North Parish Green Sanctuary

The Andover UU congregation will be hosting a screening of No Impact Man on Saturday, May 15 at 7 PM.

Here’s their announcement.

Come see the movie No Impact Man, it’s a true story:

Colin Beavan decides to completely eliminate his personal impact on the environment for the next year. It means eating vegetarian, buying only local food, and turning off the refrigerator. It also means no elevators, no television, no cars, busses, or airplanes, no toxic cleaning products, no electricity, no material consumption, and no garbage.

No problem – at least for Colin – but he and his family live in Manhattan. So when his espresso guzzling, retail-worshipping wife Michelle and their twoyear-old daughter are dragged into the fray, the No Impact Project has anunforeseen impact of its own.

Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein’s film provides an intriguing inside look into the experiment that became a national fascination and media sensation, while examining the familial strains and strengthened bonds that result from Colin and Michelle’s struggle with their radical lifestyle change.

Bring a friend, beach chair to sit on, and something to drink. We will provide the movie and popcorn.

The UU Congregation of Andover is at 6 Locke Street in Andover

As I mentioned in my last post, more than 74 people pledged to take at least one action for the next 40 days as part of the 40/40/40 campaign. While riding the train to work this morning I had a chance to read the pledge slips that people signed. What a great way to start the day!

It would be impossible to name a favorite (and take up way too much space to list all 74) but here are some that I really loved:

• One whole family has committed “No fast food” for 40 days
• We have 12 pledges for no disposable paper towels or napkins, and several more for no disposable cups
• “I won’t buy anything that I won’t use for 10 years”
• Several people have sworn off bottled water, and a few more have pledged to stay out of the drive-up window lane.
• Quite a few people committed some variation of turning off the computer and unplugging chargers when not in use
• “Picking up litter” and “Cleaning the streets”
• One more person committed not to get in their car until they can run 3 errands together
• We had a lot of interest in composting including the pledge to “turn my food into dirt.” All this interest in composting has Captain Planet thinking about conducting a composting workshop – stay tuned.

If you’ve made a pledge - send us your comments on how it’s going. If you haven’t pledged an action yet, it’s not too late! You can post a comment here to the blog, or send us an email at northparishgreen@comcast.net

This Thursday, April 22 the world celebrates the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day - a day to express our love for the earth and earth justice. This past Sunday, North Parish joined hundreds of Unitarian Universalist congregations in putting our faith into action as part of the 40/40/40 campaignn.

Our goal was to get 40 people to pledge to do one thing that’s good for the earth for 40 days in celebration of the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. We reached almost twice our goal – we had 74 people sign up! Some of the pledges were for entire households, so we have more than 80 people committed to 40 days of earth-friendly activity.

As a warm-up exercise, people gave themselves and each other gold stars for being earth day heroes for the things that they already do, like bike to work, recycling, turning down the thermostat, etc. If you missed us on Sunday it’s not too late to get some of those stars on your name tag by doing something good for the earth and joining us in 40/40/40. To do so, just email us at northparishgreen@comcast.net

If you need ideas, here’s the list that we put in the order of service. Don’t forget – we’re not asking you to do everything on the list, just one thing that you don’t already do. You can also read about what others in the congregation have already pledges to do. We’ll celebrate our success on May 23, so join the party!

It’s officially spring. Even here in New England, the seeds are in the ground (we planted kale and spinach last week!) As the growing season starts, its a good time to think about local food options. The number of CSA’s, farm stands, and farmers’ markets in our area is growing rapidly. We’ve put together some information to make it easy to find the option that works for you. Continue reading »

We are set to start another Low Carbon Diet Class- a step by step approach to lowering your carbon footprint. The class is three sessions; Tuesdays, February 23, March 9,  March 23 at 7-9 p.m. at North Parish. Please contact us at northparishgreen@comcast.net for more information and to sign up for these sessions.

