Earthcare Report

 

Here are a few notes from Yearly Meeting for those who weren't there.  For others who were there, if I missed anything, please add it.

1.  A collection box for donations  for offseting carbon impact of travel brought in $30.42 for the Scattergood sustainability fund.  This is enough to offset about 7500 miles of driving or 5000 pounds of CO2 (depending on how Scattergood uses the money).

2.  Don Laughlin made a very nice display on a bulletin board in the hallway on the way to the dining room.  Thanks, Don!

3. We took an unscientific survey to compare Iowa Quakers views to the general US public.
    Question 1:  How high a priority does the government place on addressing climate change? Answers (on scale of 0 to 10): US average- 3.84, IYMC Quakers- 3.79, UK average- 5.92
    Question 2: How much priority do you think the government should place on addressing climate change?  US average- 4.71, IYMC Quakers- 9.06, UK average- 8.2
    Question 3: How much do you think you need to change your lifestyle to mitigate climate change?  IYMC Quakers- 6.65
    Friends were also asked where they got most of their information on climate change.  The most popular answers were a wide variety of online sources.  Newspapers, public radio and TV got quite a few mentions, as did several environmental organizations.  Commercial TV and radio got almost zero mention.

4. We had a good meeting Friday afternoon for anyone interested in earthcare.  Some ideas that came from that:
    -expand the carbon offsetting program with proceeds going to Scattergood.  Each Monthly Meeting should have a coordinator.
    -a possible major project the Earthcare Subcommittee could work on is raising funds and plan for building a new "green" farmhouse and food processing facility for the Scattergood farm.
    -This listserve may not be the best way for us to communicate.  We might consider a social networking tool such as "Ning".
    -Next year we should start plans sooner for a carbon neutral yearly meeting. (and maybe mid-year meeting?)

5.  We showed "The Power of Community", a movie about how Cuba dealt with a "peak oil" like situation when support from the Soviet Union evaporated.  It was very well received.

6.  The Yearly meeting endorsed the statement on climate change from Britain Yearly Meeting.  See:  http://www.quaker.org.uk/environment


1st response:

GOOD REPORT, KEN,  THANKS FOR THE ANALYSIS.

        I'm a little unclear on how to interpret the data.  Questions 2 and 3 show that IMYC Quakers expect the government to do a great deal more for addressing climate change than they are willing to do themselves.  And I think this is born out  by the  fact that so few payed any attention to the sheet, available for the taking, concerning the UCS recommendations of greener ways to travel.  I think I printed out six copies and there were some left.   Not much active interest there.

        If the seeds we are trying to plant are that climate change is real and preserving the globe, more or less as is, should be a Quaker spiritual value, then I'm afraid they have fallen on rocky ground.


2nd response:

Hello Everyone,

I appreciate your concern regarding IYM members looking at the board display. I have two main responses to this and to the disparity between our survey question #3: 1) people did not notice the display & being forgetful or not placing high enough priority on the topic to respond to the few announcements made about it, they simply did not visit it 2) people in general are putting off learning more about our GHG predicament as long as they are able. We're going through a period of willful ignorance that I think precedes communal change. Our role is to speed up the time of the "tipping point" at which a very noticeable number of Friends are making significant changes and what we now perceive to be sacrifices. I think Monthly Meetings are ready and at our meeting, we began to touch upon some important initiatives to bring people along.

I think one thing our survey reveals is that there are many who do not/choose not to recognize the urgency of our GHG predicament. Many do, but feel unable to change.

I want to go through the IYM QEW Meeting Summary (which you laid out very nicely, Ken - Thanks). Before we go too much further in our work, I want us to work on the NING thing. I tried accessing iymc_earthcare@yahoogroups.com and could not sign up for it. QEW at yahoogroups hasn't been accessed in several years and NYM had 2 postings in 2009. Perhaps we need to educate one another on the committee on how to use NING and get it going before we do much more work.

For some reason the idea of working through our Monthly Meetings resonates strongly resonates with me. I'd like to back up a step and clarify/identify two main things I'd welcome:

·      what do we want to accomplish?

·      What are the key things we would need to accomplish what we want?

Instead of sharing thoughts at this