In September I went home to visit my mom for the first time in six months. I was a bit surprised when she told me that I absolutely must join her at an interfaith meeting being held at a church across town. With only a day and a half at home, I hadn’t expected to spend Saturday morning with a new church group.
As usual, mom knew best. The meeting was hosted by a church (I won’t mention the name in the merits of privacy but they should feel free to chime in!) whose members had spearheaded the effort to calculate their collective carbon footprint. They started with electricity usage and converted these kWh into greenhouse gas equivalents (which you can try here). Next, they looked at emissions from their parishioners’ travel to services. To do this, the green group asked church members to volunteer their home addresses; these were used to create a map of the area with thumb-tacks showing where people commuted from. For those who chose not to provide a home address, the average distance of the sample group was used. By taking the total distance traveled by all members and dividing by the average car’s fuel efficiency the faith group calculated the amount of gasoline used. Their final step was to translate this amount of gasoline into carbon dioxide (which you can do here).
Needless to say, I was impressed. They had gone beyond examining the church’s stand alone emissions to include the environmental impact of the parishioner’s travel to church as well.
As it turns out, my mom had brought me there to offer advice on carbon footprinting. Trying to do my part, I suggested they take an entire life cycle look at their operations. That is, in installing new patio doors, what type of wood was used? Was it certified sustainable? Where was it shipped from? How will this affect the insulation of the building? Throughout the morning, other members with a wide range of expertise educated us on topics including wave energy, waste vegetable oil as a diesel substitute, Equal Exchange Coffee, compostable packaged goods and the carbon footprint of meat.
It was refreshing to see a small but very diverse group coming together to address local environmental stewardship. Political debates about the effectiveness of a carbon cap-and-trade program versus a tax and other issues related to climate change could take years to settle. In the meantime, we need to act and this is something that people across many faiths recognize. As Gandhi said, ‘When the people lead the leaders will follow.’ The Interfaith group is planning a second meeting this Winter I may have to take another trip home.
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