NOT the Usual Suspects

Now for some good news. Real people in real places are getting excited about saving our beautiful planet. The usual suspects? Hardly! Fifteen hundred inner city kids in Louisville, Kentucky, are so excited about being environmentally responsible that they're inspiring grownups in the city's utility companies. "The Seed Lady", Anna Marie Carter, from L.A.'s Watts neighborhood was honored alongside Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Dr. Wangari Maathai* at Los Angeles' Ward A.M.E. (African Methodist Episcopal) church in the heart of Los Angeles recently. "Black Is Green" came to life in inner city Los Angeles (!!) - where the city cooperated by closing streets for the event - in an inaugural "Ecological Justice Day of Awakening".

What's happening here?

Both initiatives were sparked by a very old idea, updated with its face turned to the future: "A New Eden". A Green Civilization. It's a splendidly contagious idea that's about as distant as I can imagine from the plague of whites-only, corporate green-wash that soured too many of my Earth Day events.

What's being born is, as environmentalist Paul Hawken insists, a planet where everybody counts, where we have genuine dialogue and individuals are taking the lead, where we learn from people who may be poor and disadvantaged but have learned from it and have a lot to teach us. A planet where we act as well as advocate, listen as well as talk. That includes listening to the kids who are going to have to live with the messes we've created, especially those hardest hit by the injustices that inevitably come along with environmental degradation.

Both in Louisville and in L.A., the spark for what's happening came from Trustees of the Interdenominational Theological Center (ITC) in Atlanta, on whose Board I also serve. Yes, it was a life-time high for me when our Board embraced - unanimously - the idea that our institution must take a genuine leadership role in creating a New Eden. The ITC calls it "TheoEcology"(sm). Our strategic goals now conclude with this injunction for the institution:

"To be the living embodiment, spiritually and physically, of TheoEcology for the world, healing humanity's prime estrangement, our divorce from nature."

We're talking churches here, perhaps even liberation theology!

The genuine satisfaction I feel watching these big ideas begin to take root at The ITC has a serious rival -- my joy in learning how individual Board Members themselves are putting these ideas to work! In addition to many of them urging their churches and denominations toward a New Eden enlivened by "TheoEcology", individuals have installed new HVAC systems in their homes. They're getting serious about car-pooling and recycling programs. Driving more fuel-efficient cars. Church administrators are looking hard at giving primacy to community gardens instead of parking lots.

In Louisville, "TheoEcology" is now part of Project One's ongoing work with kids who have one thing in common - a challenging environment in which to grow up. For more than 20 years, Project One's been helping youngsters get the skills they need to make a successful transition into adulthood. Surely that includes environmental issues at every turn, and these kids are leading the way, from their home turf.

In Los Angeles, the church joined with public and private corporations and a host of other community partners , "to advocate ideas to preserve our most vital natural resources," bringing awareness to the African American Community of ways to become ecologically active. They focused on energy conservation, recycling, tree planting, public forums, lots of booths, interactive and ecology-friendly arts and crafts for kids in an eco-village, a youth and teens eco-street fair and a farmers' market for everyone.

So what have I done lately to get us a little closer to a New Eden? I cancelled my airplane reservation, taking Amtrak between D.C. and Atlanta instead of flying. Trains are the single most energy-efficient way to travel, they create the least possible greenhouse gas, and they are the most FUN! Though we're a long way from a firm definition, it's very likely that FUN is a requirement for a New Eden ... that and doing and seeing things differently.

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You will find Paul Hawken among our Leading Edge Guests on "The Paula Gordon Show", at our website where you can listen to our Show with him.

Learn more about The ITC's "TheoEcology" at its website .

Project One in Louisville, KY was founded by ITC Trustee and alumnus, Dr. Charles King of the Christian Methodist Episcopal (CME) church, Project One's Executive Director.

The historic Ward African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in Los Angeles hosted the exceptional environmental outreach project in L.A. . It was sponsored by the Women's Global Resource and Development Initiative, Inc. (W.G.R.D.I., Inc), whose executive director , Dr. Cecilia Williams Bryant is married to my ITC Trustee colleague, Bishop John Richard Bryant, soon to be the AME church's Senior Bishop.

Learn how Dr. Wangari Maathai's Kenya-based Green Belt Movement has people at the grassroots working together at their website .

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Comments

[davidpeace]

"Trains are the single most energy-efficient way to travel"

Actually bicycles are. But they are probably a bit impractical to use when one needs to get to a meeting several hundred miles away, and then get back for another meeting, and then...

[altohone]

Don't know about Louisville, but LA could really use a few solar powered desalination plants.

Planting trees in LA sounds nice, but if they're watering them with water from northern California they're helping kill off our salmon.
The green thing to do until they find a sustainable source of water may be to have less greening.