Bp. Holloway testifies on climate change

(Posted by Linda Lovell) Sorry to have been neglecting this blog for so long. I thought this might be of interest - a news release from the ELCA News Service. Did you know that you can subscribe to that service? Go to the ELCA news page and look in the left column for the Subscribe link. Also note that you can receive ELCA news via Twitter - that link is on the right side of that same page.


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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

March 26, 2009

Lutheran Bishop Testifies Before House Subcommittee on Climate Change
09-072-JD

WASHINGTON (ELCA) - The Rev. Callon W. Holloway Jr., bishop,
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Southern Ohio
Synod, Columbus, was one of seven witnesses who testified before
the U.S. House Energy and Environment Subcommittee on March 25 in
a congressional hearing, "Preparing for Climate Change:
Adaptation Polities and Programs."

Holloway said that the United States "must acknowledge its
role and moral responsibility" in the global climate change
crisis and "commit to providing substantial financial support
reaching between $7 billion and $21.5 billion a year by 2030 and
further increasing over time."

"For many people of faith, the conviction to be good
stewards of the earth is grounded in God's command in Genesis to
keep and till the earth," Holloway said. "We do not view the
riches of our earth simply as material to be exploited, but
rather as treasure we are called to protect, preserve and utilize
in sustainable ways for the well-being of God's people and God's
creation."

He was asked to testify by the National Council of Churches
USA, a coalition of 35 Christian denominations including the
ELCA.

Holloway said a diverse coalition of faith communities,
including Catholics, Protestants, evangelicals and interfaith
partners endorsed the "Climate Fairness Agenda." Written by the
National Religious Partnership for the Environment, the agenda
unites faith communities behind the goal of ensuring the U.S.
Government aggressively reduces greenhouse gas emissions while
providing for the most vulnerable, he said.

During a question and answer session, U.S. Rep. Lois Capps,
D-Calif., asked Holloway to address reasons for adaptation.
Adaptation is reducing climate vulnerability and building up
resilience. Holloway suggested a three-tiered approach of
emergency aid, accompaniment with people for self-sufficiency,
and advocacy "for those who do not have a voice," he said.

Holloway testified that the faith community is united in
urging the committee to meet specific legislative objectives,
such as providing international adaptation assistance funds to
"the most vulnerable developing countries" and no more than 10
percent to any one country in a single year; engaging local
communities in an open and accountable process with adequate
monitoring and evaluation; providing funds in addition to current
levels of official development assistance; targeting funds for
adapting to climate impacts such as drought, natural disasters,
diseases and migration; and ensuring legislation enhances
developing nations' efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by
reducing deforestation (and encouraging reforestation) and
provide for transfer of clean energy technologies.

The hearing focused on ongoing adaptation efforts, both
domestically and internationally. The panel of witnesses also
discussed potential policies in climate change legislation that
could assist in climate change adaptation efforts.

Other witnesses represented the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration; U.S. Government Accountability
Office; National Wildlife Federation; Oxfam American; Cornwall
Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation; and Science and Public
Policy Institute.
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The full text of the "Climate Fairness Agenda: A Religious
Call to Address Global Climate Change and Poverty" is at
http://tinyurl.com/cbmlos on the Web.


For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog

Going Green #13 - Buy this book!

After yesterday's meeting at the Episcopal dioceses in Baltimore, I (of course) wandered through their bookstore where I found what seemed a perfect stocking stuffer. As I read the book during lunch today, however, I realized that it's one that every congregation in the synod needs to buy and have staff, property committee members and council members read. And I don't say that lightly in these economic times…

"How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take To Change a Christian?" is a short, almost pamphlet-like book subtitled "A Pocket Guide To Shrinking Your Ecological Footprint." Written by Jan Nunley, Claire Foster, and David Shreeve in 2008, it's published by Seabury Books, N.Y. Chapters are divided into segments for individuals, for congregations, and for communities. References to online sources abound and could keep a congregation's "green" committee going for a year. I bought what appeared to be the last copy for $10, so if you're headed that way, call first to check if they have it in stock. (St. Bede's Books, 4 E University Pkwy Baltimore, MD 21218; 410-243-1727). It's available online for $10 from St. Bede's Books. Amazon.com has it for $8.50.

While I was at St. Bede's, I also found what looks to be a fun book for kids. "In the Beginning: The Story of Genesis and Earth Activities for Children" is by Michael J. Caduto (Paulist Press, 2004), $16.95. This is available online from Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

Finally, as I was reading "How Many Lightbulbs" at a sandwich shop this noon, frequently exclaiming aloud in surprise, I fell into a conversation with a lady at the next table. She told me about "The Green Bible," discussed this morning on National Public Radio. With a forward by Desmond Tutu, it's an NRSV translation with eco-oriented passages in green. It's a devotional Bible, with essays and study material. I haven't seen it, but you might like to read the info on Amazon.com or read/listen to the piece from NPR .

