What is a Carbon Footprint?
According to the United Kingdom’s Carbon Trust, a company
created by the British government “to accelerate the move to a low carbon
economy by working with organizations to reduce carbon emissions and develop
commercial low carbon technologies”, a carbon footprint is "the total set
of GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions caused directly and indirectly by an
individual, organization, event or product" (2008). Gases that trap heat
in the atmosphere are often called greenhouse gases. According to the
Environmental Protection Agency: “Some greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide
occur naturally and are emitted to the atmosphere through natural processes and
human activities. Other greenhouse gases are created and emitted solely through
human activities.” We, you and I and all humans, directly produce greenhouse
gases through such activities as driving cars and burning wood in our
fireplaces, and we indirectly produce greenhouse gases through such activities
as buying products for our comfort or for our diet that have to be transported
from all over the world and through buying highly processed products that
require industry to produce carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, or fluorinated
gases.
Thinking Globally
These definitions and examples are not as simple as they
might seem on the surface. We live in a global economic community. When we buy
something local or even in the United States, parts of the product could have
been made in some other country. And if we buy something from another country,
some parts of it may have been made locally or in the United States. Some of
the products that produce greenhouse gases are medicines which control
dangerous diseases or manage significant health problems. When we buy only
locally, this could negatively affect the world economy, a complex
interdependent web of which we are a part. And none of us are probably going to
ride our bike or walk to work in the snow or in temperatures much below
freezing or realistically, temperatures much below 50. And some of us may be
unwilling to use products that while they are ecologically friendly, are not
very effective. In Washington State, in 2010 the legislature outlawed the use
of phosphates in dish washing detergents.
After the law was passed, people in Washington went to other states to
get the banned dishwashing detergents, because the non-phosphate dishwashing
detergents don’t work as efficiently. Thus, when phosphates are outlawed, only
outlaws will use phosphates; and it seems many people in Washington State are
outlaws.
I hope we take time to explore our conscious and unconscious
motivations that determine our choices about how we use our planetary resources
and how we care for mother earth. I know this is a complex issue, but I believe
if we are more aware of ourselves, we will make more intentional and educated
decisions about how we use the precious resources of planet earth, and thus
reduce our carbon footprint. You can go on the internet and evaluate your
carbon footprint, and I would encourage you to do so, this will educate you;
and it might also depress you.
What do you believe about the resources on planet earth?
What is your definition of comfort, basic comfort? How do you make the choices
about what you eat? What do you believe about your needs/rights to have water,
electricity, heat? What do you believe about respecting and honoring mother
earth, her resources, her minerals, plants, and animals? Do you believe all
these issues—comfort, choices about food and other resources, and respecting
the planet—are by necessity in direct conflict with each other? Why? What can
we do to change that? Should we change that? How can we change that? Or
perhaps, the more pressing question might be when will we change, and accept
that our choices about comfort and resources need to be made while also
respecting the planet? Will we have to be forced to change by laws or circumstances—like
climate change—or will we change because we choose to, because our values call
us to make these intentional changes?
In the Jewish Bible book of Genesis, God said to the first
humans: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have
dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every
living thing that moves upon the earth…Behold, I have given you every plant
yielding seed which is upon the face of the earth, and every tree with seed in
its fruit; you shall have them for food.” This creation myth has been told and
retold for thousands of years. It is part of our collective consciousness at
some level. Many people act as if we have the right of dominion over the earth
and all things on and of it. Many of us act as if everything on this earth has
been provided for our consumption, pleasure, and comfort. After all, we’ve been
told in the Bible that we have the divine right to use, and perhaps even use
up, earth’s resources.
The Cherokee creation myth, the Story of Corn and Medicine, provides a
very different message about humans and creatures and plants. “The earth began
as nothing but water and darkness…Eventually… animals …wanted to move down to
Earth [from heaven]…Humans came after the animals…In these early days, the
plants, the animals, and the people all lived together as friends. As the
people multiplied, however, the animals had less room to roam, and they were
either slaughtered for food or trampled under the humans' feet… Finally the
animals held a council to discuss what to do.”
Meaning and Myths
I looked through many creation myths while preparing this
sermon—creation myths from ancient Japan, from the Aborigines in Australia,
from ancient Mesopotamia and Scandinavia and from many Native American Nations.
Many Native American creation myths told how humans arrived, multiplied and
pushed the animals and plants into smaller and smaller regions of the earth.
