I Have a New Job!

Interfaith Power and Light is a national faith-based organization that promotes action on global warming among congregations. It was founded by a Episcopal priest. Hoosier Interfaith Power and Light, or H-IPL (rhymes with “ripple,” which has creative potential), is the Indiana state affiliate. H-IPL has, in turn, its own developing affiliates all over the state—strong […]

Attitudes and Behaviors

          The natural world doesn’t care what humansthink. But it responds forcefully to what we actuallydo. Climate change was no threat for the first million years of human existence, not because we paid more attention then to the atmosphere’s carbon level, but because we hadn’t discovered fossil fuels and their energy […]

The Help of Doubters

Sleet and snow all day yesterday. By mid-morning, every twig of every tree was a crystal shaft. It’s an enforced Sabbath. No lamps are lit today—the sunlight, unobstructed by foliage, refracts from the snow into every window. Bread is rising over the woodstove. I’m thinking of mixing pesto from last summer’s basil and garlic.           […]

Checking the Math

5 pounds of coal– two hours of electricity per person I wanted to make a table display, an un-powerpoint visual to take when I’m speaking, a reminder that what flows invisibly from the wall as electricity begins as burning rocks. I recalled that the basement of an old house where I once lived in Georgia […]

How Inhabiting Eden Came To Be

Soon after college, I wanted to build an earth-sheltered house with skills I didn’t possess, on land I didn’t own, in a place I’d never lived. Having been surprised to learn that Campbell’s had not actually invented soup, I would research prices at the grocery, and write little essays on the economics, and the joys, […]