Going Green #12 - The Great Shopping Bag Challenge

(Posted by Linda Lovell)

I suppose it was inevitable. Last Saturday, on the way home from the Synod Council retreat, I stopped in a store in Eldersburg and was greeted with the rollicking strains of "Jingle Bells." November 8 - and already the Christmas shopping season is upon us!

In light of that, I'd like to issue a challenge to any and all readers. Call it "The Great Shopping Bag Challenge," if you will. In a nutshell, how many plastic shopping bags can we together avoid using between now and Christmas?

Personally, I've been driving around with a trunk full of assorted grocery store bags for some months. And this summer, at a tiny store in Rehoboth Beach, I bought a shopping bag made of windbreaker-like material. It folds up neatly into a soft, light fistful of fabric, about the size of a regular salt shaker, and it's always in my purse. If you aren't headed "downy ocean" anytime soon, check for something called a "Greenshopper" bag. It, too, is about the same height as a salt shaker, but it's flat, very light, and suitable for purse or pocket. It even has a tiny hook. I picked up several to give as gifts from one of the big-box linen stores.

So how about it? Next time you head to the grocery or the mall, think about providing your own bags. Post your total bags saved here as we progress through Advent!

Slots on the last weekend before Election Day

Posted by Lee Hudson, director of the Lutheran Office on Public Policy in Maryland

A new poll on slots will be released this weekend and published in Sunday papers. We're told it will stun slots proponents who have been resting secure on polling data. The new poll will show that they have not made their case on slots and that the issue is a dead heat. (Recall that we've been saying voters will make up their minds very late on this issue.) The important point for opponents is that having been out spent twenty-to-one we're still gaining with likely voters. We can defeat this dog-of-a-deal with concentrated effort this weekend in our parishes. Remind the Lutherans that this church has had a long history of opposition to gambling-for-revenue. It's not a position we came to just for Maryland. We're really opposed to this and we're really opposed to it everywhere. Our opposition messages are resonating with voters. (We expect when the poll becomes public the proponents will ramp up their efforts. Monday and Tuesday could be pretty interesting.)

The poll represents welcome good news, but it's not the biggest news. The bigger news is that because of the financial crisis the corporations that will be bidding for slots licenses can't borrow the money to build the facilities. What that means in Maryland is that if slots were to pass the companies will go back to the General Assembly this January and change the deal they're selling to the public now as "Question 2." They need more profit (so the State will have to agree to less) in order to borrow to get the operations even started. So Question 2 isn't actually Question 2 if you get the point. It's the beginning of a bargaining process that will tie up the General Assembly for several more years as owners try to get a better deal for themselves and as the State tries to get the operations running so it can claim it's getting revenue. It's late in the argument to complicate it, especially for people who are undecided. But tell them with confidence that the deal they're voting on isn't the deal the State will get because the corporations can't borrow money. The whole plan is a fraud and voters need to know that.

Going Green #11 - A Factoid

(Posted by Linda Lovell) If you're like me, a trip to the ATM always results in a small slip of paper that floats around in car or purse for a while before being thrown out with the rest of the clutter. Over the course of the last few months, my bank has flashed up on the ATM screen a rather startling fact. Sorry, it flashes by too quickly for my aging eyes to have caught what source they're using, including today, when I sat through three rotations of the slide show just to write down the numbers involved here. But consider what the bank suggests: If everyone in the United States stopped asking for ATM receipts, we'd save 2 billion feet of paper annually - enough to encircle God's beautiful green and blue world 15 times. Suffice it to say, I haven't pushed "yes" for a receipt since that info first came on the screen.

The Maryland Slots Referendum on November 4

Posted by Lee Hudson, director of the Lutheran Office on Public Policy in Maryland


In case you mistook slots opponents for an organization that has money, all you need to do is turn on your television. Ads for slots are now relentless showing, if nothing else, that there’s real money involved in this effort. Not even the presidential candidates are spending in Maryland at the rate slots proponents are.

I’ve found that people are suspicious of the ads, which are the local equivalent of “Swift Boat,” false, deceptive and well produced.

$400 million is not going out-of-state to fund schools in Delaware, West Virginia and Pennsylvania. $225 million is according to the General Assembly’s analysts. It doesn’t really matter because the slots plan will more than triple those losses by Marylanders.

Delaware, West Virginia and Pennsylvania don’t have better schools that are better financed. Delaware and West Virginia debate every single year about expanding gambling because they don’t have enough revenue to finance their states. And even though they haven’t fully implemented their slots plan yet there’s talk in Pennsylvania that it won’t be enough and they need more. Also in Pennsylvania the “school funding” is a property tax rebate that amounts, on average, to $190. None of those other states is increasing school spending to equalize education funding statewide either, as Maryland is.

(By the way, in Pennsylvania slots are a $249-a-year tax on everyone in that state; it’s just that not everyone pays the tax, so low-income people are paying more than their share. Maryland’s plan is a $550-a-year tax on everyone over the age of 25.)

