South Side Community Coalition in Lansing celebrates switching to 100% solar energy at their "Green Energy Switch-On" event on Saturday, April 23. The solar installation was made possible through fundraising by Michigan IPL's Capital Area Chapter.

By working together, we accomplished something that benefits both our community and the earth—something we couldn’t have done as individuals or single congregations.

These days we all try to do our part to help preserve and restore our environment. We recycle paper, plastics, and cans. We put up bird houses and plant native species in our yards. But there are limits to what we can do as individuals. Sometimes it takes a team. And a dream.

April 23rd’s “Green Energy Switch-On” celebration, where we switched our energy use to 100% solar energy at the South Side Community Coalition’s community center in Lansing, is a perfect example of how teamwork can accomplish environmental and social justice goals that are otherwise beyond our reach. 

Michigan IPL often gets questions from Houses of Worship asking what they can do to mitigate climate change- and we think the voluntary Carbon Tax is a great example because it's a simple program that can make a big impact. Think outside of the recycling box!

We've all learned that there is not going to be environmental justice without social justice. -John Williams, Ann Arbor Friends Meeting Earthcare Committee Member  

Five years ago, the Ann Arbor Friends Meeting started an initiative to reduce their individual carbon footprints. After finding ways to conserve energy and lower their carbon emissions, members imposed a voluntary “Carbon Tax” on themselves. The money collected from the tax is then split three ways by the Earthcare Committee to combat greenhouse gasses from a political advocacy perspective, at an international level, and locally to Michigan IPL’s Carbon Fund!

We’re excited about the Carbon Tax because this program offers a simple solution to convert your carbon footprint into real, equitable action. 

Ann Arbors Friends Meeting members listen to visiting speaker. Courtesy of quakerquaker.org

University Lutheran Church of East Lansing changed every light possible in the church to LED lights and didn’t break the bank to do it.

In 2017, they participated in the free Light the Way program and found some “low hanging fruit to fix up,” explains Dale Romsos, who serves as an Earth Keeping Team member and leads the Facilities Team. “By 2020, we were paying $6,000 less a year for energy, thanks to the changes we made in our church and a big part of that was thanks to utility rebates.”

"It all started with a small group of people dedicated to caring for God’s Creation.” - Judy Kindel, ULC Earth Keeping Team member

Dale Romsos and Judy Kindel are leaders in ULC's Earth Keeping Team, whose energy conservation efforts paved the way for the church to install solar!

As 2021 draws to a close, I'm writing this to share with you where our issues stand and what I believe our movement of people of faith and conscience for climate justice must do next.  

The possibility of a world where all beings can thrive has taken some big hits recently.

The agreement coming out of COP 26—November’s global climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland—has been called a “death sentence” for the poorest people on our planet. Our nation’s most ambitious investment in climate and communities to date, the Build Back Better Act, is now stalled in the Senate. Meanwhile, earlier this fall, a military budget that dwarfs any proposed climate spending was rubber stamped with bipartisan support and without fanfare.

Thousands of starlings move together as one before resting for the night. Scientists hypothesize that they may do this to confuse predators and minimize individual risk. 

At Haven House, every dollar saved on utilities can be put toward sheltering families and helping them on their paths toward stable homes. 

Founded in 1983, Haven House’s emergency shelter facility was built in the 1950s, which meant there were a lot of opportunities to improve improve comfort and efficiency and lower operating costs.  

If we can save money on our electric bill, then we can spend that money on helping our clients with moving costs.

Representatives from Michigan IPL, the Islamic Center of East Lansing, Haslett Community Church, and University Lutheran Church present Haven House with a donation of $5,500 to be used toward energy improvements. 

With a $5,500 donation from Haslett Community Church, University Lutheran Church, the Islamic Center of East Lansing, and Michigan IPL's Carbon Fund, Haven House made energy upgrades to its facility. They upgraded the lights in their emergency shelter to LEDs, installed energy efficient air conditioning, new windows, and additional insulation. 

Today, I spoke at an EPA hearing about the draft Clean Car standards proposed earlier this month. This is my testimony:

My name is Leah Wiste, and I’m the Executive Director of Michigan Interfaith Power & Light. We work with over 300 member congregations throughout the state, which comprise thousands of people of faith and conscience committed to bold climate action and protecting our communities.  Thank you for allowing me to offer testimony today.

When President Biden announced the draft tailpipe emissions standards earlier this month, Michigan Congressman Dan Kildee offered a strange kind of praise, saying “This is sort of a Goldilocks goal… Not too much, not too little. It’s just right.” But it’s clear that the time has passed for moderate, “not too much, not too little” policy.

At Sunnyside UMC, garden manager Rachelle Yeaman tells the story of the Growing Community Garden, a collaboration with Fresh Fire AME Church, as tour-goers gather under the welcome shade of a centrally located maple tree.

Recognizing that, in work at the intersection of racial and environmental justice, trusting and mutually beneficial relationships are key, Hope for Creation (MIIPL’s southwest Michigan affiliate) is building connections around shared interests in working the soil.

With the support of generous grants from the Congregation of St. Joseph and the Mesara Family Foundation, we are engaging master gardeners and other volunteers in our member congregations to develop partnerships in neighborhoods facing food insecurity, with the twin goals of expanding capacity to produce healthy food and safe neighborhoods and of building lasting healing relationships between people of faith from diverse communities. Our focus in 2021 is supporting collaboration in neighborhoods that are environmental hot-spots in Kalamazoo and fostering connections between established and emerging gardening efforts.

I had never thought in depth about my relationship with nature or anything having to do with the environment until the summer of 2013.

At the time, I had just finished my second year of Rabbinic School and was spending the summer working as a Young Adult Interfaith Coordinator at the Chautauqua Institution, an education and arts community in southwestern New York state. Each week, we heard from speakers from around the country, who addressed themes from various religious and scientific perspectives. From clergy and scientists, we learned the creation stories of different cultures and about our roles at this point in the Universe’s history.

One idea changed the trajectory of my life: humanity’s resourcefulness, creativity, and wisdom have not only brought unimaginable blessings to the world, but these same strengths have made us so destructive to other species and our very own habitat that we are unleashing a global extinction.

This past Monday's rally at the state Capitol, organized by the Poor People's Campaign, focused on the deep connection between environmental degradation and its disproportionate harm to those living in poverty. The rally was meant to be a prophetic cry for change, for a turning away from unjust policies and practices that contradict God’s clear intent that we humans cherish the Earth and the most vulnerable members of the human family.

Michigan IPL staff Bob Chapman and Leah Wiste pose with their signs in front of the Capitol.