There is a lot happening with Countryside’s Green Sanctuary Committee. The first thing we did is rewrite our mission statement:

The Green Sanctuary Committee promotes awareness, appreciation, and action in support of the environment on which we all depend. We promote worship that deepens our connection to the natural world, educational programs for all ages, service projects, and non-partisan political actions that address the climate crisis.

Keeping that in mind, we have some ideas for projects (with more to come): 

• Why not have Countryside buy its electricity from Trajectory Energy rather than from ComEd. Trajectory Energy sells electricity from solar farms that it is building or has built. 
• Hosting Summit ’22 which will be presented by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation (headquartered in London).
• East ditch and savanna prairie restoration and communal composting.

Can’t wait to get active? Mark Krivchenia is asking for volunteers on Saturday, Sept. 25, 9 am-3 pm. The Deer Grove Stewards are hosting a public lands restoration day at Deer Grove West. They will be cutting buckthorn and collecting seeds. It’s a great opportunity to get out into nature and make it more resilient.  

Letter Writing

Letter writing is hard. It’s hard to push one more thing into an already overstuffed day. But national and global floods and fires are escalating, and the need for writing our leaders is too urgent to wait for a better time. I’ve read a big stack of well researched books on the subject of climate change, and I’ve given climate change a lot of thought. I know, for instance, that if we were to stop fossil fuels totally tomorrow, we will still have the climate chaos we have today: scores of fires, floods and large wind events. Only when we begin to pull more CO2 out of the atmosphere than we’re pumping into it will we begin to see improvement. Geoengineering has not given us the magic cure. Meanwhile our natural partners in the pulling out (sequestering) of CO2 – the forests and the oceans –are in trouble. Millions of acres of forests are burning, and the oceans have maxed out their capacity to absorb CO2.  

For this reason, and for the futures of our children, grandchildren, and all the inhabitants of Earth, switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources has to be number one on every planning agenda, and we need a lot of voters who can voice that narrative to Illinois and Washington. A 50% shift to green energy by 2030 and 100% by 2050 is imperative. And no, carbon trading is not a viable option, it’s a way of gaming the system. (More on this topic later if there’s an interest.)

I know all this is a lot to absorb, but I also know that we need truth to even begin this transition, and I know we can work together as a community to bring It to success.

Many of our community are wondering what, if anything, they can do about the urgent need to address global warming. Writing to your Illinois senator and representative each time there is an energy initiative is a quick and effective way to make a positive difference. Today there is a climate bill in process in Springfield. Please write your legislators asking for their support in passing one that is ambitious and urgent about shifting to renewable energy. Tell them it should focus on social equity, climate justice, and get Illinois to 100% renewable energy on our power grid.

To find your local Illinois congressmen and women, copy and paste the following link in your browser: Find My Elected Officials (il.gov)

For the earth: urge action from your congressmen (congresswomen), federal and state. Global cooling requires ZERO carbon emissions.