|
|
|
KAIROS CALL TO ACTION
Volume 6, Issue 3
March 2025
| | |
Kairos Call to Action - The Urgency of NOW! | |
|
By John Helt, Co-Chair, Wisconsin Conference Creation Care Team
As we have reached the halfway mark of the Kairos Call to Action decade (2020-2030), it’s time to “turn up the heat” on our efforts to “turn down the heat” of global warming! Our Conference Creation Care Team begins with these three challenges:
First, we have asked Wisconsin creation caregivers to gather on the west side of the state (Tomah last fall) and now east (Fond du Lac, March 15). We are asking for feedback and futuring: what has been helpful over the last five years, and what is needed for the next? How can we strengthen our witness as churches in the fight against climate change, especially in light of the withdrawal of national political leadership and attempts to undo recent progress? How would you like to help in local and conference-wide efforts toward sustainability?
Second, we ask for more ambitious projects as you apply for a Kairos incentive grant this year. How can we work together with other community groups to achieve “collective impact?”
Third, we asked our Conference Minister, Rev. Franz Rigert, to update the brief video he made for us when the Kairos Call to Action was put in front of our churches five years ago in the midst of the Covid pandemic. Please take a look at it here,, and find ways to use it during worship and other gatherings of your congregation in the weeks and months ahead. Thanks for your leadership, Franz!
When the Conference approved the Kairos Call to Action in 2000, we voted to embrace what Martin Luther King, Jr. called “the fierce urgency of now.” Five years down this road to more responsible stewardship of the earth, the “urgency” of our “now” has only grown more “fierce.” This is the time to act, not only for the sake of where our planet and its people will be in 2030, but for the decades to come!
| |
Kairos Call to Action Creation Care Grants: Apply for Your Church Today! | |
|
The Wisconsin Conference Creation Care Team has helped 31 congregations in 25 communities with 40 different Kairos Call to Action grants for incentive and assistance in local sustainability efforts since 2020.
These Kairos Call To Action Creation Care Grants have helped our congregations…
- remove invasive species and high maintenance lawns,
- plant native flowers and grasses for biodiversity, wildlife benefits and stormwater treatment,
- install solar panels for clean energy,
- develop worship services and hold special creation care events,
- purchase energy-efficient appliances,
- update lighting and heating systems,
- expand recycling options for the community, and
- raise local awareness of the urgent need to protect our earthly home.
These projects reflect significant changes for their congregations and the communities in which they witness, and we celebrate them. Now that we have reached the midpoint of the Kairos Call to Action decade, and given that our national political leadership has turned away from responsible environmental stewardship, we want to encourage our congregations to consider ever more serious projects that will “make a difference” and “turn up the heat on turning down the heat” of global climate change. When we have done all that we can in our churches and homes to reduce our carbon footprint, how might we further extend our public witness and advocacy for the earth in ways that address the “fierce urgency of now.”
Grant awards to eligible projects will be made (up to $1000) as long as our current allotment from the Conference’s Catalyst Fund and other sources last.
Congregations who receive grants will be assigned a member of the Creation Care Team for advice and support through the duration of the project and will be asked to make progress reports along the way. These should include photographs, descriptions of what is happening, a narrative of how the project is impacting the congregation, who was involved in the project and any insights and advice that could be shared with other congregations. These will be shared in the Kairos Newsletter or Wisconsin Conference Life.
To apply for a grant, complete the application on this page and return it to Lisa Hart at the Conference office. Future Kairos newsletters will provide details on newly-funded projects, and the availability of remaining grant money. Further criteria for a grant are attached to the application itself.
| |
Congregational Guidance for a Time Without Precedent | |
|
Rev. Dr. Jim Antal reflects on the critical role congregations can play in climate action at such a time as this.
Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go. – Joshua 1:9
For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this. – Esther 4:14
Perhaps you have been called for just such a time as this—called as humble yet bold emissaries of God’s truth at a time when history itself is swinging on a hinge. Perhaps you and I and the congregations of which we may be a part have been given everything we need to engage the hydra-headed polycrisis as we recognize the interplay between (at least) the climate crisis; the abandonment of truth, science, and history in favor of alternative facts and conspiracy theories; the ascendency of white Christian nationalism; and the rise of authoritarian plutocratic leadership.
Read complete article here.
| |
Wait - Cold is caused by Climate Change Too?!? | |
|
Cold is caused by Climate Change Too?!? Yep!
You may get someone asking you this week, "Where's your 'global warming' now?? See - it's a figment of your imagination. We've now gotten snow, and cold, and our winter is no different than it was decades ago."
