When they meet, we hope that the President raises the importance of caring for Creation. Please join us and our interfaith colleagues by signing onto this petition on the White House’s website encouraging that care for Creation be on the agenda. As the Jewish Energy Covenant Campaign declaration states, “enlightened stewardship is not only a religious and moral imperative; it is a strategy for security and survival.”

“My administration will keep working with the [oil and gas] industry to sustain production and job growth while strengthening protection of our air, our water, and our communities,” said President Obama in his 2014 State of the Union address.

“Let us be protectors of creation, protectors of God’s plan inscribed in nature, protectors of one another and of the environment,” Pope Francis has said.

Please sign the petition and encourage others to do so as well by first registering to sign a White House petition and then signing the actual petition.

Thank you for your support.

The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC) are joining together to demonstrate support from the Jewish community for the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new, strict standards for carbon pollution from new power plants. New, large natural gas-fired plant emissions would be limited to 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour and small natural gas-fired and coal-fired plants would be limited to 1,100 pounds. Conventional coal plants currently emit more than 1,800 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

It is long overdue that we reduce the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere. Carbon emissions are the leading cause of climate change, and power plants are our nation’s largest source of carbon pollution. These proposed carbon pollution limits will set higher technology standards to reduce our nation’s contribution to climate change and air pollution. Now is the time to support the EPA’s new limits on carbon pollution and speak out for climate justice. The EPA will be taking comments on the new regulations until March 10.

TAKE ACTION! Tell EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that you support the EPA’s efforts to reduce carbon pollution and address climate change by creating a new Carbon Pollution Standard.

Click here to read a letter from 13 Jewish organizations to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy in support of the proposed Carbon Pollution Standard for new power plants. We encourage you to adapt language from this letter to send a letter from your synagogue, organization or community.

Depending on how much pressure and temperature to which it has been subject, coal is a sedimentary or metamorphic rock comprised mostly of carbon. Coal is a fossil fuel used primarily in the generation of electricity. To turn coal into electricity, the rock is pulverized then combusted in a furnace, the heat from which converts water into steam used to spin turbine blades to create electricity.

There are many negative environmental impacts to using coal. Although coal is comprised mostly of carbon, smaller quantities of sulfur, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and other heavy metals including mercury also exist in the coal we burn. There are higher and lower qualities of coal, just like petroleum, however the use of lower quality coal is widespread due to more widespread availability. If these harmful byproducts are not removed before or during combustion, they can lead to damaging events such as acid rain, background radiation exposure and cancer in humans and animals. Carbon dioxide emissions are also a cause for concern since carbon dioxide is a major contributor to climate change.

Click here to read the full article

Benjamin Kahane is a utility scale project engineer at SunEdison, where he designs photovoltaic solar energy systems. He has provided engineering support for the development of more than 100 megawatts of ground-mounted photovoltaic projects across North America. Kahane previously worked as a project engineer developing photovoltaic installations at Conergy. He earned his master’s degree in sustainable energy engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

An issue of emerging global concern is the increasing impact of climate change on the poorest developing countries. Rising sea levels could displace populations in low-lying nations such as in Nauru, the Maldives or Bangladesh. The disappearance of glaciers could deprive people of their water supply in Southeast Asia and some countries in South America. Ocean acidification and ecosystem degradation could reduce available food stocks and natural systems that support food production and tourism in developing countries. Drought and extreme weather events may reduce crop yields, potentially leading to widespread famine; this, added to the virulent spread of tropical diseases, could diminish or negate the recent tentative progress that the world community has made in fighting poverty. Poverty plus climate change impacts add up to increased economic, social and political instability. This is why international adaptation to climate change is so crucial.