But whether you care about the policy implications or not, the case against slots in Maryland is simple. It’s math. Whatever Marylanders lose gambling now they have to lose a billion dollars more with slots. Question 2 will make it state fiscal policy to market gambling in order to grow gamblers and increase their losses. The public will pay the costs of hosting gambling—crime, blight, disinvestments, infrastructure, bankruptcies and addictions—out of other revenue. Slots as a revenue policy, is the most expensive option on the menu.

An independent UMBC economic study of slots showed all that, but you don’t need the testimony of a university-based study. It’s all in the numbers legislators had under their noses when they voted to refer Question 2 to the electorate.

As a revenue plan slots won’t save one Maryland dime. In fact it will cost almost twice as much as it’s worth. The revenue—the losses—has to be $1.3 billion. But that will, at best, be worth $650 million to the taxpayers. There you have it: a tax increase (70% of which will come from two places in Central Maryland) that’s twice as expensive as its public benefit. If Marylanders had to pay a $650 million tax increase it would cost them half as much as Question 2.

The ads leave all of that out as they promise those inflated numbers for schools. For the record, there is no such thing as a State “trust fund.” Maryland has to pay its bills from the money it receives. Money raised last year for Medicaid will be spent for other things now that revenue is falling. As we’ve learned from the transportation, open space, and other trust funds, they don’t exist.

The pro-slots ads do preview something else, however, namely the power to sell gambling. Get used to the ads if Question 2 passes, because it will begin an era of ever-present slots ads, of annual campaigns to expand slots, and of political figures beholden to slots money. Once slots are here, they’re here forever, all the time.

I began this epic odyssey six years ago when another Maryland governor made slots his signature policy. One of the first people I spoke to about it was my ELCA state public policy colleague in New Jersey. I said, “You guys have had retail gambling for a while now; so what’s your experience been?” His answer was terse. “Keep ‘em out,” he said.

Slots operatives have been pouring over Maryland college campuses hiring students for $50 to work a few hours at polling places. (Some of our Lutheran campus ministry students have turned them down!) Please volunteer to work a portion of Election Day at your polling place. Go to (http://stopslotsmd.com/volunteers/new) to claim a time.

If you haven’t done so yet, please publish the slots letter sent to all Maryland, ELCA congregations, and signed by the three ELCA bishops, in your parish this weekend by putting it in your Sunday worship folder and posting it on bulletin boards.

Here’s a general prayer for use in parishes this Sunday:

Eternal God, ruler of the universe; we thank you for our privilege of self-government, for our baptismal calling to citizenship and civic engagement, and for your great Law to love you above all and our neighbors as ourselves. Graciously guide us in our public life with your holy Wisdom. Supply us with good government and honest officials. Direct those who make, keep, and administer our laws toward the ends of justice with equity. And teach us to govern our commerce to the harm of none and for the sake of the common good. [Lord, in your mercy: Hear our prayer.]

Going Green #10 - A Question of Stewardship

(Posted by Linda Lovell) The congregation of Christ Lutheran Church, LaVale, Md., is making stewardship of the earth a major emphasis of this year's Every Member Response campaign. Members are being encouraged to purchase a book called Go Green, Live Rich - 50 Simples Ways To Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying, by David Bach, as part of the campaign. In fact, according to Pr. Chuck Erzkus' article in the church's October newsletter, copies of the book are being made available at half price to make it easy for everyone to take part.

In that same newsletter, Vicar Mike Parsh devotes his article to the book and what the congregation is doing. For instance, there will be a new section on the "time and talent" sheets this year focusing on environmental stewardship, including personal options like recycling at home and public options like volunteering to help with tire pressure checks at the church. A most interesting example gleaned from Mike's article: Apparently a whale was constructed for use on Rally Sunday, and some of the material which covered the whale has already been donated to provide bedding for the animals housed at the local animal shelter. That has a nice kind of Old Testament symmetry to it, evoking Jonah, Noah and all God's critters.

What's your congregation doing to "go green"? Please respond here!

Going Green #9 - Share the Green

(Posted by Linda Lovell)

Have you considered making a "green" column a regular feature in your congregation's newsletter?

New Hope Lutheran Church, Columbia, Md., recently devoted their "Green Note of the Month" to Green Pets, and no, Kermit the Frog was not among them. The column covered topics such as choosing a "recycled" dog or cat; not "littering" by having pets spayed or neutered; and purchasing toys and other pet products made from natural, organic or recycled materials. The column dovetailed nicely with an adjacent notice about the Blessing of the Animals to be held Oct. 25. (Did you know that October is Adopt-a-Shelter-Dog Month?)

The newsletter from Ascension Lutheran Church, Towson, Md., offered info on an assortment of green topics, including the church's upcoming architectural rehab which will follow LEED principles (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and the development of Ascension's Stewards of Creation committee. Since last fall, that group has been promoting environmental responsibility for the church's building and grounds. Another article, "10,000 Ways to Kneel and Kiss the Earth," with the title taken from a Persian poem, led me to a terrific website maintained by the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Web of Creation is supported by funding from a number of sources, including the National Council of Churches. Check it out - it has links to all kinds of resources, everything from worship to getting your own green group started.

Do you have a green column in your church newsletter? What are some of the topics that have been covered?