Earth Keepers reveal 2009 projects; MI Sierra Club honors interfaith group with White Pine Award
Upper Peninsula Earth Keeper Team announced plans for 2009 while accepting the prestigious White Pine Award from the Michigan Sierra Club
The Michigan Sierra Club presented its “White Pine Award” to the Upper Peninsula Earth Keepers on Thursday, Nov. 13 at a ceremony in Marquette.
Pictured in the rear, left to right, are David McCowen of Lake Superior Friends (Quakers); Rev. Jon Magnuson, Earth Keeper Initiative co-founder and executive director of the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute; Dr. Jon Rebers, chair of the Sierra Club Central U.P. Group; Dr. Rodney Clarken, leader of the Marquette Baha’i Community and one of the original signers of the Earth Keeper Covenant; Rev. Tesshin Paul Lehmberg, head priest of Lake Superior Zendo, a Marquette Zen Buddhist temple; Nancy Irish, a representative of the Marquette Unitarian Universalist congregation; Natasha Koss, a representative of the Superior Watershed Partnership; (front) Sarah Swanson, the outgoing Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU EK) Student Team project director; and Ben Scheelk, the new NMU EK project coordinator from the Student Leader Fellowship Program.
The Earth Keeper Initiative is co-sponsored by the Cedar Tree Institute, the Superior Watershed Partnership, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and 10 faith communities: Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Baha’i, Jewish, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and Zen Buddhist.
The U.P. Earth Keepers, involving the congregations of over 150 U.P. churches and temples, held three annual Earth Day collections at dozens of sites across northern Michigan that removed almost 370 tons of household hazardous waste from the environment.
The annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep collected over one ton of pharmaceuticals and $500,000 in narcotics in 2007; over 320 tons of computers, related equipment and televisions in 2006; and about 45 tons of household hazardous waste like pesticides, herbicides, oil-based paint and car batteries. Most of the waste turned in by the public at free collections sites was recycled and the rest was properly destroyed following U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.
(Photo by Greg Peterson, MI news reporter and volunteer media advisor for the Earth Keeper Initiative and the Cedar Tree Institute)
Interfaith Environment Prayer:
God of all Creation, help us see ourselves as one with all Creation – human and non – and particularly with those who live more closely to the land, and are more immediately dependent on it than we are.
Teach us to respect the Creation more than the money we can extract from it. Amen.
Prayer about environment in Nov. 16 edition of EarthWords by Rev. Charlie West, pastor of the Grace United Methodist Church on Fair Avenue in Marquette (see more below in related links)
EarthWords is produced by Charlie West Ink
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Earth Keepers reveal 2009 projects; MI Sierra Club honors group with White Pine Award
Upper Peninsula Earth Keepers announce events for 2009 while accepting prestigious White Pine Award from the Michigan Sierra Club
(Marquette, Michigan) – The Upper Peninsula Earth Keepers announced several projects for the next year as they received the Michigan Sierra Club prestigious White Pine Award for past projects that included recycling hundreds of tons of hazardous waste, energy conservation programs and the protection of Lake Superior.
Numerous Earth Keeper Initiative faith leaders, volunteers and student members accepted the award on Thursday, Nov. 13, 2008 at the Peter White Public Library during a meeting of the Sierra Club Upper Peninsula (U.P.) Group.
“The White Pine Award is intended to recognize a group outside of the Sierra Club which has been doing things to help protect the environment,” said Dr. Jon Rebers, chair of the Sierra Club Central U.P. Group.
The U.P. Earth Keepers, involving the congregations of over 150 U.P. churches and temples, held three annual Earth Day collections at dozens of sites across northern Michigan that removed almost 370 tons of household hazardous waste from the environment.
Wide Angle Photo by Dr. Jon Rebers during 2006 2006 electronic waste clean sweep
“Many of you here in town will have heard about the good work the Earth Keepers have been doing – things like an electronic waste collection a couple of years ago, waste pharmaceuticals, and doing things to help encourage people to conserve energy and a whole variety of different (projects) to help improve the environment overall,” Rebers said.
The annual Earth Keeper Clean Sweep collected over one ton of pharmaceuticals and $500,000 in narcotics in 2007; over 320 tons of computers, related equipment and televisions in 2006; and about 45 tons of household hazardous waste like pesticides, herbicides, oil-based paint and car batteries.
