial carpeting giant, Interface Inc. In our depressed economy, we need to return to American manufacturing, but now armed with 21st century eco-technology and knowledge. As with fair trade, green manufacturing addresses multiple national problems, such as jobs, water and air, with grace and depth.

Thirdly, as we have learned that the poor diet often leads to obesity, and later diabetes and heart disease, with national cost implications, the time is right to re-think the priorities and incentives of our food system. To boost local jobs, cut spending on Health Care, and improve our environment and bodies, healthy "whole foods," like fruits, vegetables and unprocessed grains, urge greater availability and competitive relative pricing to manufactured foods, especially in low income communities. How? Organic foods, local foods, farmers markets and "farms-to-schools" will grow or expand as free enterprise success stories

But this will not happen unless we end our addiction to annual subsidies for Big Agriculture, which are in the high billions. Yet, scarcely a peep from anti-government activists is voiced when it comes to corporate food welfare. It makes me wonder what industries are bankrolling certain political agendas.

Finally, clean energy. You may be getting tired of hearing this, so I'll try to keep it short and on point. It is simply where the jobs are, both now and future. Why? Knowledge zones converge: Science and Environment; Geo-politics and War and Peace; Geo-physics and Supply and Demand (although, again, without the subsidies -- this time to Oil and Coal). Hundreds or thousands of books have been written about the systemic urgency to develop clean energy, but none may be as cogent as this summer's release, "Tropic of Chaos: Climate Change and the New Geography of Violence" by Christian Parenti. Serious investment in wind, solar, biomass, geothermal and tidal power will create much widespread employment while enhancing National Security.

With the convergence of economic and environmental crises, political and free market solutions must demonstrate systemic intelligence. This means that most major problems are not isolated from each other. They are connected and require policy decisions that express this understanding. This is not a liberal or conservative argument, nor is it Republican or Democratic. I am making this appeal as one who believes in Saint Paul's vision of the Body of Christ. We are many parts -- global trade, manufacturing, foods, energy and more -- but one body.

This blog post also appears in the Huffington Post.

Having recently moved from Cleveland, Ohio, to South Florida, I am adjusting to a very different climate. The timing of my move was such that I missed experiencing the infamous "Heat Dome" that plagued a large swath of the country this summer. Ironically, while temperatures in Florida were seasonably muggy and hot -- in the 90s -- temperatures in the Upper Midwest and Northeast soured over 100 for days.

For years, we have heard about climate change occurring as a result of human-produced pollution. Many scientists and commentators have moved away from the term "global warming," in favor of "climate change," to account for all kinds of increasingly odd weather patterns throughout the year, such as flooding, tornadoes, blizzards. I happen to like Thomas L. Friedman's term "Global Weirding."

Nevertheless, the intense heat of this summer raised concern. Even in Florida, which has been spared (as of this writing) the extreme conditions from up north, things seem different. Long-time Florida residents tell me that it used to rain every afternoon at a predictable time. This summer, rain has not been as predictable. Rain can come at any time or not at all on a given day. Again, it's weird.

The Torah paints a picture of a world with more predictability. As synagogues around the world recently started reading Deuteronomy as part of the annual liturgical cycle of scriptural reading, we can't avoid Deuteronomy 11:13-21 (the end of Parashat Ekev)n This passage is well known. Jews who pray regularly recognize it as the second paragraph of the Sh'ma, the centerpiece of the daily morning and evening liturgy. This passage bears strong parallels to the first paragraph with its commands to bind these words as a sign on our hands and as frontlets on our foreheads and to inscribe them on the doorposts of our houses and gates. But the passage is also known for its vintage-Deuteronomy reward-and-punishment theology. For the ancient Israelites and their agrarian economy, reward and punishment was best expressed in terms of weather: Follow God's ways and receive abundant rain in its season to yield plentiful harvests; stray from God's ways and risk drought and starvation.

According to this passage, abundant rain is clearly a blessing. In Israel, where the rainy season is of limited duration, the need for adequate rain in its season is rather acute. The ancients understood this as well as anyone. Residents of and travelers to Israel and the Middle East know how crucial rain is for the region, particularly in the winter.