These Native American stories called humans to show respect to creatures,
plants, and planet when we use them—not using them thoughtlessly without
consideration for the effects of what we do, but using creatures and plants
with humble gratitude for what we have received that allows us to be fed,
comforted, clothed, and sheltered. In the Mayan creation myth, it explicitly
states that the earth is to be held in great respect, and that the Mayan people
are called to share their abundant resources with all plants and animals. Many
Native American creation myths called humans to learn from the animals and
treat them with reverence—sometimes Gods were in the guise of animals—like
Coyote-- and in some stories animals are wise—like the Buffalo who taught the
native American how to live free and in harmony with nature. I did find a few
creation myths in Africa that stated that humans were of a higher order than
animals: “the Earthcreator gave man a soul, a mind, the ability to talk and
made man as a resemblance of himself. Therefore he was expecting man to behave
like the creator” wisely caring for the Earthcreator’s many creations. I did
not find a creation myth, other than in Genesis, that gave humans the right to
subdue animals and plants, and have dominion over the earth. I believe that
creation myths, like the Native American, the Mayan, the African, are not part
of our Western collective consciousness. Yet these myths speak to us of another
way of treating our planet and all things on it: to treat them with respect,
reverence, and humble gratitude, to be wise and caring, to share our limited
planetary resources with all plants and animals.
What To Do
I believe that many of us probably believe that we should do
something about these issues. I would guess most of us recycle—some of us do it
because the city would charge us to put out more garbage cans. I would guess
some of us participate in community sponsored agriculture, or actively
participate in community gardens. I know some of us utilize public
transportation or have chosen to bike or walk, weather permitting, rather than
driving. And I know—believe me, I know—that sometimes just the very idea that
we have to do more, that we should do more—is just too exhausting or time
consuming to even think about. I had a friend once say, “What’s the use of my
choosing to bike everywhere, when I know on the other side of the world someone
is driving around in a gas-guzzling, oil-smoking, carbon-belching cheap little
car and undoing everything I do?” Good question. As ethical people, as moral
people, as thoughtful people, as people of faith, how do we respond? Are we
simply deluding ourselves, can we really made a global difference by acting
locally? Or perhaps the better question is: is the global difference we are
making within ourselves, by living our values? And when we live our values, do
we serve as an example of ethical co-habitating with this planet? We know our
children watch how we act more than what we say. I know, because of my therapy
background, that people attend more to the behavior of others than to their
words. So if we make that extra effort, if we consciously, intentionally act as
ethical co-habitators with earth, perhaps others will notice and consider being
better co-habitators with earth; perhaps our children will notice, perhaps our
children will pass on these values.
Can we make a significant difference in greenhouse gases today
through our action? Maybe not. But if we never try, we know we will never make
a difference. We, you and I, all of us, will never be that light that shines on
a new path, on a new way of being, if we don’t try, if we don’t try at least
some of the time. If we don’t try at least some of the time, we are saying
through our behavior that there is no hope for change, now or in the future.
And I cannot, and I hope you will not, go there.
One of the keynote speakers at a Unitarian Universalist
Prairie Star District Annual Conference (I believe it was in 2010) was Linda
Barnes, a member of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Ames, Iowa, and an
advocate of environmentally sustainable agriculture. She is not only an
advocate of this type of agriculture; she has chosen to live her values. She
and her family recently moved into a restored farmstead in rural Iowa and now
operate a small diversified farm reminiscent of the self-sufficient farms of
years gone by. She has incorporated wind power for electricity on her farm. And
she and her husband are one of the first partners in Wholesome Harvest Organic
Meats, an organic meat co-op that distributes products nationwide. She said at
the conference: “We bought the farm to nurture ourselves and our family, to
give to it of ourselves physically and spiritually. It strikes me as odd that
we call the land our own, what I really want is for the land to call me its
own. I want to belong. I want to feel the timelessness of the soil in my soul
and the sunshine on my skin. I want to watch storms approach with calm mindful
appreciation. I want to hear the prairie winds in my ears, and feel its freedom
in my spirit. I want to belong. This is the heart of the seventh principle for
me, the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
But I Am Not A Farmer
We may not be able to choose to make the radically life
altering decisions that Linda and her family have made to live their values
through sustainable agriculture on a farm far from an Urban center, but we can
listen to how she has been transformed and take her words to heart. Linda says
so eloquently what I have tried to express, that our beliefs, our faith must
incorporate mother earth into them. We must want to belong to mother earth, not
the other way around. We must reach out to our blue boat home with calm mindful
appreciation. We must feel the connection to our planet in our soul. When we
hold these beliefs, it is much more likely that we will act in ways to respect,
honor, save our mother earth. When we hold this faith in our souls, we are more
likely to prophetically call all people to act more responsibly toward the rich
resources that we have been privileged to use. When we feel the soil in our
soul, when we experience the freedom of the wind in our spirit, we will be
transformed.
We will not be transformed if we stay in our homes watching
TV or on the computer because we are living detached from the sky, the wind,
the animals, and rocks. We will not be transformed if we go to the grocery
store and buy whatever our taste buds desire, regardless of where it came from
or how corporate farming destroyed the soil to produce it, or how humans have
cut down vast forests, thus changing our climate, to create farmland for the
veggies and fruits we like. We will not be transformed simply by educating
ourselves on climate change or pollution or water resources. We will be
transformed if we touch our blue boat home, if we consciously make sustainable
decisions, if we hold in our hearts and speak with our voices respect for and
honor of our planet and its resources, if we work together to be as green as we
can in all that we do, and mostly we will be transformed if we demonstrate our
love for our blue boat home with all its people, creatures, plants, and rocks.
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