Click here to read the full article

Matthew Anderson is the executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment. Anderson previously directed the Creation Care Fund, an intermediary fund that provides financial and technical support to Christian environmental grassroots initiatives, and Faith in the City, a multi-sector faith-based coalition in the Twin Cities. His experience also includes serving as the director of environmental and rural advocacy and education for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, as well working on national campaign efforts on climate and energy for the National Council of Churches.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Petroleum — or, plainly, oil — has many applications in the industrial age. Petroleum is used to make plastics, lubricants, wax, asphalt and many other industrial products, but it’s mostly used for fuel. Oil is usually black or dark brown before any refinement; however, it also can be found in the form of tar shale, as in Colorado and Utah, and tar sands, as in Alberta, Canada. Tar shale oil and tar sands oil are more energy intensive to extract, but as oil prices go up, the choice to extract those natural resources is becoming an economic reality. Climatologist Dr. James Hansen, director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, warns that fully exploiting Canadian tar sands and U.S. tar shale will more than double the amount of carbon in the atmosphere — what he calls “game over for the climate.”

Click here to read the full article

Benjamin Kahane is a utility scale project engineer at SunEdison, where he designs photovoltaic solar-energy systems. He has provided engineering support for the development of more than 100 megawatts of ground-mounted photovoltaic projects across North America. Kahane previously worked as a project engineer developing photovoltaic installations at Conergy. He earned his master’s degree in sustainable-energy engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

The Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL) and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (the RAC) are joining together to demonstrate support from the Jewish community for the Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed new, strict standards for carbon pollution from new power plants. New, large natural gas-fired plant emissions would be limited to 1,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour and small natural gas-fired and coal-fired plants would be limited to 1,100 pounds. Conventional coal plants currently emit more than 1,800 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt.

It is long overdue that we reduce the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere. Carbon emissions are the leading cause of climate change, and power plants are our nation’s largest source of carbon pollution. These proposed carbon pollution limits will set higher technology standards to reduce our nation’s contribution to climate change and air pollution. Now is the time to support the EPA’s new limits on carbon pollution and speak out for climate justice. The EPA will be taking comments on the new regulations until 60 days after publication on the federal register.

TAKE ACTION! Tell EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy that you support the EPA’s efforts to reduce carbon pollution and address climate change by creating a new Carbon Pollution Standard.

The holiday of Hanukkah is another opportunity to reflect upon Jewish wisdom as it relates to our natural resources, energy in particular. Hanukkah revolves in large part around a miracle related to olive oil. In biblical and Talmudic times, olive oil — used for light, heat, fuel and food — was a very important renewable resource for energy. The limitations on this resource often posed problems in ancient times, just as modern limits on availability of energy resources pose a problem today.

The traditional Jewish relationship to olive oil can teach us much about how we can relate to energy. For example, it’s interesting to reflect that the reason Hanukkah lasts eight days was because that was how long it took to create a pure batch of renewable olive oil. One of the miracles of Hanukkah — the energy that lasted longer than expected — can remind us of the need to conserve our own energy resources.

Click here to read the full article

Evonne Marzouk is the founder and executive director of Canfei Nesharim. She has spoken worldwide on the Torah-environment connection, and also leads Maayan Olam, a Torah-environment committee serving three synagogues in Silver Spring, Md. Marzouk also works for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, where she has served on its policy coordination team for the U.N.’s World Summit on Sustainable Development. She previously worked as a legislative assistant for the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life and she also has served on the executive board of Shomrei Adamah. A co-founder of Jewcology.com, Marzouk was selected as one of The Jewish Week’s “36 under 36” young Jewish leaders.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy.The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Getting hundreds of Jewish leaders to the Jewish Funders Network Conference in Jerusalem was not only a logistical challenge — it was also an environmental one. From air travel to Styrofoam cups to reams upon reams of paper, a conference like this one had the potential for a large environmental impact. But some simple changes that I and my colleagues instituted while planning the conference went far toward offsetting the gathering’s environmental burden.

The most significant environmental impact was participants’ travel. We had hundreds of people taking long-haul transcontinental flights to Israel from around the world, resulting in tons of greenhouse gases being released into the atmosphere. The travel was necessary, but we lessened the impact by purchasing carbon credits — fiscal support for projects, such as afforestation, to remove the equivalent amount of greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, offsetting our environmental impact.