Most of the waste turned in by the public at free collections sites was recycled and the rest was properly destroyed following U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.
The Earth Keepers held a 2007 energy summit that helped hundreds of Michigan homes and businesses become energy efficient, and helped organize classical musicians from across the Great Lakes to form the Boreal Chamber Symphony for a Lake Superior Day 2007 concert in Marquette that raised funds to protect the world’s largest body of freshwater. All events were free and open to the public.
“We are moving into our fifth year,” said Rev. Jon Magnuson, Earth Keeper Initiative co-founder. “We had a transition year last year, so you didn’t hear much from us. We were re-organizing.”
“Now we are ready to move, you’re going to start to hear from us in January and we are going to be mobilizing for our new focus,” said Magnuson, executive director of the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute.
The Earth Keeper Initiative is co-sponsored by the Cedar Tree Institute, the Superior Watershed Partnership, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community and 10 faith communities: Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Bahá’í, Jewish, Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and Zen Buddhist.
Interfaith graphics by Justice St. Rain (Bahá’í Community) of Interfaith Resources
Earth Keeper partners include the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the EPA Great Lakes National Programs Office in Chicago and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, a Wisconsin-based ecumenical not-for-profit that gives grants to all faiths and supports youth.
Several Earth Keeper faith leaders spoke about the connection between the environment and religion.
“Each of our traditions in some ways is trying to honor the creation by preserving it,” said Dr. Rodney Clarken, a Bahá’í and one of the original signers of the Earth Keeper Covenant. “One of the Bahá’í principles is that each human being is entrusted and is in some way the image of God, just as creation is in some ways the image of god.”
“Each of us is to honor and cherish that image,” Clarken said. “We can not be pure and holy unless somehow our environment is pure and holy.”
“So the extent to which our hearts are clear, we can clear the environment,” Clarken said. “To the extent that the environment around us is clear it effects us.”
The leader of a Marquette Zen Buddhist temple said “your environment is in trouble right now.”
“Zen Buddhists tend to believe in the oneness of all – you are part of your environment – that is absolutely inescapable,” said Rev. Tesshin Paul Lehmberg, head priest of Lake Superior Zendo.
“We are pleased to be a member of the Earth Keeper group,” said Lehmberg, one of the original signs of the Earth Keeper Covenant. “We thank the Sierra Club for this award.”
Member Nancy Irish said her favorite Earth Keeper project is the “Adopt a Watershed” program.
Photos from Marquette UU website show adults and children along the Big Creek adopt-a-watershed project.
“Our congregation adopted the creek that just happens to go through my land and we’ve had a number of campouts for kids,” said Irish, a representative of the Marquette Unitarian Universalist congregation.
“There is nothing more wonderful than facilitating the meeting of the natural world with children because children protect what they love and they love what they know.
“So getting them out there romping in the creek is the great thing that has happened due to this (Earth Keeper) organization,” she said.
Natasha Koss speaks as Nanacy Irish listens during the Earth Keeper award ceremony Nov. 13, 2008 in Marquette, MI.
“We operate under seven principles, the seventh principle being respect for the web of all existence of which we are a part,” said Irish. “In that spirit we have joined with the other faith communities.”
The newest Earth Keeper member said the interfaith effort “fits in well with that basic tie between your theology and you way of living.”
Books about nature, environment and Quaker religion are exampes of how the latest faith community to join the Earth Keeper Initiative. See links and credits below.
“One of the Quaker basic testimonies is the simplicity of living and of course this ties well into that (the Earth Keeper Covenant),” said David McCowen of Lake Superior Friends (Quakers).
The Superior Watershed Partnership and the Cedar Tree Institute are both Marquette “non-profit organizations that help to facilitate what happens with the Earth Keepers,” said watershed partnership representative Natasha Koss. “A lot of work goes into the things that we do – the pollution prevention and the energy conservation – work that we do.”
“A lot of that happens in our office with collaboration between all partners,” she said.
The group’s youth arm, the Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU EK) Student Team, has several projects planned in the next few months.
