Earth Week Monday

This week is called Earth Week, April 18 - 24 this year. 

The first Earth Day was April 22, 1970, and it still remains a big event in the environmental movement. Interest and participation in Earth Day has increased and spread around the world, with millions of people taking part. 

I do many things everyday in my life to help the earth: I live in a small house; I walk and bike, and work at home; I buy used stuff and buy locally; I use the library instead of buying books; I compost, recycle, and grow my own food, I lead an Earthcare support group at my Quaker Meeting, and I work with other climate activists to help change the way we use carbon in our community.

This week I plan to post an agenda of activities for each day, to show my unity with the earth.

Agenda today:

1. Watch videos

2. Write about my Earth Quaker ideas
3. Plan some actions to take

4. Ground in the earth

1. Watch videos:

Interfaith Earthkeepers has a page of short environmental videos, and I plan to watch one each morning this week. Today I watched this one from the Trust for Public Land, called Climate Smart Cities, that describes key aspects of greening, including tree planting and bike/walk corridors that connect neighborhoods to provide carbon-free transportation options.

2. Write about my Earth Quaker ideas:

Next week I'm helping to lead our Adult Religious Education class, called "Quakers and the Natural World". I'll write a little of my talk here each day.

I'm going to start with a brief discussion of the historical testimony of stewardship, which I have seen defined as "taking care of the things we own and use," which is problematic when applied to nature. It gets to the root of a deeply held Judeo-Christian belief that we are the stewards of everything God made, and therefore (and this is the giant leap of audacity) the owners.

Psalm 8.5-6 states, “Yet you have made them [Christian humans] a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor. You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet.”

It's easy to connect this idea of dominion to the Doctrine of Discovery and the enslavement of Africans and indigenous peoples, to anti-Semitism, and Islamophobia, but it's also directly related to the rape and pillage of the earth: These resources were put here by God for us to own and use.

Though most Quakers don't mean earth stewardship in that way any more, I prefer to name my belief the Testimony of Unity with Nature, which puts me and nature on an equal footing.

3. Plan some actions to take:

I feel like I've been writing and thinking for many months now without doing very much concrete action, so I'm going to set some wheels moving this week.

Today I started a document called "Active Transportation -v- Electric Cars" that I hope to share at the upcoming 350 Town Hall on Electrification. (Spoiler: Maybe electric cars aren't the perfect solution ... pretty radical stuff!)

4. Ground in the Earth: 

After a week of spring storms, with hail and even snow, it looks like we will have warmer weather this week - though still pretty wet. I hope to continue on my huge garden project when I can, and also spend some time each day in the art of contemplative weed pulling!