Green Sanctuary

Most Unitarian Universalists cite nature as a large part of their spiritual lives. Since protecting the natural world from destruction by mankind’s industry is an obvious necessity, most UUs are environmentally aware and concerned. The most important benefit from having a Green Sanctuary Committee is that it constantly informs on the threats to nature and suggests efforts that can be made to resist those threats. These efforts can be in personal lifestyle and in advocacy.

Changing lifestyle is not easy. There are many reasons not to. Abandoning paper and plastics for use with our refreshments is not easy. Strategies to drive less are limited. Partial conversion to wind or solar electricity generation has pros and cons in many people’s minds. Nevertheless we all have environmental concerns.

The intentions and aspirations of our Green Sanctuary Committee are to continue to stimulate interest in lifestyle and advocacy. We hope to increase the number of people involved in our actions on clean air, clean water and the use of local produce. We hope to stimulate more community interest.

Our environmental committee was created by a vote of the membership of the fellowship in April 2001.
The first year was spent making the congregation aware of our existence through the bulletin board, newsletter and services. In May 2002 a new chair was elected by the eight member committee. In the next two years the program requirements of the Seventh Principle Project, an affiliate of the UUA, were fulfilled, as described below, to make the fellowship a certified Green Sanctuary.

Green Sanctuary Program Goals:

Awareness was built by our frequently changing bulletin board on Green Sanctuary issues. We had 4 services on environmental issues. We had 2 services featuring an Earth Day video from Genesis Farm followed by discussion.

Commitment for Lifestyle Changes was evidenced by members purchasing low energy florescent light bulbs, by using reusable dishes and utensils at fellowship functions, and from statements made by participants in our course on Choices for Sustainable Living. One family has installed solar panels at their home. Brochures about this state subsidized program were made available to the congregation.

Motivation to Community Action on Environmental Issues was apparent in our card writing and telephone calls to our New Jersey legislators on a bill in committee for protection of the Highlands water supply. Our June 2003 Eco-Fair offered an array of information to our community. In November the Green Sanctuary Committee had an exhibit about its’ activities at a well attended open house at our fellowship.
Building a connection between spiritual practice and environmental consciousness was the theme of Rev. Newhall’s sermon “For The Beauty Of The Earth” on April 6, 2003.

Building awareness of and rectifying environmental injustices is being addressed by researching the problem of air pollution from coal burning electricity generators in Pennsylvania across the Delaware River from our area.

Environmental Audit: An energy survey of the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Sussex County was conducted on Nov. 10, 2002 by Andrew Rudin of The Interfaith Coalition on Energy, a Philadelphia centered environmental group. This service was provided by PEQ (Partners for Environmental Quality, which in 2005 changed its name to Greenfaith), as part of a 10 congregation program they are running using a grant by the NJ Board of Public Utilities to offer workshops and work on energy efficiency. A 20 page report was generated with the following recommendations. Those followed by * have been accomplished to date, ** if completely accomplished.: tune oil burner**, Lower steam pressure**, lower aquastat setting**, install 2 strip switches for our sound and video system**,install 2 clock thermostats**, replace incandescent bulbs and tube fluorescents with newer low energy compact fluorescents*, install new fixtures over the sinks, change location of the outside front floodlight and replace with halogen IR wide beam floodlights. The unfinished items will be addressed when the budget allows.

Other environmental improvements in equipment and practices which we have made are: sorting of refuse into separate containers routinely, elimination of disposable dishes and cutlery and washing of reusables. .

Washing of dishes and utensils has been made easier by the purchase of a dishwasher.. This was part of the rehabilitation of our kitchen completed in January 2006.Other environmental benefits included in the rehabilitation were wall insulation where it had not been used before, double pane windows and low energy compact fluorescent ceiling lights.

We were recognized as a Green Sanctuary congregation at the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association in June 2004.

Since recognition we have submitted an article for our newsletter, the Quest almost monthly, and have had a meeting almost monthly. Below are issues that were discussed and often followed by actions:

We attended a meeting of the triennial New Jersey State Planning Commission & Sussex County Cross Acceptance Process and were able to report on the legal basis for studies designed to introduce some degree of planning to the further growth of the remaining open space and farmland in NJ. The process stems from State Supreme Court decisions beginning in 1975and state laws beginning in 1985 which created the Fair Housing Act, leading to the Council On Affordable Housing (COAH), the State Planning Act and the State Planning Commission.

Four of us purchased kits, sold by Green Peace, to test our hair for mercury content. This indicator of coal smoke pollution was a bit high in two of the four. The publication of the results were accompanied by a discussion of the dangers of high levels in pregnant women, and which fish contain higher and lower amounts of mercury.

We described a local food fair held by local farmers and restaurants using local produce.

We studied alternative electrical generation. Tall evergreens on our southern exposure prevent the use solar panels. Organizing a pledge fund for wind energy is being considered.

Black bear hunting was discussed , in committee, since it was a frequent issue in the media. Habitat protection is certainly an environmental issue, but no position was advanced to the congregation.

We studied a program at the elementary school of a neighboring town, sponsored by the Foodshed Alliance which educated the students on the production of food and the reasons for consuming food from local farms.

A high profile issue since 2004 has been the protection from new development of the watershed in the highlands of northern NJ and adjacent areas of NY. This area provides water for 3 to 4 million people
in northern NJ. Although much of it is already owned by the City of Newark or is NJ park or forest, private land owners in the area opposed the proposed act. Information sheets and legislators’ addresses were made available to the congregation by our committee. The Act was passed by the legislature, signed by the governor and the enabling federal Highlands Conservation Act was signed by President Bush on November 30, 2004.

Attacks on the Act by landowners and the conservative politicians who are reelected by 2 to 1 margins at every election continue to attack , attempt to weaken and overturn the Act. The committee keeps the congregation in formed on these developments.

The growing advocacy for environmental protection by conservative and fundamentalist religious groups
in the past 2 years has been publicized by the committee beginning with an address by Bill Moyers given at Harvard in 2004. He described the disdain of right wing religion for environmental concerns in stark terms. We made copies of the address available. A member attended a conference at Bard College in June 2004 called "Earth and Religion: Crisis Opportunity Convergence," an interfaith/environmental conference “ engaging all people in a quest for a sustainable world”, and wrote a report for the newsletter. This month a report was written describing a program of “Religion and Ethics” on PBS It featured a review of the work of Rev. Cisek, leader of a group of evangelical environmentalist congregations..

Our most recent involvement with advocacy was in publicizing a Sussex County Question on the ballot last November. We called attention to the issue in our newsletter. The proposition was to approve an increase on the property tax of 1 ½ cents per $100 of assessed value to be used to purchase open space and preserve farmland. It passed. Some of our members put up signs along the road advocating a yes vote.