April 19, 2015 Sunday Services Announcement and Follow Up

Good Morning:

My name is Mike Rominger.

Today is Native American Sunday in our UM Conference. 

Tomorrow I’ll be attending the webinar   described on the monitor.

Wednesday,  April 22 is  Earth Day.  The first Earth Day was in 1970 and became the impetus for the CWA, the CAA, and the ESA.

Three events that are linked.

Today we’ll take an offering to

1.    Help Native-American members establish new congregations.

2.    Provide job training, childcare, and cultural education.

3.    Provide scholarships for Native-American students pursuing church related vocations.

The offering is something tangible we can do.

But what about the issue noted in the webinar?

This webinar will examine the impacts of sea level  rise and  other issues  on Native American  communities. Across the United States,  land  degradation presents challenges to their   homes  and livelihoods. As many Native American  communities contemplate their potential  displacement, one tribe  in southern Louisiana  is already preparing to move.  The webinar  will  discuss the tribe's ambitious strategy to   become one of the first coastal indigenous  groups to relocate as a community in modern  times, and why they feel it is necessary. So, what can we do about this issue? If you go to the Green Team Idea Blog on the  SP website, you’ll see some easy and effective  ways to reduce your effect on SLR. Your  Native American brothers and sisters will  appreciate it. Thank you. ****************************************************************************** More details and Mike Rominger’s Notes from the   Webinar: What If the Water Can’t be Stopped? Tribal Resilience  Plans in an Age of Sea Level Rise Monday, April 20 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm 628 Dirksen Senate Office Building Constitution Avenue and 1st Street, NE Nearest metro stations: Union Station (red line) Twitter hashtag:   #eesitalk    @eesionline Experiences such as the Isle de Jean Charles Tribe's  inspired the White House to convene a State, Local  and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate   Preparedness and Resilience, which met from  2013 to 2014. Last November, the Task Force  published a report of 35 recommendations on how  the federal government can assist local climate  resilience efforts. This briefing will examine some  of the recommendations from tribal communities,  such as encouraging the incorporation of climate  resilience into land use development and  management  practices. Speakers for this forum are: Albert Naquin, Chief, Biloxi-Chitimacha-Choctaw,  Isle de Jean Charles, Louisiana @IJCBCC Bob Gough, Secretary, Intertribal Council on  Utility Policy Dr. Julie Maldonado, Anthropologist and climate  justice expert The Isle de Jean Charles Tribe, which has made its  home for 170 years on the Isle de Jean Charles in  the bayous of southern Louisiana, has seen decades  of oil and gas extraction operations, restrictive  levees, and salt water intrusion from sea level rise  severely diminish the freshwater marsh around its  island. The dwindling marsh can no longer protect  the island from ocean tides, which will eventually  destroy it. Chief Albert Naquin is leading the Isle  de Jean Charles Tribe as they preserve their  community and culture by moving together to a  new home. The tribe's vision for their new  community will emphasize agricultural sustainability,  healthy living, and pride in the culture and tribal  identity of the group. The briefing will include a 10-minute screening of  Can't Stop the Water, a short film examining the  struggle and optimism of the Isle de Jean Charles  Tribe. The tribe hopes its story and innovative  relocation plan can serve as a model for other  tribal communities facing displacement due to   land loss. Chief Albert Naquin, Bob Gough and  Dr. Julie Maldonado are visiting Washington, DC  as part of an East Coast tour to build awareness  of tribal relocation issues. Other stops include  New York and Philadelphia. This briefing is the second in a two-part series  examining local resilience efforts across the  country. The first event was held April 1, 2015,  and can be viewed at  www.eesi.org/040115resilience. Mike Rominger’s Notes: Many Native American communities – from  Alaska to the southern US coast – will be  forced to relocate due to the impacts of  coastal flooding, salt-water intrusion, and  other climate effects on their homes and  livelihoods (Primarily fishing). The tribe at the focus of the webinar has  an interesting heritage. They were part  of the forced migration of Native Americans  from Florida in the 1830’s - the Trail of  Tears that took many to Oklahoma.  This  tribe, however, wished to preserve their  fishing way of living, so they took a detour  and ended up on a small island south of  New Orleans.  No one really cared since  they were out of the way and not bothering  “whites”.  They’ve been there ever since. Their small island (and getting smaller) is  connected to the mainland by a road that  will eventually not be maintainable with  the storm surges and sea level rise and the  sinking land due to oil and gas extraction.  The tribe numbers about 650 people, half of  whom are age 20 or younger.  But the  majority  have already left for the  mainland.   Only 25 homes remain occupied on the  island. The challenge is to regroup everyone on  the mainland and preserve their community. The biggest  hurdle they face is to get support  (both regulatory and financial) for moving  their communities intact.  There are   programs available to relocate individuals  but not communities.  And there is little  thought given to relocate communities to  an area where they can continue to  practice cultural and historic  methods of living such as fishing.

