Carbon Fast

Our church's Green Team has asked members to consider a new Lenten discipline - a Carbon Fast. In other words, instead of giving up chocolate or soda between Ash Wednesday and Easter, people are asked to give up something that makes a carbon footprint on our world. The Green Team offered 50+ suggestions of how people can use less carbon.

Here are the ideas I'm considering for my Carbon Fast:

• Set refrigerator at 36-42F, freezer to -5 to +6F, water heater at 120F
• Use cold or warm water when washing clothes
• Buy local produce and products
• Eat fewer meat meals each week
• Use canvas bags for shopping
  
• When eating out, take your own plastic container for leftovers
• Recycle batteries, printer cartridges, cell phones, and plastic bags
• Use electronic media rather than paper

Here's a church in the UK that did this last year. Some neat suggestions in that article as well.


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As an aside, our denominational mothership has a reputation of being overly deliberate and thoughtful (read: behind-the-times) in some of its social statements and policies. I was intrigued to discover that the ELCA adopted a Care for Creation social statement nearly 16 years ago...long before this most recent wave of environmental awareness made it popular to take care of our planet. Just call us Lutherans a bunch of trend-setters!