“A few of our goals that we have set are an Eco-Christmas Initiative,” said Sarah Swanson, the outgoing NMU EK project director who is leaving to work in Nicaragua. “We are going to encourage people to be more eco-conscious when they are purchasing gifts for family and friends over the holidays.”
“We also plan to recycle some televisions in February, now that they are switching to the different form of (high definition) television,” she said. “We will be planting a bunch of trees on Earth Day.”
The NMU EK will “organize some community gardens which will be planted on church properties and any of the faith community properties – that’s our goal,” Swanson said.
People have “an inescapable relationship with their environment” and that is connected to other social issues, said Ben Scheelk, the new NMU EK student team project coordinator from the Student Leader Fellowship Program.
Ben Scheelk (second from right) explains goals for this year’s Earth Keeper student arm. Scheelk is the new Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper (NMU EK) Student Team project coordinator from the Student Leader Fellowship Program. Listening are David McCowen (left) of Lake Superior Friends (Quakers); Rev. Jon Magnuson, Earth Keeper Initiative co-founder and executive director of the non-profit Cedar Tree Institute; and Sarah Swanson, the outgoing NMU EK project director.
“Issues like hunger and poverty – those are just as much an effect on the environment as anything else because these people are then forced to use the wood around them to burn and cook food,” he said. “So it’s like these things are always interrelated.”
During the Nov. 13, 2008 ceremony, Scheelk invited the public to “a humble meal” to “tackle these issues” that was held on Nov. 24 at Grace United Methodist Church in Marquette.
After the humble meal, those attending watched a video by Oxfam International that dealt with “issues of poverty and hunger across the world,” he said.
Magnuson said there is a “connection between the environment and (social) justice and sustainability.”
“Sarah is going into Nicaragua in January with another NMU student to live and work among the fair trade coffee villages in Nicaragua and that’s also part of the Earth Keeper connection – this is a global issue,” Magnuson said. “Issues of (social) justice are deeply embedded in the environmental challenge.”
Clarken said that Magnuson “has been the soul and spirit behind this movement.”
“It began as an Earth Keeper Covenant (in 2004) for all the faith groups that were represented in this region,” Clarken said. “At that time we had nine faith groups represented, we’ve recently added a tenth” the Quakers.
Paraphrasing an old saying that “the English have gunpowder and no dreams, the Irish have dreams and no gunpowder,” Magnuson said, “what you see here is dreams and gunpowder.”
The Superior Watershed Partnership “brought us the gunpowder, the faith community brought us the dreams,” Magnuson said. “It was a marriage that made this happen.”
The White Pine Award was given to the Earth Keepers “for extraordinary dedication to the protection of Michigan’s environment including an information campaign for the congregations in their coalition to help reduce carbon dioxide emissions contributing to global warming,” according to the plaque.
Meeting of the Sierra Club Central Upper Peninsula Group on Nov. 13, 2008 at the Peter White Library in Marquette, MI
The White Pine Award is presented annually by the Michigan Chapter of the Sierra Club to a non-member organization or group which has shown extraordinary dedication to protection of the environment. Past recipients include the huge but eco-friendly Crystal Mountain resort in Thompsonville, MI.
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2007 Upper Peninsula Earth Keeper Team
2006 Upper Peninsula Earth Keeper Team
Photo by Kyra Fillmore
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The Earth Keeper student arm has been very active since its creation in April 2006. The Earth Keeper Initiative and its members are proud of the work and enthusiasm.
Mining Journal Photo
In April 2006, The Northern Michigan University EarthKeeper Student Team was announced at a press conference on campus that included the three bishops and other leaders of nine northern Michigan faith communities and the CEO/President of the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community Susan LaFernier.
It was the first time these bishops and other faith leaders had been in the same room and many met for the first time. The press conference was widely covered by the news media.
The students participated in the clean sweeps and used their energy to start new projects including spreading the “Earth Keeping” message to younger students. Among the student goals is creating teams at three other U.P. universities.
Theologian Dr. Walter Brueggemann holds and Earth Keeper shirt and shares a laugh with Dr. Rodney Clarken, the head of the Marquette Bahá’í Community on Oct. 8, 2007 at the Lutheran Campus Ministry (LCM) Lothlórien House in Marquette, Michigan. Photo by Greg Peterson