Calculating and Reducing Your Carbon Footprint

•      Delmarva’s Household CO2 Emissions Calculator

•        This is an easy way to see the carbon footprint of the fuels you consume.  It does not account for the carbon footprint of things you buy (food, autos, goods, services, etc.)  Those “other” contributions will typically be much larger than the fuels footprint – and harder to calculate. But this simple tool will get you started. 

•       Go to:

•        www.delmarva.com

•        

•                   Create an account or login

•        

•       Go to “Energy Use and Bill Data” on left hand side

•       Go to “Live Green” on lower right hand side

•       Go to  “ Get Started” on right hand side

•        

•       Enter data as requested and see the calculations in 4 areas:

•                   Profile (complete and /or correct their info)

•                   Energy and Water (they will enter your gas and electric consumption automatically)

•        For oil heat:   do a separate calculation based on 22.3 pounds CO2 per gallon fuel oil consumed

•       Transportation (do only for your autos; skip their calculations for rail and air – see note below)

•                   Waste (you will see credits for recycling)

•        

•       You will get CO2 emissions per area and total.

•        

•       For air and rail travel:

•       Do your own calculation based on  1 pound CO2 per air mile traveled and  .5 pound CO2 per rail mile traveled.  Both are per person.

•        

•       The important feature of this exercise is that you can immediately see which areas of your lifestyle contribute the most to your CO2 footprint.  Is going “green” on electricity better than buying a more efficient car?  Is your travel contributing more CO2 than your gas bill?  Now you will know and can make better decisions about reducing the CO2 emissions.

•        

How to reduce your carbon footprint based on the Delmarva results:

1. Purchase your electricity from a provider that generates it by renewable means (wind, solar, etc.).  This is remarkably easy to do. And Julie and I have done this

1. Here is a list of Certified Electric Service Providers ( and I know of others not on this list)
2. http://depsc.delaware.gov/electric/elecsupplierinfo.pdf

2. Purchase offsets from reliable companies and organizations (I can help).  This also is very easy to do. And Julie and I do this. What’s an offset?  In the simplest example: buy a tree that captures CO2 to offset your lawn mower emissions.  But there are more effective and creative ways.

For help: Mike Rominger at 302-477-1133 or M.Rominger@gmail.com

Another Green Opportunity!

LEARN how Delaware will adapt to SEA LEVEL RISE AND flooding

Sponsored by the Delaware League of Women Voters Education Fund, Delaware Interfaith Power and Light, League of Women Voters of New Castle County, Limestone Presbyterian Church and Delaware Nature Society

WEDNESDAY,  SEPTEMBER 18^TH

LIMESTONE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

3201 Limestone Road                                                           

See Directions to the Church at www.LimestonePresbyterian.org)

7:00 - 8:30 PM

Refreshments at 6:45 pm.

          Climate change, sea level rise and flooding are critical issues for all three of Delaware’s counties.  As part of Sea Level Rise Awareness Week, we welcome you, the public, to learn more about what you can expect to happen with sea level rise and storm surge in your state.  Hopefully, many of your questions will be answered as you learn about the recommendations that are being presented to the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environmental Control by the Sea Level Rise Advisory Committee.  Join us for a lively, serious discussion.

Welcome – Bruce Gillette, Pastor, Limestone Presbyterian Church--video

Moderator – Mike Rominger, Co-Leader Leader, New Castle County Congregations of Delaware Interfaith Power and Light

Dr. Chad Tolman, Scientist Concerned with Climate Change – The Science Behind Climate Change and Sea Level Rise

             

Bruce Gillette, Pastor, Limestone Church – The Moral Dilemma

Brenna Goggin – Environmental Advocate, Delaware Nature Society --             Recommendations of the Sea Level Advisory Committee

Question and Answer Period 

Green Opportunity!

