Evangelical Ecologist Blog - Conservative Christians and the Environment

Howdy! Welcome to the Thanksgiving Week version of The Carnival of the Green.

We certainly all have lots to be thankful for, including the Carnival's host(ess with the mostess) Kara, last week's host EcoSalon, and next week's host Another Green Idea.

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Just in time for the end of Fall, Bobbie Whitehead says save a few seeds, save some money at a post called Saving Seed posted at The Backyard Grower.

Looking for a cost-effective way to grow fruits and vegetables? For some gardeners and growers, saving seeds allows them to reduce their planting expenses. In deciding which seeds to save, extension specialists suggest using seed from some of the best fruits and vegetables in a crop in order to avoid reintroducing diseases from the previous year.

Got a couple posts this week on the upcoming Copenhagen climate talks. Tamir Birk handicaps the upcoming battle over greenhouse gases. 2012: The End of the Kyoto Accord - Will We See a New Deal on Climate Change in Copenhagen? at the blog InformedVote.

Nostradamus was right. The year 2012 will certainly bring the end of an era. Next month’s UN convention on climate change in Copenhagen reminds us that the Kyoto Protocol is on its last legs. Indeed, the world’s first legally-binding legislation on greenhouse gas emission and climate change, for years battered and bruised through political conflagrations, diluted by the rhetoric of parliamentarians and spokespersons, pondered, plied and twisted through years of delay, and ultimately never ratified by the United States, is in need of a successor. And if Environment Minister Jim Prentice’s prognostications prove accurate, a definitive deal will not be reached in the Danish capital. So, what can we expect from the Copenhagen summit? What will the major players have to say for themselves?

Jeff McIntire-Strasburg comes at it from his own, always interesting/challenging perspective. Check out Revenge of the Angry Mermaid at Sustainablog.

The Little Mermaid takes her role as a symbol of climate change seriously. And she’s angry. Angry because also coming to her town are thousands of lobbyists and business (as usual) representatives intent on holding back progress for a dangerously warming world, opting instead for short term profits over long term sustainability.

Like me, Justin Allison is trying the climate debate out from a faith-based perspective. He has a piece called Either Way Climate Change is Politically Motivated over at Old Testament Ecology.

If you’re a conservative you probably think that climate change is fake. If you’re a liberal climate change is near and dear to you. If you are somewhere in between you are probably ambivalent, or even apathetic.

I'd call myself agostic on climate change, but I do have my own opinions (heck - I have a blog after all!). Since Tamir, Jeff and Justin have raised the subject - here's my post at SustainLane.com yesterday on the underlying evil of Climategate. Excerpt:

What has been widely reported in "climate denier" circles (though I have yet to see it reported here at SustainLane at all or places like Grist in other than derogatory fashion), was the hacking of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, UK. Iain Murray called CRU "the Pentagon of Climate Science." That's how important that place is to climate scientists. Over 150mb of emails and other data were pulled from CRU's servers that laid out in detail the efforts by several leading climatologists to hide derogatory climate data, something bloggers like Powerline have been poring over (see here, here and here). The New York Times and other mainstream media outlets have decided that this information was "leaked" and thus not worthy of publishing (ahem, hypocrites). But online journals like Climate Depot have chronicled the daily release of new findings - papers with contrary findings suppressed, access to scientific journals denied, cooked data, etc. Look it up. You can do your own search of these emails here.

Surbhi Bhatia presents Our Environment: Raising a Voice of Concern posted at The Viewspaper.

Clearly it is our modern lifestyle that is responsible for wreaking havoc on the environment. So to undo all the damage, all we have to do is stop using our cars (or any motorized vehicle for that matter), electricity, or simply all the marvels of 21st century. In other words, go back to Stone Age. Or, we can let better sense prevail and stop fighting the forces of nature. 

Tyler Tervooren submits Marketing for Environmentalists: Sell Benefits, Not Features over at Frugally Green.

Whether you wanted to be or not, if you've ever tried to sell a product or an idea to someone, then you've been in the marketing business. As long as you have to do it, you might as well be good at it, right? One basic rule that is often ignored by those not in the know (especially us crazy activists) is that people do not care about what your product or idea comes with. They care about what those things can DO FOR THEM. Start focusing on benefits instead of features and you might find a little more success with your efforts.

It wouldn't be a Thanksgiving Week COTG if we didn't have a post about turkeys! Pure Natural Diva comes through with Let's talk Turkey: Your guide to all things Turkey for the Holidays. "Know what you are buying for your thanksgiving dinner this holiday season." After you catch a cold playing football in the yard, she has some helpful natural remedies in her Diva Cold & Flu Tool Kit.

Katy highlights some "historic energy legislation" over at Boots On The Roof.

The U.S. House of Representatives has recently signed into law legislation that can only be described as historic legislation and will finally take significant steps toward moving the U.S. over to a clean energy economy.