Click here to read the full article

David Ezer, a Certified Meeting Professional, is the director of programs at Jewish Funders Network. Previously, he worked as the conference manager at Chamber Music America and as a talent agent for classical musicians. Ezer also produced two seasons of the Bard Music Festival at Bard College in Annandale, N.Y. He earned his master’s of business administration at Baruch College’s Zicklin School of Business.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sometimes I feel that the abundance in my life — the stuff on my shelves and in my closets, the never ending line of e-mails in my inbox, the plethora of events on my calendar — threatens to engulf me.

Perhaps this is why Rosh Chodesh, the celebration of the new moon, receives my vote for the holiday most deserving of making a comeback in prominence. For two weeks of the month the moon waxes, becoming larger and larger until finally it reaches its fullness. Our society has no shortage of teachings telling us to be like the full moon. We must do more, achieve more, own more and consume more — we get the message loud and clear. But Rosh Chodesh celebrates the emptiness of the new moon. During Rosh Chodesh, the nothingness in the dark sky neither overwhelms us with its brightness nor demands that we notice it. The new moon makes no demands upon our thoughts or vision, but in its quiet absence it enables us to see the stars.

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Rabbi Jamie Korngold is the founder, executive director, senior rabbi and lead guide of Adventure Rabbi, a Colorado based Jewish adventure program. She is the author of numerous books, including The God Upgrade: Finding Your 21st-Century Spirituality in Judaism’s 5,000-Year-Old Tradition and God in the Wilderness. Korngold has been featured in USA Today, The New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and on Good Morning America, CBS, CNN and NPR. A graduate of Cornell University’s natural resources program, she received her ordination from Hebrew Union College.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Israel isn't the only place where Jews can plant trees. Every year, members of the Jewish Environmental Initiative, a committee of the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, plant trees here in St. Louis. Over the year, we have planted hundreds of trees, often partnering with groups from other faiths and engaging community members of all ages. In 2011, we joined with the First Baptist Church of Elmwood Park to plant trees in memory of Alfred Kahn, a Jewish environmental leader who co-founded the Jewish Environmental Initiative, and Ida Scott, an African-American community leader from the Elmwood Park Neighborhood.

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Gail Wechsler is director of domestic issues and social justice at the Jewish Community Relations Council of St. Louis, and a staffer of the council’s St. Louis Jewish Environmental Initiative. She also staffs the interfaith Community Against Poverty Coalition and the Jewish Fund for Human Needs, which provides grants to non-Jewish agencies that help at-risk populations. Wechsler has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, a law degree from New York University and a master’s of library science degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Summary: Founder and CEO of Smart Agriculture Analytics, Manuela Zoninsein, examines how our industrialized food system is not sustainable and lays out actions that would foster a healthier and more sustainable food system.

Today, part of repairing the world means ensuring that we can reduce our individual consumption to sustainable levels, especially as the world gets more crowded. If people in developing countries such as China continue to respond to increased prosperity by eating more resource intensive foods, such as meat, then a worldwide population increase of just two billion people by 2050 may double the demand for food production. But when it comes to farming, more of the same isn’t going to work, because agricultural production as we know it is flawed.

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Manuela Zoninsein is a Brazilian-American environmental journalist and entrepreneur based in Beijing. She is the founder and CEO of Smart Agriculture Analytics, a business-intelligence resource that evaluates the Chinese market for sustainable agritech. Zoninsein earned a bachelor’s degree at Harvard and a master’s degree in modern Chinese studies with a focus on Chinese environmental policy and sustainable agriculture at Oxford University. Fluent in Portuguese and Spanish, she has completed advanced Mandarin studies at Tsinghua University with the support of a Blakemore Freeman Fellowship. Zoninsein has written regularly for Newsweek and worked as a food editor at Time Out Beijing.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Summary: As education manager for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, Cynthia Thomashow discusses how green school buildings can transform education while providing environmental and economic benefits.

When I was a child in school, I never questioned the source of the building’s heat or light. I didn’t ask about where the food in the cafeteria came from. I didn’t care about how many materials were used in the classroom or what happened to them after they were no longer needed. Then, in 1972, my perspective shifted. As the iconic photo of Earth taken by the crew of Apollo 17 was discussed in my college classroom, the “blue marble” floating in space suddenly seemed small, fragile, limited. I started asking questions about the way I lived — the way we related to each other as a society, the way we consumed resources — and I started weighing the amount that we waste against what we recycle. It was an important awakening.