Save the Date of Tuesday, September 10^th!

Join us at 7 pm at St. Paul's United Methodist Church on Foulk Road

We have an exciting year ahead and look forward to exploring with you how we can share the many gifts, talents, and resources of DeIPL, its churches and members
with each other and with our communities.

We will have “turbo-talks” -5 minute samplings on:

Energy, climate change and sea level rise

Saving lives with a Delaware heat health warning system

Wind power for your home is not a lot of hot air

“To frack or not to frack, that is the question”

Ethical eating and climate change

How to do dinner and an environmental movie

A speakers' bureau is only one way to share our gifts and talents. There are many others including professional energy evaluations of houses of worship.
Come brainstorm with us.

The New Castle County Congregations

of

Delaware Interfaith Power and Light*

(NC3 of DeIPL)

Meeting at St. Paul's United Methodist Church

1314 Foulk Rd, Wilmington, DE 19803

(Reach Foulk Road via Route 202 or Naaman's Road. The church is located between the Brandywine Hundred Library and the Brandywine High School. Park in the back and walk to the back door of the church.)

*Delaware Interfaith Power & Light (DEIPL) marshals Delaware’s faith communities to face the serious issue of climate change. We seek to ensure a livable planet for ourselves and future generations.

St. Paul's Green Team Report to Charge Conference - December 2012

St. Paul's Green Team Report to Charge Conference - December 2012

The Green Team has become an official committee at St. Paul's and is comprised of those interested in all things "Green". 

 

St.Paul's has become the first UMC congregation to join Delaware Interfaith Power and Light. We look forward to working with other faith communities to address the issues associated with climate change.

 

The office recycles all paper, cardboard, metals, batteries, toner cartridges, etc. We also have a recycle bin in each classroom and in each kitchen which takes care of cans, glass, plastics, etc. We are using long life light bulbs and taking them to the appropriate recycling plant.

 

The church obtains free mulch from tree and landscaping businesses.

 

The church recycles coffee grounds and uses "Fair-Trade" coffee for fellowship hour.

 

The Green Team continues to work with other groups in the church to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Following up on our successful replacement of an aging heating system, we are now exploring ways to reduce our lighting footprint.

To Frack or Not to Frack - Nov 7th, 2013

Michael Rominger, chair of the Green Team, will be talking at Trinity Pres (Naamans and Darley) on Wednesday, Nov 7, 2012 as part of their Stewards of The Earth program. I'll be sharing some technical background on fracking and some info on how one might decide whether fracking is a good idea - or not.

The title is "To Frack or Not to Frack, that is the question". You will leave with a richer understanding of the key issues around fracking.

 They have a simple meal before the main program.Let Mike know if you'd like to attend.

The programs usually start with dinner at 6 pm, program at 7 pm. Out by 8 pm

The Third Part of a 3-Part Series on Recycling

"What More Can St. Paul's Do?"

We have found an opportunity to recycle more of the stuff that ends up in the trash cans in areas like the Timothy Lounge, the Main Lounge, the classrooms, and the SPY areas. Kathleen Kennan and the youth will be obtaining, decorating, deploying, and emptying some new containers on a trial basis. We'll see how it goes!

In addition, we encourage all of St. Paul's families to take the recycling issue to heart. There is no room anywhere for more landfills so the pressure is on to keep our stuff out of the exising ones. And stuff you recycle that might eventually float down streams to the river, then the bay, then to the ocean, etc. keeps it out of the Atlantic Ocean garbage patch. That's my name for the closest of several swirling masses of debris in our oceans. You might think you're immune to any effects from these swirling masses except that the fine plastic particles in them are eaten by fish. No problem so far except that these fine plastic particles have an affinity for chemicals. The food chain is complete.

And an update to Article #1 "What Delaware is doing regarding recycling":

By September 15, every "house" in the state that is served by a private trash hauler will be offered recycling capability. You will receive an bill that covers both trash and recycling. This legislation has been a long time in the works and has the support of the trash hauling businesses and the environmental groups. It is a great step forward and I urge you to support it against attempts to dilute it.

Other entities in the state (commercial, government, apartments, businesses, schools. etc.) will start recycling by law at various dates out to about 2014.

And what about yard waste?

The best solution is to leave the grass clippings on the yard. Crunch up your twigs. Then contact your trash hauler for their options. Keep an eye out for public options that may emerge.