Sally Kneidel has some green product information (also posted at Veggie Revolution) for those of you who have bathrooms in your homes:

Plush toilet paper requires wood from the world's last old-growth forests. Seems the long fibers of old trees make softer paper. Consumers need to get a grip - half the world (or more) doesn't even have toilet paper. At most supermarkets in the States, you can find at least one brand that uses 100% recycled paper. Take a minute to look for one. Seventh Generation is a good one, but there are others.

And so do the folks at Fake Plastic Fish:

Graze Organic Lunch Bags Give-Away - Review and give-away of a set of Graze Organic lunch and snack bags that are made from organic cotton and are nearly plastic free. No plastic lining, as in most other lunch bags and wraps. Why package organic food in plastic? [twitter.com/fakeplasticfish]

Finally, Marie Snyder is already packing up the turkey leftovers and looking forward to Black Friday, in a different sort of way. Check out her post called An Earth-Friendly Christmas.

It's explores the idea that Jesus wouldn't buy anything for Christmas, so maybe we should slow down the madness for his sake. In a nutshell.

Amen, my friend. 

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Many thanks for dropping by. If I missed anybody, just drop me a note and we'll get your post up post-haste.

Have a great Thanksgiving holiday. And please do say a prayer for our fellow Americans in the military who are away from their loved ones around the world.

Grace and peace,

db

We interrupt this sabbatical...

The Naval War College set up an online discussion today in response to the Secretary of the Navy's recent speech on Green Policy.

Thought you might be interested in participating.

Link is here.

Registering is a little clunky, but the topic is important. Please give it a shot.

It's your Navy :)

I was thinking about when the government was telling us to spend more to help the economy. Then I saw a piece about some people starting to spend more again, buying stuff. And today I saw how retail has been hit hard and doesn’t expect a good holiday season.

So I’m wondering, has anyone learned any lessons from the economic problems?

There are many lessons to be learned: Corporate corruption, government corruption & incompetence, etc, but I’m talking about a more personal level. I wrote about this a few months ago. Here’s the gist of it:

Spending on "things" and "stuff" people really don’t need and don’t really make them happier are at the root of our economic problems. Do you really need to keep up with your neighbor? Do you really want to send hundreds of dollars a year to a cable company so you can sit in your living room staring at a wall?

Isn’t there better ways to spend your money? The slowdown of retail is not surprising - and dare I say it’s a good thing? So many identical stores and vendors grew exponentially to meet unnatural levels of consumerism. We needed to shed some off. We need more to go away. No, I don’t want people to lose their jobs, but as a society we need to realize that we have created a monster.

Next time an advertisement tries to convince you that you need something, realize they are hoping you will be clueless enough to believe them. Think about where you could spend that money: Save it for your kids, give it to a charity, buy someone food who really needs it, turn off the tv and buy a book to read to the kids.

Also realize that our materialistic mind set often encourages bad health and hence higher medical costs. Spend time outside. Kids need it. And even babies who spend their early years in front of a tv don’t advance as well intellectually. So that’s another problem.

So the next time someone tells you need what they are selling - whether it's a product, service or activity - tell them no by putting your money towards something else. -D

My friends,

This Christmas it will be 5 years since Abba (and his servant Hugh Hewitt) first put the notion in my head to start blogging about evangelicals and the environment. It's been a great experience, and has opened up many doors to meet people that have enormously enriched my life.

One of those people, blogger and good friend Joe Carter, encouraged me to establish a relationship with Clapham Group. Over the past year this has grown into a commitment to write a book on ecology from a conservative Christian perspective.

I'm finding that the demands of three teens, my work at the College, and other areas of ministry in my home church have left me just enough time for the book but not much else. I don't plan on dismantling evaneco.com anytime soon. Just a pause to work on this project. Thanks for your understanding, and your prayers.

In the meantime, I'd encourage you to spend time at SustainLane.com's creation care section. Lots of great writing on the subject of faith and ecology there. It's a green, grace-filled enterprise that we need much more of in the blogosphere.

Grace and peace,

db

Howdy!

Welcome to this week's Christian Carnival. Thanks to Tyler for hosting last week.  It's not Tyler's first time hosting a carnival (he actually began and runs the Biblical Studies Carnival), but it's his first time hosting the Christian Carnival.

Lots of great posts this week. Here they are in the order I got 'em...

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UPDATE: Please visit Annette's post about Abel, Enoch and Noah over at her Fish and Cans blog.

Noah obeyed God without seeing the cause for it. In reverent fear he built an ark. This huge boat and he built it because God told him to. He saved his household but condemned the world. Laughed at, mocked, for years (100 or so they think it took him) he simply obeyed God and built an ark. That's perseverance, that's faith, that's holy fear of the Lord.

Have there been just a few books that have made a tremendous impact on your life? Barry Wallace would like to hear about them. His post, The Potentially Damning Danger of Theology (or, Why I'm Thankful for Packer's "Knowing God") is over at who am i?.

Wanna know what the Bible has to say about generosity? FMF presents Who's the Most Generous? posted at Free Money Finance.

When someone asks you why you believe in the bible, you should be able to offer a clear explanation. Angela Williams Duea has more at Why I believe the bible is the inspired word of God « angelawd posted at angelawd.