What is difficult for many of us to grasp is the theology behind the second paragraph of the Sh'ma. It is prominent in the daily liturgy and is found in the mezuzah on the doorpost of every Jewish home. For the modern reader, though, Deuteronomy's strict doctrine of reward and punishment can be troubling: Obey God and prosper; disobey God and suffer.
Is that the way the world works? Time and again we witness the righteous suffer and the wicked prosper. How can the prominence of the second paragraph of the Sh'ma in Jewish liturgy be reconciled with human experience? I am sure we all can think of examples when we have asked this question whether it be sparked by the serious illness of a loved one or any number of atrocities done by one group of people toward another. So, given the world we live in, why is Deuteronomy 11:13-21 so central to Jewish liturgy?

I might mention that the early American Reform Movement did omit that passage entirely from their prayer books. Decades later, Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan, founder of Jewish Reconstructionism, dropped the paragraph from his prayer book published in 1945. He said that he cannot believe that "the process of meteorology is dependent on man's moral behavior." All along, Orthodoxy and the Conservative Movement, which Kaplan served for most of his career, has kept this paragraph in the liturgy, though it is often read silently while the first and third paragraphs are often sung aloud in a congregation.

Despite the efforts of reformers to omit the Deuteronomy 11 passage from the liturgy, a funny thing has happened in recent years. The second paragraph of the Sh'ma has made a comeback of sorts, as members of all of the religious movements have attempted to appropriate new meaning to the passage. It even was included in the 1989 edition of the new Reconstructionist prayer book. One explanation is evoked by modern ecological consciousness. It is no longer primitive to believe that human behavior affects the natural order. On the contrary, we are now aware that we have the power to destroy or to preserve our environment. We know that our behavior as a human race correlates with rainfall, whether it is severe flooding, severe draught or acid rain that destroys ecological systems that it's intended to nourish. As noted by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, the passage in Sh'ma has acquired a new relevance for evoking ecological consciousness.

As someone who says this paragraph every day yet struggles with it nonetheless, I derive great comfort from Rabbi Waskow's ecological interpretation. Rabbi Elliot Dorff, a leading philosopher in the Conservative Movement also provides a compelling explanation on this passage's lessons to us on justice in general. He writes:

"I recite the Shema each day because it proclaims God's justice, and justice must be a critical element in the God I affirm. The calculus of reward and punishment articulated in [Deut. 11:13-21] may be too simple and ultimately inaccurate. ... Nevertheless, I find this paragraph, with all its problems, central to my beliefs, for it insists starkly (even if too starkly) that God is ultimately just. Somehow, justice is an inherent part of the world and of God; and since God is the model for human beings, the possibility of justice must be inherent in us as well."

He further writes: "The Rabbis too had problems with the doctrine of justice announced in this paragraph, but they included it anyway, because they too had a deep faith in the ultimate justice of God as the metaphysical backdrop and support for human acts of justice."

I believe that the paragraph still rings true, even if not literally. When a whole society does the right thing, behaves in the right way, learns to love God and love their neighbors, the overall quality of life for everybody gets better. If everybody lived such a life, we would all feel the reward. In our day, environmental stewardship and society's virtuous behavior are intertwined with each other. My hope is that humanity will heed the call of this ancient Scripture to clean up our planet and restore justice to the world.

This blog posting appeared originally in the Huffington Post.

Paul Kaufman is GreenFaith's Advocacy Director.  He recently represented GreenFaith on a call with New Jersey legislators and environmental leaders voicing concern about revisions to NJ's Energy Master Plan proposed by Gov. Christie.

New Jersey's state policy on energy and climate change has been a national model for hears, so it has been disappointing lately that Gov. Chris Christie has taken steps to weaken New Jersey’s commitment to leadership on this issue.  Earlier this week I was invited to participate in a phone press conference prior to joint hearings by the Environment Committees of the New Jersey State Senate and New Jersey State Assembly.  The hearings would focus on Gov. Christie’s revised Energy Master Plan (EMP), recently introduced, which would continue to weakens the state’s energy leadership. 
GreenFaith was the only faith-based organization participating.   My colleagues on the call were all experienced environmental advocates, so I spoke about the moral issues involved in an Energy Master Plan.

