Good Friday and Earth Day

The Anglican Church of Canada has prepared additional liturgical materials for this year's Good Friday Earth Day:

April 22, 2011, is Good Friday as well as Earth Day. The Greening Anglican Spaces Task Group has assembled a Good Friday Earth Day Reflection , a Good Friday Liturgical Resource designed to be interpolated into the Book of Alternative Services Good Friday rite, and has assembled a short list of liturgical resources which may be helpful to worship planners.

The task group has also partnered with Faith and the Common Good who have designed a Carbon Calculator so people can discover the hidden cost of our carbon use.

A Solemn Intercession:
Let us pray for God's creation and for the whole web of life.
for those people and creatures who have been betrayed by human greed and
faithlessness;
for nations and communities suffering deluge or drought,
for species on the brink of extinction,
for families and those dispossessed of home and land,
for future generations inheriting the fruits of human neglect and exploitation.
that God, Source of all life,
will show us anew the miracle of creation,
proclaimed in our beginnings, and promised in our future.

A Collect
Oh God, you created the heavens and the earth
and saw that it was good.
Give us the eyes to see your goodness
in all that gives life,
and give us the will
to put to death our indifference to your creation,
that rising with you to new life
we may participate in the healing and restoration of the earth.

From the Environmental Defense Action Fund:

Here are 10 startling facts we learned in 2009 that underscore the climate threat:

A study published in the journal Science reports that the current level of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere – about 390 parts per million – is higher today than at any time in measurable history -- at least the last 2.1 million years. Previous peaks of CO2 were never more than 300 ppm over the past 800,000 years, and the concentration is rising by around 2 ppm each year.

The World Meterological Organization reported that 2000-2009 was the hottest decade on record with 8 of the hottest 10 years having occurred since 2000.
2009 will end up as one of the 5 hottest years since 1850 and the U.K.'s Met Office predicts that, with a moderate El Nino, 2010 will likely break the record.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center reported that while a bit more summer Arctic sea ice appeared in 2009 than the record breaking lows of the last two years, it was still well below normal levels. Given that the Arctic ice cover remains perilously thin, it is vulnerable to further melting, posing an ever increasing threat to Arctic wildlife including polar bears.

The Arctic summer could be ice-free by mid-century, not at the end of the century as previously expected, according to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Recent observations published in the highly respected Nature Geosciences indicate that the East Antarctica ice sheet has been shrinking. This surprised researchers, who expected that only the West Antarctic ice sheet would shrink in the near future because the East Antarctic ice sheet is colder and more stable.
The U.S. Global Change Research Program completed an assessment of what is known about climate change impacts in the US and reported that, "Climate changes are already observed in the United States and… are projected to grow." These changes include "increases in heavy downpours, rising temperature and sea level, rapidly retreating glaciers, thawing permafrost, lengthening ice-free seasons in the ocean and on lakes and rivers, earlier snowmelt, and alterations in river flows."

According to a report by the US Geological Survey, slight changes in the climate may trigger abrupt threats to ecosystems that are not easily reversible or adaptable, such as insect outbreaks, wildfire, and forest dieback. "More vulnerable ecosystems, such as those that already face stressors other than climate change, will almost certainly reach their threshold for abrupt change sooner." An example of such an abrupt threat is the outbreak of spruce bark beetles throughout the western U.S. caused by increased winter temperatures that allow more beetles to survive.

The EPA, USGS and NOAA issued a joint report warning that most mid-Atlantic coastal wetlands from New York to North Carolina will be lost with a sea level rise of 1 meter or more.

If we do not reduce greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century, some of the main fruit and nut tree crops currently grown in California may no longer be economically viable, as there will be a lack of the winter chilling they require. And, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S. production of corn, soybeans and cotton could decrease as much as 82%.

2010: will you be greener?

Going Green DC (Washington, DC) gives 10 tips for a greener 2010:

1. Grow your own fruits and vegetables. No yard? A yard-sharing program matches people who have land with people who have a green thumb but no place to use it.

2. Get involved in a community garden or volunteer at one like Common Good City Farm.

3. Walk more, use public transportation, and consider buying or renting a bike.

4. Buy local ingredients whenever possible from farmer’s markets and other small purveyors.

5. Remember to bring reusable bags to the grocery store. The 5 cent plastic bag fee goes into effect January 1. (in DC)

6. Plant a tree in your backyard.

7. Reduce organic waste by learning how to compost.

8. Replace regular lightbulbs with energy-saving compact florescent lightbulbs, turn off lights when not in use, reduce the thermostat.