Every school day, more than 55 million students and five million faculty, staff and administrators spend the day inside school buildings. Yet the majority of us don’t understand the systems that support their operations, such as how they use energy, where water comes from, and where waste goes. One of the richest areas for environmental education comes from uncovering the secret life of a school building.

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Cynthia Thomashow is the education manager for the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education. She previously directed the master’s program in environmental education at Antioch University New England Graduate School, and directed the Center for Environmental Education, an online teacher resource center in environmental and sustainability education. Thomashow also developed and managed the educational program for National Public Radio’s Living on Earth radio show. She also served as an adjunct professor at Unity College.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy.The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Summary: Founder and executive director of Teva Ivri, Einat Kramer, illuminates lessons from Noah’s actions and the importance of connecting Shabbat Noach with the environmental crises of our generation.

The Torah portion of Noah details a terrible ecological disaster — the flood that immerses the world in water and brings an end to all life — all because of humankind’s despicable behavior. Noah may have been the first environmental activist. He acted upon a divine commandment to keep every species of animal safe on his ark. The biblical story ends with an eternal covenant between God and humanity, in which we are promised that the land will never be destroyed again at the hands of the Creator.

Today, we are once again experiencing widespread destruction of the Earth, this time not as a divine punishment, but as a direct result of human actions. What is the connection between our generation and the generation of Noah? What can we learn from Noah’s story? And how, with our collective strengths, can we prevent the next flood?

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Einat Kramer is the founder and executive director of Teva Ivri. Previously she served as an environmental fellow at the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership. She is a graduate of the Tehuda professional Jewish leadership program and she completed her master’s degree in Bible and Jewish thought at the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. A founding member of Jewcology.com, Einat lectures widely on Judaism and environmental and social issues.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy.The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

“Carbon dioxide emissions are the leading cause of climate change, which is one of the great moral challenges of our time. This proposal takes an important step towards addressing the effects that our electricity generation can have on the Earth and human health,” said JCPA President Rabbi Steve Gutow.

These effect have been shown to have a disproportionate impact on communities of color, youth, the elderly and those living in poverty.

COEJL and the Religious Action Center for Reform Judaism collected hundreds of signatures from the Jewish community in favor of the original rule proposed last year. The new rule responds to concerns raised in public comments to the prior proposal by setting separate standards for emissions from coal plants and natural gas plants and providing flexibility for industry while achieving similar outcomes.

“We hope that these revised regulations will be made final after the comment period and implemented without delay,” said Gutow.

“These rules were released during the holiday of Sukkot,” said Sybil Sanchez, Director of COEJL. ”Ecclesiastes Rabbah (1:4) reminds us that ‘One generation goes, another comes, but the Earth remains the same forever.’ Eating and sleeping outdoors in our sukkot makes us appreciate some of the many gifts we receive from the Earth — clean, breathable air, and fertile land in a stable climate. But we are confronted by the fact that the Earth is changing before us, and these resources will not be here for future generations unless we act now. Adopting these rules is an important part of that action.”

The release of the proposed standards is a key point in the implementation of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan, which he announced in June at a speech in Washington, DC attended by COEJL and JCPA.

“We look forward to the release of standards for existing power plants, as well,” said Sanchez.

More information can be found at www.coejl.org.

JCPA, the public affairs arm of the organized Jewish community, serves as the national coordinating and advisory body for the 14 national and 125 local agencies comprising the field of Jewish community relations.

The Coalition on the Environment in Jewish Life (COEJL), an initiative of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), deepens and broadens the Jewish community’s commitment to stewardship and protection of the Earth through outreach, activism and Jewish learning.

Biblical Judaism — that is, the way of life for the Israelites — was shaped and molded by their direct experience with the landscape around them. The physical geography, communities of plants and animals, soil condition and weather all left indelible impressions on their way of life, and our understanding of Judaism. For example, the native plant Salvia palaestina — the model for the menorah used in the Temple — is described exclusively in botanical terms in the book of Exodus (25:31-35).

