Editorial

Welcoming Trevor Houser

St Columba’s is excited to welcome Trevor Houser as our Iona guest lecturer on Sunday September 20 at 1 pm.

A camping trip a few months ago in the National Park, led Trevor to search for an Episcopal church nearby, and he found and attended St. Columba’s. He was delighted to find a community and a Vicar with commitment to ecological ministry and a focus on climate change. We, in turn were delighted to find that his own career as a climate and energy policy analyst could give us a deeper understanding of environmental and climate issues around the globe. In his talk “Contemplating Climate Change” he will help us deal with the issues of despair and hope, both from a scientific and faith-based perspective.

In my recent interview he described a childhood in Wyoming, exploring the great outdoors as foundational to his environmental consciousness. As a young man he gravitated to the big city and studied International Economics at City College of New York. A tip from an advisor that he should study Chinese as China was where the focus would be, led him to a six- month internship at the US Embassy in Beijing, China. There he focused on the air pollution and its impact on human health. The US Embassy installed an air quality monitor on its roof and published the daily results, which led to diplomatic tensions with the Chinese government!

Large domestic protests were also causing the Chinese government to recognize its need to change its policies and practices in the mid 2000s. When Trevor returned to complete his studies his career goal was to help the US understand China’s economy and policies. In 2008 he co-founded the research group Rhodium where he is a Partner. Rhodium has a division which studies China. Trevor leads its Energy and Climate practice group with an interdisciplinary research team which analyses the effects of policy and market developments on greenhouse gas emissions and energy systems and provides actionable information for both public and private sectors. He also co-directs the Climate Impact Lab with several university partners including UC Berkeley, which addresses the question of what matters most for reducing emissions at state, national and international levels. They provide probabilistic projections for climate trends, including temperature rise, through the end of the century.

In 2009 Trevor temporarily left Rhodium to join the State Department as a Senior Advisor during the Obama Administration. He worked on international energy and environmental policy issues. US efforts with China which began during those years, led finally to the countries joint signing of the Paris Agreement at COP21.

The latest research from his team concerns Data Center power options using a new analytical framework to score how much an investment speeds up or slows down the climate energy transition.

We look forward to hearing his thoughts about where we are in terms of climate change and how our faith gives us perspective on the urgent long, slow work, not just for adaptation to climate change, but for reducing emissions in decades to come.

Pease join us on September 20 at 1pm. Learn more here.


-Penny Washbourn, Council for Ecological Discipleship

Tomatoes for Education

While visiting Hawaii last April, I attended the Sunday liturgy at St. John’s Episcopal Church on the island of Kauai. Following the liturgy in speaking with Rev. Kerry Holder Joffrion, I learned that the parish operates a tomato-growing ministry using regenerative farming practices. This ministry provides a large portion of its operating costs, including a program that provides funding for college fees to underprivileged children within the parish.

Over the next two hours, I helped clean tomatoes with a clean cloth and olive oil. The 

two girls in this photo were my teachers and coached me on the cleaning and bagging process. We bagged the tomatoes in zip-lock bags, and these are sold at the farmer’s market. 

Rev. Kerry told me that their program provided most of the tomatoes for the entire island. You may wonder how we were cleaning tomatoes in April; well, due to the warm weather on the island, tomatoes grow year-round. However, this year the winter and spring were among the wettest periods in many years. This posed a serious problem of mold and mildew on the tomato plants, and this led to parishioners rapidly picking the spring crop until midnight and 1:00 a.m. 

We have plans to visit Kauai next spring, and I hope to learn more about this ministry, hopefully visiting the tomato fields and learning more about how this program operates.

-Steve Lyman, Member of the Council for Ecological Discipleship

The Episcopal Church’s Love God, Love God’s World Curriculum Makes an Impact

As described in our last issue, St. Columba’s Council for Ecological Discipleship (CED) has since February 2026 been hosting two small online group discussions of the readings and videos of the course on Creation Care, Environmental Stewardship and Justice. This nine-month course, covers such topics as: “What is God’s Dream? Water our Baptismal Covenant; An Indigenous Perspective on Living in Right Relationship with Land, Covenant and Creator; How did we get here? Humanity’s role; Environmental Health and our Health; Grief and Repentance and Reckoning; Lives in Peril, Extreme Weather Conditions; Communities Organizing for Change; Resilience along the Way of Love.”

Comments from among the 17 participants from this point along on this journey include:

“Difficult though some of the film material is, I have appreciated the resources offered for reflection. It is also good to connect with others who share this passion of and for the earth.”

“The curriculum offers different and fresh perspectives.”

This course is “heartening to do in community. Somehow, I always feel uplifted afterwards.”

“I have participated in Love God, Love God's World from its very beginning, and I am very grateful that I did. As president of an international environmental education organization that develops curriculum and learning experiences for students around the world, I came to the program with decades of engagement in environmental issues through daily news, books, films, and educational resources. I did not expect to be as inspired—or to learn as much—as I have. The quality and depth of the videos, written materials, suggested activities, and thoughtful group discussions are exceptional. Perhaps the highest compliment I can offer is this: the wisdom I have gained here is already shaping the curriculum and learning experiences we are creating for students around the world. That is a testament to the depth, integrity, and practical value of this extraordinary offering.”

IN THE NEWS

In this section, we highlight one organization that is contributing to the health of the planet

Our choice for this issue is an online newsletter about climate progress from around the world which gives you much to hope for and an opportunity to advocate for climate policies and legislation in the US at the national and state levels. 

With climate quizzes and points you earn there is an element of fun and practical benefit of trees planted to reward your advocacy. They can even help non-profits who are committed to climate action put a program together to engage their members in this work.

One of the inspiring stories highlighted in their issues comes from Kenya from EarthLungs Reforestation Foundation — Kenya’s largest tree-growing organization, operating under contract with the Kenya Forest Service to restore 5.1 million hectares of degraded land as part of Kenya’s Nationally Determined Commitment under the Paris Agreement.

• 57M+Trees planted across Kenya
• 90–92% Tree survival rate
• 1,800+ Local community members employed
• Not all tree planting is equal. Theirs is different.

The market is full of tree-planting programs that look good on a website and deliver little in the ground. Trees planted without community buy-in fail to survive. Projects chosen for cost rather than ecosystem value miss the climate impact entirely. Greenwashing is real. How is this approach different?

Every tree is tracked with Veritree: geolocated by drone, photographed regularly, and monitored with AI and bioacoustic sensors that record returning wildlife as the forest recovers. EarthLungs stays on site for a minimum of five years per location. When a supporter spends $1, something real happens — something you can report on, point to, and be proud of. Learn more about our program.