What is FREE, saves you money, and is good for the planet? A home energy audit! If you haven’t had a home energy audit in the past twelve months, and your primary source of heat is electricity or natural gas, you qualify for a free home energy audit. In addition to identifying ways to save energy (and money) the auditor can explain rebates and other incentives available to pay for identified energy improvements, and calculate the payback period. Some of these rebates are substantial.

The Green Sanctuary team asks that if you try to tackle just one environmentally friendly task this month, that you consider calling for a home energy audit. Bay State Gas customers (gas heat) call 800-323-0120. National Grid customers (electric heat) call 866-527-7283.

The Green Sanctuary team is starting up another Low Carbon Diet series.

This four session program will help you Lose 5,000 Pounds! This fun, accessible, easy to follow program guide will show you, step-by-step, how to dramatically reduce your CO2 output in just a few week’s time. By making simple changes to actions you take every day, you’ll learn how to reduce your annual household CO2 output by at least 15%. And, for those who are more ambitious, you’ll discover how you can help your workplace, local schools, and community do the same.

We are still deciding on the best time to meet, but will starting up within the next few weeks.  If you are interested please contact us at northparishgreen@comcast.net

Does all this Green Sanctuary stuff just sound too overwhelming? Like you’re being asked to change too much too fast? Or that if you really think it through it will just be too depressing? Relax. It’s normal. We all feel that way sometimes. And most of us know from previous experiences changing habits, be it exercise, diet, or whatever, that trying to change too much too fast often leads to short-lived resolve and then a quick return to the old habits. With that in mind, the Green Sanctuary Team will be providing information and resources on a different theme each month. Each month, we’ll try to make it simple to think about taking one action, or changing one behavior, or thinking through one issue. We’ll try to provide options – we know that the same ideas won’t resonate with everyone, or be practical for everyone. Whether you’re an apartment dweller or homeowner, meat lover or vegetarian, young or old, love the outdoors or have allergies and love to be toasty warm – hopefully you’ll find something worth thinking about.

In February - often our coldest month - we’ll be encouraging people to think about home energy efficiency. In March, we’ll be providing information about making conscious food choices, in April we’ll be focusing on gardening activities at North Parish, and in May we’ll be talking about household cleaning things like laundry, cleaning, dishwashing, etc.

So relax. Take it one step at a time. We’ll try give you options and information to make it easy to be green.

Three North Parish households got together in October for the Low Carbon Diet, with the challenge to lose 5,000 lbs each – of CO2 emissions.

All three households probably would have said that we had done most of the things that we should to cut our energy use. We were better than the average U.S. household, which produces 54,600 pounds of CO2 per year.

The average for our three households was about 38,000 pounds. Good by American standards, but still wasteful in comparison to our global neighbors. The average German household only produces 27,700 pounds; Sweden 14,600; Mexico 10,600; and Kenya just 400.

So how did we do? We actually exceeded our goal. Actions already taken by the group will result in the reduction of our collective carbon footprint by 16,120 pounds per year, and actions planned by group members will save another 3,500 pounds. That’s the equivalent of completely eliminating the emissions of one and a half cars based on US averages. Continue reading »

We’ll be showing the movie Kilowatt Ours again on January at 3 pm in the Parish Hall. We will also have a representative on hand from National Grid to talk about energy saving ideas and free energy audits, plus we will be taking sign-ups for our next Low Carbon Diet group.

“Kilowatt Ours will make you think, then act. This award winning film traces where our energy comes from and shows us the consequences of unbridled and unwise energy consumption.  Jarred by Vice President Dick Cheney’s chilling assessment in May 2001 that “between 1300 and 1900 new power plants would need to be built over the next decade just to maintain our current energy consumption,” filmmaker Jeff Barrie set out to assess the problem himself.  He wanted to find alternative solutions to a massive build up of coal fired and nuclear power plants. His journey across the country uncovered a host of opportunities to reduce our energy usage and to use renewable energy instead of fossil fuel sources… to the point where new power plants are no longer needed to be built, and, in fact,  some existing “dirty” power plants can now be taken off line. This is truly an energy revolution taking place. “