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Rabbi Howard Cohen is the founder and director of Burning Bush Adventures — a Jewish outdoor-adventure program — and a former firefighter, chaplain and pulpit rabbi. A graduate of the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Cohen is a former member of the board of directors of the Green Zionist Alliance.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

]]> https://beta.jewcology.com/2013/09/jewish-energy-guide-sukkot-dwelling-in-the-midst-of-nature-s-energy/feed/ 0 https://beta.jewcology.com/2013/09/jewish-energy-guide-yom-kippur-mick-jagger-energy-a-horse-and-the-jewish-question/ https://beta.jewcology.com/2013/09/jewish-energy-guide-yom-kippur-mick-jagger-energy-a-horse-and-the-jewish-question/#comments Thu, 12 Sep 2013 10:18:54 +0000 http://jewcology.org/2013/09/jewish-energy-guide-yom-kippur-mick-jagger-energy-a-horse-and-the-jewish-question/ Summary: Rabbi Shmuel Simenowitz, executive director of Project Y’aleh V’Yavo, focuses on Yom Kippur as a holiday of personal and environmental responsibility.

We believe and pray that on Rosh Hashanah we are inscribed in the Book of Life, while on Yom Kippur the verdict is sealed and made final.

Yet, contrary to popular belief and despite the somber tone, Yom Kippur is not a sad day. In the Talmud, Yom Kippur actually is discussed along with Tu B’Av — the Jewish holiday of love — as one of the happiest days of the year. On Tu B’Av, the single women would engage in an elaborate dance ritual to attract potential spouses. Significantly, we are taught that the women would go out in borrowed white dresses in order not to embarrass those who could not afford them — a powerful metaphor for the proposition that just because you can do something does not necessarily mean that you should do it. For example, while bal taschit — the prohibition against wanton destruction — technically may allow for the destruction of a tree under circumstances such as needing the wood or empty ground to improve adjacent trees, the law simultaneously offers the individual the opportunity to reframe the debate in terms of what we should do rather than what we merely can do.

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Rabbi Shmuel Simenowitz is the executive director of Project Y’aleh V’Yavo, which offers environmental programs for youth on his maple farm in southern Vermont. Simenowitz, who is also a lawyer and a musician, has spoken widely on Judaism and the environment. He lives in the Baltimore area, where he serves as an advisory-board member of ACHARAI: The Shoshana S. Cardin Leadership Development Institute.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

Hayom harat olam — today the world is conceived. The midrash teaches us that on Rosh Hashanah the world was first created. And Rosh Hashanah is, in some ways, a giant birthday party — filled with pageantry, food and a gathering of friends and family. But in contrast to how birthdays and New Year’s Eve are celebrated in secular society, hayom harat olam signals a sense of serious reflection. Rosh Hashanah is, after all, when all of creation is called to judgment. It is the day on which we are called to take stock of our actions.

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Rabbi Julie Schonfeld is the executive vice president of the Rabbinical Assembly. She has advanced numerous landmark projects of the Conservative rabbinate, including a study of women rabbis that was released in 2004, and follow-up programs to further the career advancement of female clergy. In 2008 Schonfeld was named as the Rabbinical Assembly’s liaison to the Hekhsher Tzedek ethical-certification initiative. She was named one of the 50 most influential rabbis by Newsweek and one of the 50 most-influential American Jews by The Forward.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

Ask people to bring their own bottles with them for the conference. Perhaps it’s time to revive the old Yemenite Jewish custom of traveling with your own water cup.



If you absolutely need to use something only once, use something that’s compostable — something that will biodegrade, like paper or compostable plasticware made from plants such as corn or sugar cane. However, if you use the latter, it’s especially important to collect compostable waste at the conference using an industrial composter. While paper returns easily back to the earth, most compostable plastics only biodegrade when exposed to the high temperatures reached inside industrial composting piles. Smaller composting piles, like those found in your local community garden, tend not to get warm enough to biodegrade most compostable plastics.

