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Solar light of the world: Evangelicals launch global clean energy campaign
Solar panels could be coming soon to a church near you. Through a campaign called Project 20.’25, the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA) has set out to get 20 percent of its members to convert fully to clean energy by 2025.
This fall, the global network announced its partnership with Smart Roofs Solar Inc. Together they will help universities, health care facilities, and churches looking to adopt clean power, including offering guidance for local suppliers and providing financing options.
Grasslands More Reliable Carbon Sink Than Trees
“Forests have long served as a critical carbon sink, consuming about a quarter of the carbon dioxide pollution produced by humans worldwide. But decades of fire suppression, warming temperatures and drought have increased wildfire risks — turning California’s forests from carbon sinks to carbon sources.
A study from the University of California, Davis, found that grasslands and rangelands are more resilient carbon sinks than forests in 21st century California. As such, the study indicates they should be given opportunities in the state’s cap-and-and trade market, which is designed to reduce California’s greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030…”
After a rough year, farmers and Congress are talking about climate solutions
As millions of acres of American farmland sat under historic floodwaters this spring, a remarkable pattern began to emerge.
Even among fields that sat side-by-side, with the same crops and the same soil type, researchers and farmers noticed that some bounced back faster than others.
What made the difference?
The fields that were slow to drain and remained waterlogged longer had been farmed conventionally—tilled, left bare, and unplanted over the winter. The fields that drained quickly and were ready for sowing hadn’t been tilled in years and had been planted every winter with cover crops, like rye and clover, which help control erosion, improve soil health and trap carbon in the soil…
Lifestyle changes aren’t enough to save the planet. Here’s what could.
There is a long history of industry-funded “deflection campaigns” aimed to divert attention from big polluters and place the burden on individuals. Individual action is important and something we should all champion.
But appearing to force Americans to give up meat, or travel, or other things central to the lifestyle they’ve chosen to live is politically dangerous: it plays right into the hands of climate change deniers whose strategy tends to be to portray climate champions as freedom-hating totalitarians.
One man is trying to fight climate change by mobilizing an unlikely team: Iowa’s farmers
In early March, just a week before the Midwest was inundated by catastrophic flooding, a dozen farmers gathered at the First Presbyterian Church in Grinnell, Iowa, for an event billed as a conversation about “Faith, Farmers, and Climate Action.” “How is God calling you to use your farm to improve the world?” asked the evening’s facilitator, Matt Russell. “We’ve got this narrowing window of time in which we can act,” he said. “When we think about climate action—are you feeling any call to that?”
Russell directs the Iowa branch of Interfaith Power and Light, a nonprofit that promotes a religious response to global warming. A fifth-generation farmer who runs a livestock operation with his husband in nearby Lacona, Iowa, the 48-year-old nearly became a Catholic priest in his twenties but then got a degree in rural sociology. Now he preaches that America’s farmers—a demographic seen as religious and conservative—are a secret weapon in the climate fight.
Climate change fears propel scientists out of the lab and into the world
When Steve Ghan set out to walk 1,500 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail, he brought along a bright blue hat emblazoned with four words: “Make Earth Cool Again.” It often drew compliments from other hikers, which he used as an opening.
“I’d tell them, ‘Yeah, I’m a climate scientist and I want to stop climate change,’” said Ghan, who completed the California segment of the trail in 2018…
Why the best leaders make love the top priority
Conservationists like to say how we are in it for the long haul. Yet how many leaders do you know (board or staff, volunteers or consultants) who invest in people as part of the strategy for making change? Climate change is going to test our ability to withstand tremendous heartbreak and stress—and we will need leaders to step up and make a difference.
In this inspiring talk, author and social entrepreneur Matt Tenney cites compelling case studies and research to help you see why making love a higher priority than profit is not only a more noble and fulfilling way to lead, it’s actually the surprising secret of the best leaders.
Matt Tenney is the author of “Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom,” which is used in the leadership development programs of universities, government bodies, and companies to help leaders achieve better outcomes while living happier, more fulfilling lives…
More divided than ever? The truth is we agree much more than we think we do
In my home country of the Netherlands, 75% of the population feel that society is becoming increasingly polarized on social issues. In the US, it’s no different. Almost eight in 10 US Americans think the country is increasingly polarized.
The one thing we can all agree on is our growing inability to agree.
There’s only one small problem with this perception: it’s mostly wrong…
Tourism organizations reckon with wildfire
“A warmer and drier climate is expected to make wildfires worse, raising tough questions for regional marketers promoting the outdoors. Stretching from the northern edge of Crater Lake National Park to the Pacific Ocean, the 215-mile Rogue River serves as the lifeblood of the southern Oregon tourist economy, reliant on whitewater rafters, hikers and anglers each summer.
Brad Niva purchased Rogue Wilderness Adventures in 2006 and grew the company’s presence in that tourist economy, offering rafting, hiking and fishing trips on the river. At the height of the busy season each summer, Niva oversaw a staff of more than 100…”
Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’
‘The world’s people face “untold suffering due to the climate crisis” unless there are major transformations to global society, according to a stark warning from more than 11,000 scientists.
“We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency,” it states. “To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems…”’