9. Stop buying bottled water and get yourself a chic stainless steel bottle instead.

10. Support environmentally friendly local businesses as much as possible.

Recyle bins in Changi airport

Right to dry movement gains steam

The New York Times reports:

According to Alexander Lee of Project Laundry List, a group that supports hang-drying laundry over using an energy-intensive machines, a law went into effect last week in Vermont that prevents groups like homeowners associations from banning clotheslines.

Colorado also approved “right-to-dry” provisions last year, said Mr. Lee, and Maine is currently voting on similar legislation.

In Hawaii, a bill that would allow homeowners to hang their laundry on clotheslines — albeit with some limitations — is awaiting action by Gov. Linda Lingle — although she vetoed a similar bill last year. Florida has the oldest right-to-dry law in the country, according to Mr. Lee.

“A clothesline is not a solar panel or a Prius — it’s something that everyone can afford,” Mr. Lee — who hauls his own wet clothes back from the laundromat in order to dry them on a line — told my colleague Elisabeth Rosenthal last year, when she reported on Ontario’s right-to-dry debate.

Shortly thereafter, Ontario’s premier overruled local bans on hang-drying.

As Calvin Maeda, the manager of the Mililani Town Association in Hawaii told The Honolulu Star Bulletin, opposition to line-drying has often come from neighbors who don’t want “to be looking at somebody’s underwear out of the kitchen window.”

Spring green cleaning and growing green

Ideal Bite sends daily tips on greener living. Or read the blog here

Some gardening tips:
* Planting onions and garlic to ward off certain pests.
* Using a small container of beer to trap slugs; apparently slugs like beer.
* Placing cucumber peels next to the place where ants are invading your home and garden.
* Using catnip to repel cockroaches.
* Planting marigolds and chrysanthemums; these flowers are natural bug repellents.
* While you are outside enjoying your garden, light a citronella candle; this will ward off mosquitoes.

Go Green Online offers the top 10 things you can do for the planet:

The top 10 things you can do as an individual to make changes for a more sustainable planet.
Home Energy:
Adjust Thermostat and Water Heater Settings: These are the biggest energy users in the home
When you're heating or cooling, make sure your doors and windows are sealed
Check the refrigerator: It's the number one appliance for energy use

Zero Waste
Comprehensively recycle your paper, glass, aluminum and plastics
Compost all food waste - don't let it into the trash
When you shop, go for zero waste packaging (cut plastics, non-recyclables)
Stop drinking bottled water! Carry your own.

Transportation
Set a target to reduce gasoline consumption (10%? 20%? 30%?) by driving less, combining trips, car pooling and driving and maintaining your car for efficiency

Water
Shorten your showers by 2 to 5 minutes
Stop running the water for cool drinking water, warm water, shaving, brushing teeth

Also making changes room by room, step by step here.

End of maple syrup?

TreeHugger reports the possible end of Maple Syrup.

Having lived in the northeastern U.S. for some time before moving to Quebec, certainly some of the best things in these parts include colourful fall foliage and tons of locally-harvested maple syrup. Sadly, thanks to increasingly ‘weird’ and warming weather, the long-standing tradition and $65 million business of “maple sugaring” in the northeastern U.S. is in danger of becoming a historical footnote.

It’s because the cycles of what is called ‘cold recharge’ – where weeks of below-freezing temperatures, followed by warmer temperatures – are shortening to the point where sugar maples are not producing the sap which is later boiled down to make maple syrup.

It this recharge cycle which allows the sap in sugar maples’ limbs to turn to ice, creating an area of lower pressure which in turn pulls up more sap into the frozen areas from the roots up. In this state, the trees convert their stored starches into sucrose that will fuel spring budding. As the warming weather melts the sap ice, liquid sap is pushed in all directions. All one has to do is drill a hole for the sap to flow.

But for some places in the Northeast, the sugar-tapping season is either getting shorter and shorter, sometimes lasting only a week, as it did in Quebec last year.

"This is a weather-related industry," says Sam Cutting, owner of Dakin Farm in Vermont and who has been in the sugar business for 40 years. "There are always problems in the maple industry: gypsy moths, floods, droughts."

Read more here