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Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin is the founder of the Baltimore Jewish Environmental Network, which works to green synagogues and educate the wider Jewish community on environmental issues. Cardin was editor and chair of the editorial committee of Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility, and formerly served as director of Jewish life at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore. She is the author of several books, including The Tapestry of Jewish Time: A Spiritual Guide to Holiday and Life-Cycle Events, and Rediscovering the Jewish Holidays: Tradition in a Modern Voice. She received her ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

The first project began when the local Jewish Federation, The Associated, assembled a cross-departmental committee to examine how to green its practices and operations. The green committee, made up of lay and professional leaders and headed by Rachel Siegal, an Associated vice president at the time, started by switching the building’s conventional bulbs to compact fluorescents and moved on to eliminate plastic water bottles. When it came time for The Associated to construct a new housing-assistance building in 2010, the committee ensured that the new building would meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards, leading to the building’s LEED certification.

Click here to read the full article.

Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin is the founder of the Baltimore Jewish Environmental Network, which works to green synagogues and educate the wider Jewish community on environmental issues. Cardin was editor and chair of the editorial committee of Sh’ma: A Journal of Jewish Responsibility, and formerly served as director of Jewish life at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Baltimore. She is the author of several books, including The Tapestry of Jewish Time: A Spiritual Guide to Holiday and Life-Cycle Events, and Rediscovering the Jewish Holidays: Tradition in a Modern Voice. She received her ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

The complex relationship between energy and water promises to be one of the most significant factors in global development going forward. Freshwater supplies are endangered in general, but the equation varies greatly by region and state of development. Most uses of water in energy production result in electricity generation, typically using hydraulic turbines in dammed rivers. Energy derived from water sources varies from an almost complete reliance on hydroelectric power in many nations to relatively scanty percentages in the United States (about 6.6 percent) and Israel (less than 1 percent). Worldwide, hydroelectric sources comprise 20 percent of energy supplies.

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Dr. Christopher Vaughan is a scholar, activist and award winning journalist. As a Pulitzer Prize finalist, foreign correspondent, editor, professor and MoveOn.org organizer, he has written about energy and the environment in the context of political and economic struggle. Vaughan previously served as an associate professor and director of the journalism program at Santa Clara University and as an assistant professor of journalism and mass media at Rutgers University. A former reporter for The Associated Press, Gannett News Service and the Miami Herald, he has reported internationally from Asia, Central America and the Caribbean. Vaughan holds a doctorate in history from the University of California, Berkeley.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

Today the environment — God’s Creation, our one and only home — needs all the friends and all the help it can get. People of faith have rich traditions that should place us among Creation’s most passionate defenders. Somehow, though, despite strong statements from religious leaders and much scholarship at the intersection of religion and ecology, the message hasn’t sufficiently gotten through. So maybe some spiritual sound bites on sustainability — some Tweets on Creation care — will better reach the faithful and encourage them to curb their carbon. While the Ten Commandments are all found in one place, here are 10 Torah talking points on sustainability, two taken from each of the five books of Moses.

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Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb serves as the rabbi of Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation in Bethesda, Md., since 1997, during which time the synagogue built its U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Energy Star Award winning building, installed a 43-kilowatt solar array and planted an organic garden. In addition to serving on the governance committee of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, Dobb serves as the chairperson of Greater Washington Interfaith Power and Light and as co-chair of Religious Witness for the Earth. A co-founder of the Green Zionist Alliance and a past president of the Washington Board of Rabbis, Dobb received his doctorate from Wesley Theological Seminary.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

A Green Team is a group of people who come together at least every four to six weeks to set greening goals for their community and who work between meetings with other members of the community and external partners to implement those goals. A Green Team can be as few as four people or as many as 24, but the most effective Green Teams have these characteristics:

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Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield is associate director of community engagement at American Jewish World Service. She is also the co-founder and former director of the Jewish Greening Fellowship, an initiative of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center. Jacoby Rosenfield formerly served as director for program development and Jewish life at the Riverdale YM-YWHA, where she started an agency and community-wide greening initiative. She is a graduate of the Muehlstein Fellowship for Jewish Professional Leadership, a mentor for GreenFaith’s Certification Program for Houses of Worship, chair of the GreenFaith Initiative at Adath Israel of Riverdale, and a governance committee member of the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

Eight years ago, we set a goal to become the first national Jewish organization to receive green building certification through the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program.