What can you say, except to start doubting your own senses and memory? Yeah, the snow came about two months late... but it sure is cold today. And how could "global warming" possibly make it colder?
The simple answer is this. The Arctic is warming faster than anyplace else. Changes in the temperature at the North Pole are making the Polar Vortex (a swirl of cold air around the North Pole) unstable. When the Polar Vortex & Polar Jet Stream get unstable, blobs of very cold air leak down into the U.S.
| Understanding the Polar Vortex from NOAA | |
|
So if someone says, "Where's your global warming now?" you can feel confident responding - "It's right here; planetary warming is responsible for this extreme cold snap. (Which is why some folks have called it 'global weirding')"
The truth is, on a global scale, this has been the warmest winter on record. Scientists don't just make up those numbers. There are thousands of weather stations all over the world - even out on buoys in the middle of the ocean, and up in the Himalayan mountain peaks. And all those daily temperature numbers get compiled by computers and added together and averaged. So you can have confidence that - no matter how cold one particular day is in the town you live in - on average, temperatures around the globe are continually rising, disrupting weather-related stuff ranging from rainfall to the polar vortex to atmospheric rivers.
| |
Paris Solar Park Producing Power | |
|
We Energies is confirming that the Paris Solar Park is up and running.
Under construction for the past several years, the facility is the first large renewable energy project to be producing electricity in southeast Wisconsin, according to the company.
The 200-megawatt project in the Kenosha County town of Paris features nearly 500,000 solar panels capable of providing enough energy to power about 60,000 homes, We Energies says.
The panels move and track the sun throughout the day, maximizing power generation. The panels also capture solar energy on both sides — an especially useful feature in winter when sun reflects off the snow and onto the panels.
The Paris Solar Park also features 110 MW of battery storage. We Energies says that portion of the project is under construction and is expected to be in service in 2025.
The project was developed by U.S.-based Invenergy, a company that is said to be looking to lease additional land in the Union Grove area for development of a second solar park, according to Paris town chair John Holloway.
| |
|
Are you hosting or taking part in a church or community Earth Day Event? We would love to hear about it. Let us know about the event by March 15 and we will list the event in the April Kairos Newsletter.
After the event, tell us the story. How did this come about? How many people participated? Send a couple picture. Don’t forget to tell us the name and location of your church. Send it to us by May 15. We will feature these events in the June KN.
Send all information to Susan Webb, Editor, Kairos Newsletter
Photo: Earth Day Every Day 2024 at Middleton Community UCC, Middleton
| |
|
Zoë Schlanger is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers climate change. She is the author of The Light Eaters, a New York Times bestselling book about the world of plant-behavior-and-intelligence research, published by HarperCollins. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, NPR, and The New York Review of Books, among other major outlets. She was the recipient of a 2017 National Association of Science Writers reporting award for coverage of air pollution in Detroit, and a finalist for the 2019 Livingston Award for a series on water politics at the Texas-Mexico border. She lives in New York.
Review:
“The Light Eaters is a masterpiece of science writing. Burning with open-minded curiosity, this exploration of the emerging revolution in plant science will challenge what you think you know and ignite a new way of seeing the plant world. Part detective story, part field trip and part philosophy, this brilliant book stretches the mind, toward a profound new understanding of the sophistication of under-appreciated plants. I feel it as an antidote to arrogance, as it engenders humility, respect and awe for the light eaters who make the world.” — Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
| |
Minnesota reaps windfall from epic comeback of lake trout in Lake Superior | |
|
From: Wisconsin State Journal Dec.8, 2024
Once-rare lake trout in Lake Superior are doing so well that state biologists will use the fish to stock the species in lakes around the state, officials have announced.
This fall, the Department of Natural Resources successfully harvested lake trout eggs from fish captured in two nets set along the North Shore just north of Duluth. Crews transported 18 male-female pairs to the DNR work station at the French River, stripping them of eggs and milt. The fish were then returned to the lake.
Cory Goldsworthy, DNR Lake Superior fisheries supervisor, said the trial has given the agency confidence to vacate its previous and less efficient lake trout stocking routine. For about 20 years, crews have taken long trips each fall to Mountain Lake—a deep-water inland lake on the Canadian border—to net the fish needed to fulfill Minnesota’s lake trout stocking needs. Read the complete article here.
| | |
View Franz Rigert's video Announcing the Wisconsin Conference UCC Kairos Call To Action and share with your congregation!
| |  |
Sign up for the Kairos Call to Action Newsletter to ensure you don't miss future issues!
| |
|
This newsletter is made possible by your contributions to Our Church's Wider Mission Basic Support.
Lake trout image via Wikimedia Commons; public domain.
| | | | |
