Macalester Plymouth United Church Church

Caring for Creation Committee

Macalester Plymouth United Church

Our mission is to:

integrate active care of God's wonderful creation into the spiritual life and social justice work of Macalester Plymouth United Church
encourage the church as an institution and the congregation as its members to live in ways that protect and sustain the earth's natural systems upon which all life depends
help all church members better understand the connectedness between caring for creation and living justly. We always welcome newcomers and new ideas.

Plan for 2008-2009

Our committee decided that the focus should be on water. There are many concerns that water could become increasingly scarce, and that too few people know about the dangers. The following articles provide a good starting point:

Is Water Becoming the New Oil? on commondreams.org

Revealed: The Massive Scale of UK Water Consumption on guardian.co.uk

Upcoming Events

The next meeting is October 5, after the second service -- be there! We need to decide what to do for the December 14 Lunch and Learn.

Past Activities

September 14: We had a Lunch and Learn on September 14. "Women and Water: An International Perspective." The Arts Committee of the Minnesota Metro branch of Women's International League for Peace and Freedom* presented on local and international water issues and how they affect the lives of women especially in developing countries. They concluded their presentation with lively music by their water bottle percussion band, with audience participation (the band is intended to encourage creative recycling of plastic water bottles). The committee gave a $75 honorarium to the WILPF Arts Committee.

*WILPF is the oldest women's peace organization in the world, emerging from a meeting of American and European women in 1915 in The Hague. The women came together to try to affect the course and outcome of World War I, and after learning the details of the Treaty of Versailles, saw the need for an international peace organization. WILPF has sections in 39 countries and about 76 U.S. branches. It has consultative status with the UN and an international office in Geneva. Water issues have been a primary focus of the U.S. section of WILPF since 2005. Minnesota Metro is the Minnesota branch of WILPF; new members are always welcome. See www.wilpfmn.org or email info@wilpfmn.org for more information.

September 7: At Rally Sunday, we talked to people about water conservation and had two demonstrations. One showed how many water bottles the average American goes through in a year. The other was a bottled water vs. tap water taste test. Here's Judy Helgen's Here and Now submission on the subject:

Water Issues for the Coming Year

We've chosen to focus on water this coming year, starting with commercial bottled water, which to my surprise is less rigidly tested than public water supplies. You may know Americans buy lots of bottled water (28 billion bottles a year!); you may not know the impact on the environments where the water is drawn (lakes, streams, local wells), nor the energy costs of producing and landfilling all the waste. For instance, about 17 million barrels of oil are used annually to make water bottles, enough oil to run 1 million cars. For more information, stay tuned through the year.