This is a brief resource list which grows from the July 2006 “Earthkeeping Sunday” celebrated by Franconia Mennonite Church, which included conversation about “Earthkeeping Ministries: What Can the Church Do?” with Dr. Job Ebenezer, retired Professor of Engineering from Messiah College.

Faith-Based Resources
Resources on Earthkeeping and Energy issues from a faith perspective

• Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Washington Office
  washington.mcc.org/issues/environment – resources on Environmental Justice.
• NCC EcoJustice (Ecumenical)
• webofcreation.org (Lutheran)
• creationcare.org (Evangelical Environmental Network)

Earthkeeping Stewardship
Here are some ideas for a start …
Home and Church

• Reduce consumption by 10%
• Replace conventional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent lamps which are much more energy efficient and longer-lasting.
• Turn off lights when they are not needed.
• Purchase efficient “Energy Star” appliances
• Get 10% of your electricity from renewable energy sources (such as wind-generated – it’s easy to do if your power comes thorough PPL, PECO or other Pennsylvania power companies; see www.ppjr.org/power for details.)
• Reduce paper consumption by 10%
• Convert 10% of your lawn to vegetable garden
• Reduce water useage by 10%
• Volunteer 10% of your time for social service agencies and/or environmental organizations.

For Congregations
Worship and Education:

• Explore Biblical understanding of earthkeeping
• Bulletin inserts for Earthkeeping Sunday

Congregational Supported Agriculture (CSA):

• Create a vegetable garden on church grounds to provide healthy fruits and vegetables for soup kitchens.
• Create and maintain urban gardens with sister churches in inner cities.
• Create micro-enterprises that promote earthkeeping for single women, parolees, and immigrants.

Missionary Earthkeeping

Support adoption of simple technologies to improve health for the earth’s poorest people, such as enclosed wells and small pumps and solar water pasteurizers for clean drinking water; solar composting latrines. Bicycles can be adapted to use pedal-power for labor-intensive jobs such as threshing, pumping water, or sawing lumber.

For more on urban gardening, see www.arts4all.com/elca/.

Renewable Electric Power
Most homeowners and churches in Pennsylvania can easily switch to electric power generated from renewable resources, such as wind-power — and there’s nothing to install and no need to switch power companies. See www.ppjr.org/power for the details.

Vehicle Technology

• Energy Balance
  Comparative study of Ethanol, Biodiesel, Petroleum
  by the Minnesota Dept. Agriculture
• Energy Consumption and Carbon Dioxide Emissions (U.S. Department of Energy).

Hybrid Vehicles

• hybrid technology overview (Wikipedia)
• Hybrid Cars (Business Week)
• www.hybridcars.com

Biodiesel

• “The Benefits of Biodiesel” from Co-op America, July-August 2006 issue of “Real Money.”
• www.biodiesel.org

Ethanol

• Ethanol – renewable fuel for cars (Wikipedia)
• Ethanol – myths and realities. (Business Week: May 19, 2006)
• Brazil’s Flex-fuel program — ethanol and gasoline.

Electric Vehicles

• Overview of electric cars. (whyfiles.org)
• PBS “NOW” on Electric Vehicles (June 9, 2006).
  (www.pbs.org/now/) [Transcript].
• Documentary Film “Who Killed the Electric Car?” produced by Chris Paine in 2006 (90 min.)

Fuel Cell

• Fuel Cell overview.
• September 2006 issue of Scientific American includes a review of fuel cell technology.
• Hydrogen Vehicle [Wikipedia]

Climate Change

• www.ClimateAction.org (Co-Op America)
• The documentary film “An Inconvenient Truth” on causes and consequences of global climate change includes suggestions for action. See review for more details.
• other links

Other Resources