Do followers of Christ have a responsibility to publicly denounce obnoxious things said in our name by other Christians in the public eye? John asks Must I Confront "Bad" Christians? at Brain Cramps for God.

Greg Chaney presents Walking in the Light posted at the practical CHRISTian.

Scott presents Create a Godless Nation? YES! WE! CAN! posted at FIRE BREATHING CHRISTIAN.

Ridge Burns presents Wonder posted at Ridge’s Blog.

Chris offers a look at biblican and Christian numerology. Check out Biblical and Christian Numerology at MJJ Party.

Here's a story of not giving up hope, based on 1 Samuel 1. Tim King's When Nothing Goes the Way It Ought is posted at J. Timothy King's Blog.

Michelle has this week's Thoughts and Confessions of a Girl Who Loves Jesus… posted at her blog of the same name.

Here are some thoughts on the feeling that we're losing the fight. ChrisB presents Outnumbered and Overwhelmed? posted at Homeward Bound.

Rey Reynoso examines Romans 5:12 and suggests that it leans more towards Corporate Solidarity than it does towards Federal Headship. More at Federal Headship vs. Corporate Solidarity in Romans 5:12 at The Bible Archive.

Does inerrancy require believing in an individual, historical Adam? Jeremy Pierce dives into this controversial issue at Longman, Literalism, and Genesis 1 over at Parableman.

NCSue presents I hate math. posted at IN HIM WE LIVE AND MOVE AND HAVE OUR BEING.

Helping Moms keep better control of household finances through negotiation - that's the subject of Jonathan Martin's post Negotiating for Moms over at The Negotiation Board.

Thanks for dropping by! Submit your blog article to the next edition of christian carnival ii using our carnival submission form. Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

Grace and peace,

Don

CNN's Jenny Wilburn emailed

Hi there! I’m wondering if anyone from The Evangelical Ecologist would be interested in joining CNN.com/Live today for a segment about Pres. Obama’s speech to the UN today on climate change. The segment will take place around d12:15p ET today. Feel free to call my cell to talk more about it! 404-xxx-xxxx 

Thanks, Jenny

CNN's live link is up via their homepage. China's president is speaking now. Nothing new from him. Prime Minister of Japan next. 

Will update this post with any interesting bits. Would also expect Mr Obama's speach to be up here by tomorrow.

UPDATE: Got pulled away and missed his comments, which happened about an hour early. Gore, on the other hand, sitting on a panel, is "optimistic" that global warming legislation will be passed before Hopenhagen. Says that even if it doesn't, the Supreme Court has already ruled that CO2 is a pollutant, and thus EPA can already regulate it. 2nd Court of Appeals also ruled last night that large CO2 emitters in the US can be sued under common law. "So even in the absence of legislation, existing law through the courts will require reduction of CO2."

Translation: Use courts to end-around the electorate. LOL! Of all people, I'd think Gore would decry that...

UPDATE: Q to Gore: "Disappointed in lack of specifics" in Obama's statement? A: "He was recognizing the reality of the situation that legislation was still pending...."

UPDATE: CBS is on the trail of some rather large carbon footprints in NYC today.

UPDATE: World leaders kick climate policy into the long grass. Preparing for still more disappointment at the Hopenhagen site. The more they talk, the further away they get from a concensus. And Denmark is a mighty chilly place in December. 

Bumped: I heard an outstanding lecture Monday night here at the College by Mr. Amory Lovins, cofounder, Chairman and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain Institute. The topic was “Military-  and Business-led Solutions to Oil, Climate and Proliferation." Hard to absorb everything, but what stuck with me the most was his info on the amount of energy we could save through re-engineering induced conservation.

For instance, only a tiny fraction of the energy in a gallon of gasoline is used to actually move the people in it. Most is lost through heat/friction or the energy it takes to move a couple thousand pounds of steel. He figures composites not only simplify and reduce the cost of constructing cars but an 800 pound car would get 75+mpg easy (smaller engine too). As far as safety, his video of a driver walking away from the crash of her composite racecar hitting the rails at 200mph convinced me we are over-whining about this.

Second example was whale oil use dropped off long before we ran out of whales because people discovered petroleum and found it a better product.

His bottom line was it's much easier - and profitable - to approach energy and climate change from a conservation perspective. Problem is the government wants to impose conservation (the way the UN is trying to do) rather than back off and afford the free market and engineering entrepreneurs with the chance to innovate.

Great stuff.

Tony Watts:

Using a well-accepted metric called the Accumulated Cyclone Energy index or ACE for short (Bell and Chelliah 2006), which has been used by Klotzbach (2006) and Emanuel (2005) (PDI is analogous to ACE), and most recently by myself in Maue (2009) , simple analysis shows that 24-month running sums of global ACE or hurricane energy have plummeted to levels not seen in 30 years.

This should be good news.

UPDATE: A hurricane version of the Gore Effect?

UPDATE: Killer tornados down by 2/3, 2009 deaths only 17% of last year's total...