Green Faith in the Green Mountain State

All Souls Interfaith Gathering has built what they hope is the greenest church ever. Read the full story (and see more photos of this spectacular-looking place) in USA Today.

SHELBURNE, Vt. — All Souls Interfaith Gathering has a reputation for being all-inclusive.
The small congregation, founded in 1999, recognizes just about every faith you can think of. No one is turned away. And that includes Mother Earth.
ASIG prides itself on being one of the greenest churches in one of the greenest of states, and nothing proves that more than its spanking new sanctuary building, which opened in October.
It's a model for ecological correctness: locally harvested wood, bamboo flooring, compact fluorescent lights and a furnace that will heat the facility using grass, corn or wood pellets. The congregation expects to go through 30 to 35 tons of wood pellets this first winter in the new building.
Even the air conditioning is provided by using water from an artesian well.
"I'd like to think we're cutting-edge," says the Rev. Mary Abele, who heads the congregation that numbers 70 but is growing every week. "I suspect some come now because of our environmental practices."

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

State Fuel Efficiency Laws Win in Court

According to the Christian Science Monitor,

When historians finally take stock, Vermont may look like the mouse that roared – the tiny state that brought the nation's mighty auto industry to heel by requiring cars that emit fewer greenhouse gases.
This is one scenario that could unfold following a federal judge's ruling Wednesday, which upheld a Vermont law patterned after California's mandate that the carbon-dioxide emissions of cars sold in the state must be slashed 30 percent by 2016.
The judge's finding – that federal fuel-economy laws are not in conflict with state emissions laws – is particularly significant, coming on the heels of a US Supreme Court decision in April. That ruling found that the Environmental Protection Agency has the authority to regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, legal experts say.
On the one hand, Wednesday's decision strengthens the hand of states that want to take action against global warming. But in the longer term, the impact from the ruling could lead to one nationwide standard, which is already expected by many.
In addition to the 12 states with California-style laws on the books, another six are close to acting.
The ruling this week could start dominoes falling by:
• Prompting the US EPA to grant California a waiver from the Clean Air Act allowing it, along with Vermont and the 10 other states with identical laws, to begin enforcing greenhouse-gas requirements for cars sold within their borders.
• Causing six additional states – Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, Utah, Illinois, and Minnesota – to proceed with their own similar emissions requirements. Altogether, the 18 states that have such laws – or are leaning toward them – make up about half the US auto market.
• Spurring Congress to reconsider the new fuel-efficiency standards it is currently weighing, which are not as demanding as Vermont's, and mandate a tougher federal requirement that would also reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
• Causing federal judges in two similar cases brought by the auto industry – one in California, the other in Rhode Island – to dismiss those cases if they determine the industry has had its day in court and further proceedings would be redundant, according to environmental lawyers.
The efforts by the 12 states with laws in place could cut emissions by 100 million tons annually. By comparison, however, US cars and light trucks emit 1.5 billion tons annually.
Still, this would be "the most significant step so far" on vehicle emissions and pave the way for broader action, says Michelle Robinson, director of the clean vehicle program at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a Washington environmental group not party to the lawsuit.
Environmental groups, who joined Vermont as defendants in the current case, have been exultant. "This extremely important ruling makes clear that the US EPA and states acting under the Clean Air Act do have the power to set more stringent emissions limits on cars and can also regulate greenhouse gases," says attorney Matt Pawa, who represented the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club, and Environmental Defense.

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 22 and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htmShop for energy Saving Products at www.shopipl.org.

Automakers Fight Emission Controls

Automakers are fighting stricter emissions controls designed to combat climate change proposed in 13 states (including Connecticut), according to the Hartford Courant.

Even if the proposed limits on "greenhouse gas" emissions were applied to every new car in the world - and so far only 13 states, including Vermont and Connecticut, have adopted them and they still need approval by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency - the result would be a tiny fraction of a degree drop in temperature, a leading scientist testifying in favor of the rules conceded.To the auto industry, that means the requirement that it cut greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2016 "is purely symbolic," said industry lawyer Andrew B. Clubok. "There is no environmental impact benefit to this regulation."But advocates say the reduction of greenhouse gases that cause global warming has to start somewhere. The proposed regulation, promulgated by California in 2004 and adopted by 12 other states since then, "will not solve global warming by itself," Scot L. Kline of the Vermont attorney general's office acknowledged. "But Vermont it trying to do its fair share."

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

Going Green Can Be Profitable

That's the wisdom climate expert Amory Lovins imparted to Vermont state lawmakers.

"It's cheaper to save energy than to buy energy," Lovins said, in a talk outlining the business opportunities created by climate change.

Read the rest of the article in the Rutland Herald.
Visit us at www.irejn.org.