The task was made a bit easier because we own our own headquarters building in New York. But transforming a 1950s office building into a modern, energy efficient structure was not a simple endeavor, and we never could have achieved LEED certification without commitment to this project from the very top levels of our agency. The project’s importance and consonance with our mission was communicated clearly and regularly to all employees, and we embraced it. In June 2011 we celebrated the awarding of LEED gold-level certification to AJC.

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Kenneth Bandler is director of media relations for the American Jewish Committee. A Jerusalem Post columnist and regular contributor to FOXNews.com, Bandler previously worked as managing editor of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and as director of public information at the National Jewish Community Relations Advisory Council, which became the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

There are two major types of solar power technologies: photovoltaic and solar thermal.

The United States has about 500 megawatts of operational solar thermal power, most of which comes from the largest single project, a 354 megawatt plant in California’s Mojave Desert. Photovoltaic power is much more widespread, mostly because it is a much more scalable technology. The total U.S. grid connected photovoltaic capacity in 2010 was 2,152.5 megawatts — more than four times the total solar thermal electric power installed — and installed photovoltaic capacity is growing at an exponential rate. Currently, solar power represents a very small portion of the total energy demands of the United States — less than half of 1 percent of the country’s energy usage — but advances in solar cell manufacturing processes and competition in the market are allowing the American solar energy sector to grow rapidly.

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The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Natural gas is a fossil fuel formed hundreds of millions of years ago out of the decaying remains of plants and algae in ancient oceans. Natural gas is found in a variety of geological formations. In the past, natural gas wells were drilled in areas where layers of impermeable rock lay above more porous, oil and gas rich sediments containing reservoirs of gas. The gas is extracted by drilling a well through the impermeable layer to release the gas below.

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Dr. Mirele Goldsmith is the director of the Jewish Greening Fellowship, an initiative of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, and principal of Green Strides Consulting. Her clients have included UJA-Federation of New York, BBYO International, the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the Supportive Housing Network of New York’s Green Housing Initiative. She is a Strategic Sustainability Consulting certified Green Auditor, and she serves on the boards of Hazon and the American Friends of the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership. Goldsmith is also the lead organizer of Jews Against Hydrofracking. She completed her doctorate in environmental psychology at the City University of New York.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy.The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

It was my love of the environment and dedication to living life as an observant Jew that led me to start the Green Committee at Ohev Sholom: The National Synagogue in Washington, D.C. From modest beginnings, after just a few years, we already have made a big impact. This year, our synagogue became the first in the country to be recognized for energy efficiency with Energy Star certification from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

We started out small, with a group of a few congregants meeting on a monthly basis. In 2008, we implemented a recycling program to collect paper from staff offices, and bottles and cans from our weekly Shabbat lunch. Children helped gather and sort the recyclables.

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Jen Singer is founder and chair of the Green Committee at Washington’s Ohev Sholom: The National Synagogue. She works as an environmental consultant and she completed her master’s in urban and environmental policy and planning at Tufts University.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Summary: Most people spend the vast majority of their time in offices. Author of the book Mekor Hayyim: A Source Book on Water and Judaism, Rabbi Lawrence Troster provides a guide for making physical workspaces green in this article.

Holiness can be created anywhere; it is not confined to the synagogue or home. In Judaism’s holistic approach to life, the exercise of making a livelihood is critical — the presence of God also should be felt in the way we conduct our business. There is a considerable classical and modern literature on Jewish business ethics, and now that area of ethics should include environmentalism. In Jewish environmental ethics, one of the most important ways of expressingkedusha — holiness — is through the greening of physical space, wherever it may be.

Since modern offices are where many people spend a great deal of their daily lives and must be considered part of local ecosystems, they also should reflect the Jewish environmental value of the preservation of Creation.

