Promoting "Green" Energy Production

Linda B. Rimer, Environmental Stewardship Committee Chair

The Environmental Stewardship Committee has been honored to have had articles published in Cross Roads for several months now. Our goals for these articles have been threefold: (1) to raise the awareness of parishioners about issues related to our environment, God's creation, (2) to explore the theological basis for ecological concern and action, and (3) to provide suggestions on what each parishioner can do today to be a better steward of God's creation.

This month we are writing to inform you of a program in which each of you can easily participate and demonstrate your commitment to environmental stewardship. This program is amazing! It will help to protect air and water quality, habitats, and the creatures who live in those habitats, while also helping to protect our climate in a meaningful way.

What one program has the potential to do all this? It's called "NC Green Power," a landmark initiative that is the first statewide green energy program in the nation supported by all the state's utilities. The goal of NC Green Power is to supplement the state's existing power supply with "green energy" - that is, electricity that is generated from renewable resources, for example - the sun, wind, water, landfill methane gas, and organic matter such as agricultural waste.

Today, every time you turn on a light, computer, or any electricity-dependent device, or drive your car or truck, you are using energy. And until NC Green Power came on line, practically all of that power came from the burning of fossil fuels: coal, oil, or natural gas. The burning of these fuels creates air pollution and greenhouse gases that cause health problems for people and environmental problems for the planet. Examples include:

• sulfur dioxide (acid precipitation that harms trees and surface water)
• nitrous oxide (combines with volatile compounds in the presence of sunlight to create ozone, a serious and escalating factor associated with lung disease)
• carbon dioxide (contributes to rising temperatures and global climate change).

Additionally, the extraction and processing of fossil fuels result in discharges of water pollutants and generation of solid wastes.

To participate in NC Green Power, energy consumers (you and I), can contribute a minimum of $4.00/month in addition to our usual electricity bill. This $4 adds one block of 100 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy to North Carolina's power supply.

If you have seen the "invitations" in your recent electric bills and already subscribe to NC Green Power, our environment is already better! Your actions are protecting our air, water, and climate while helping to ensure our energy security.

But if you haven't yet subscribed because you just can't see how your subscription could make a difference, consider the evidence. The NC Green Power website uses the "environmental equivalent" of "trees planted" and "days not driven" to translate the benefits of using energy generated from renewable sources as contrasted with energy generated from the burning of fossil fuels. Using this metric, if every pledge unit at the Chapel of the Cross subscribed to NC Green Power, it would be the equivalent of planting 233,000 trees monthly, or 2,7966,000 trees annually, or 1,379,400 days not driven by your automobile in a year! (extrapolated from numbers found at: www.ncgreenpower.org/media/newsletter_summer2004.html).

Your individual action does make a difference! And because the organization administering the program, Advanced Energy, is a 501(c) 3 tax-exempt nonprofit organization, your donation is tax deductible. Go to: www.ncgreenpower.org/ to learn more and to join today. Alternatively, you can use the form provided in your monthly electric bill.

God created the Earth and declared it good. Supporting the generation and use of renewable energy is one way to demonstrate our stewardship of God's creation.