State Senator Bob Smith and Assemblyman John McKeon, strong environmental leaders in their roles as Committee Chairmen, spoke about the negative impact the Governor’s plan would have on jobs and the environment, and the plan’s failure to address reducing greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, which accounts for 40% of the energy consumed in the state.

I spoke about our religious obligation to protect our planet.  Consistent with GreenFaith’s commitment to environmental justice, I protested that the plan would increase pollution, resulting in serious health impacts on children, families, and communities.  My remarks concluded with the statement that, “in a state as wealthy as New Jersey, this is morally wrong.”

Jeff Tittel, Director of the New Jersey Sierra Club, said, “This EMP gets rid of 20 years of clean energy progress, and we… (need help from the Legislature) to protect our economy, our environment, and the public health of the people of New Jersey.”
Matt Elliot, Clean Energy Advocate for Environment New Jersey pointed out that the EMP significantly scales back goals for renewable energy, and “lacks any clear plan to reduce state-wide energy demand.”

Dave Pringle, Campaign Director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation, decried the three earlier hearings held by the Bureau of Public Utilities on the EMP, as being dominated by industrial polluters, with advocates for the public and for the environment being deliberately overlooked.

This call proved to me that the faith community is a vital voice in any discussion of environmental conservation.  I hope that the revised Energy Master Plan ends up taking these concerns into account.

BY DEANNAMcLAFFERTY
Staff Writer 
This article appeared in the Brunswick Sentinel, and features leadership by Faraz Khan, who has served as an instructor in the GreenFaith Fellowship Program. 

SOUTH BRUNSWICK — The Green Muslims of New Jersey (GMNJ) held their kickoff event July 24 to promote an environmentally conscious Ramadan this year.
The Green Ramadan Initiative (GRI) was held at the Islamic Society of Central Jersey and focused on teaching concerned Muslims the importance of “going green.”
Ramadan requires 30 days of fasting from dawn to dusk, and during that period, Muslims make frequent trips to their Islamic center to worship and break fast in the evening. Local mosques provide attendees with food and water.

“It’s a lot of hustle, and people come in hundreds to the mosque,” Faraz Khan, Green Muslims member, said. “You need to cater to their needs, so there is a lot of waste.”
Khan, along with Saffet Catovic, Shajia Khan and South Brunswick resident Arif Patel, formed GMNJ in attempts to educate Muslims about environmental stewardship and conservation and implement changes to reduce waste production.

At the GRI kickoff event, people were asked to sign a Green Ramadan Pledge, promising to follow any of 10 action items. The items fell under the categories of water, waste, food and energy. For example, the pledge suggests reducing shower time by 20 percent, replacing plastic water bottles with a reusable water bottle, planting a garden, and making an effort to carpool.

There was also an educational program featuring interactive activities, videos and short lectures about the role of environmentalism in Islam. The children’s program taught the importance of taking care of the planet and how to implement ideas at home.
Khan said this educational approach is part of GMNJ’s central aim to increase awareness of environmental issues. The organization encourages area imams to regularly mention environmental concerns and greener living in their sermons.

“On a macro level, it’s about looking at the bigger picture and raising awareness of global warming at the pulpit,” Khan said. “On a micro level, it’s about being practical about what you can do as a mosque attendee.”

The organization partnered with the social activities committee at the ISCJ to reduce the meat provided during Iftar, the fast-breaking evening meal, by 50 percent. Also, students at Noor-Ul-Iman School in Monmouth Junction created posters with facts about going green and the GRI that were posted online for other mosques to adopt, Khan said.
The organization believes environmentalism coincides with the practices and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, who, Khan said, only used what was necessary. GMNJ members echo these sentiments on their Facebook page.

“My love for nature expanded as I grew older and learned how Islam encourages to live in harmony with creation, how the Prophet Muhammad lived so modestly and treated creatures with as much kindness as with humans,” Rozana Rahman, GMNJ member, said.
According to Khan, about 20 people meet every month to discuss green issues, and members involved with GMNJ are from New Brunswick Islamic Center, Islamic Society of Central Jersey, Noor-Ul- Iman School, Islamic Circle of Passaic County, National Islamic Association Inc., Newark, and Islamic Circle of Mercer County.

For the original article, click here.