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Rabbi Lawrence Troster is the rabbinic director at J Street. An eco-theologian and environmental activist for more than 25 years, he previously worked as a rabbinic scholar-in-residence at GreenFaith, as a rabbinic adviser at Hazon, and as a rabbinic fellow at the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life. Author of the book, Mekor Hayyim: A Source Book on Water and Judaism, Troster also co-chaired the U.N. Environment Programme’s Interfaith Partnership for the Environment.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

While the wealthiest individuals, corporations, and nations use far more than their share of our natural resources, the poorest individuals and nations will pay the price in lives, healthcare costs and a decline in their standards of living.

On a local level, low-income communities in the United States already suffer physically and financially from smaller scale environmental decisions. For example, substandard housing stock and the nearby placement of waste transfer stations, bus depots, factories and power plants all contribute to high levels of asthma among low-income children. Asthma, in turn, leads to missed days of school, missed work for parents, high medical bills — and, in some cases, death. And hazardous waste plants, chemical-producing factories and mountaintop removal mining practices all lead to high levels of cancer and other diseases in low-income communities.

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Rabbi Jill Jacobs is the executive director of T’ruah (formerly Rabbis for Human Rights-North America). She has been named to The Forward’s list of 50 influential American Jews and to Newsweek’s list of the 50 most influential rabbis in America. Jacobs is the author of two books: Where Justice Dwells: A Hands-On Guide to Doing Social Justice in Your Jewish Community, and There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition. She received her ordination at the Jewish Theological Seminary.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL's Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology's Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy. The Guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

In the last 20 years, I’ve watched the religious environmental movement grow from nothing — less than nothing, really. Twenty years ago, liberal religious communities thought of the environment as something to get to once poverty and war had been defeated, and many conservative faith groups viewed it as suspiciously pagan.

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Bill McKibben is the author of numerous books about the environment, beginning with The End of Nature in 1989, which is regarded as the first book for a general audience on climate change. He is a founder of the grassroots climate campaign 350.org, which has coordinated 15,000 rallies in 189 countries since 2009. Time magazine called him “the planet’s best green journalist” and the Boston Globe said in 2010 that he was “probably the country’s most important environmentalist.” Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, McKibben holds honorary degrees from a dozen colleges. In 2011 he was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy.The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.

The Jewish Greening Fellowship was designed, implemented and directed by [Rachel] Jacoby Rosenfield. A key decision was made to provide funding directly to each agency to defray the expense of the staff time devoted to the fellowship. By supporting the salary of the fellow, the fellowship was able to insist that every fellow spend four to six hours per week on greening activities. Agencies in the fellowship also could apply for additional matching funds to help them meet the requirements of the fellowship. All together, agencies received between $15,000 and $20,000 each.

Participating agencies were expected to set goals to be accomplished during the period of the fellowship. Although there was plenty of room for the agencies to tailor the goals to their own situations, expectations were high. Every agency was required to complete an energy audit. Each agency also set goals in seven required categories: implement facility energy efficiency upgrades, improve sustainable operations, create educational programming, inspire cultural and behavioral change, facilitate youth involvement, heighten community engagement, and build community partnerships.

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Dr. Mirele Goldsmith is the director of the Jewish Greening Fellowship, an initiative of the Isabella Freedman Jewish Retreat Center, and principal of Green Strides Consulting. Her clients have included UJA-Federation of New York, BBYO International, the Foundation for Jewish Camp and the Supportive Housing Network of New York’s Green Housing Initiative. She is a Strategic Sustainability Consulting-certified Green Auditor, and she serves on the boards of Hazon and the American Friends of the Heschel Center for Environmental Learning and Leadership. Goldsmith is also the lead organizer of Jews Against Hydrofracking. She completed her doctorate in environmental psychology at the City University of New York.

The Jewish Energy Guide presents a comprehensive Jewish approach to the challenges of energy security and climate change and offers a blueprint for the Jewish community to achieve a 14% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by September of 2014, which is the next Shmittah, or sabbatical, year in the Jewish calendar.

The Jewish Energy Guide is part of COEJL’s Jewish Energy Network, a collaborative effort with Jewcology’s Year of Action to engage Jews in energy action and advocacy.The guide was created in partnership with the Green Zionist Alliance.

Sign up here to join the Jewish Energy Network and receive weekly articles from the Jewish Energy Guide.