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The Green Team
Image by:Naomi Yaeger
Source: Women's Division
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Click here to watch summary video from initial green team meeting
For a few days during the first week of April 2005, a diverse group of women encompassing all ages and ethnic backgrounds, met in Stamford, Conn. to discuss the environment. What was different about this group is they represent a new initiative by the Women’s Division of the United Methodist Church called The Green Team.
“The Green Team has a goal of realizing environmental justice - the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people - regardless of race, ethnicity, income or educational level - in environmental decision making”, stated Sung-ok Lee, the Green Team coordinator and Executive Secretary for Community Action in the Women’s Division of the United Methodist Church.
Diana Sturm, member of Christ United Methodist Church of Mobile, AL, represented the Alabama - West Florida Conference. Dr. Sturm, an environmental geologist with Gulf Coast Geodevelopment, made a presentation to The Green Team on watershed management and the Alabama Forestry Commission’s Treasured Forest Program. Dr. Sturm focused on these because “the State of Alabama has several programs promoting Best Management Practices. These programs promote wise land use, help preserve our resources and keep our waterways clean. I wanted to share these programs with the national group so they could be more widely used in other states”.
The Green Team heard presentations from other scientific members of the group on the Tar Creek Superfund site in Oklahoma and on Drinking Water Analysis and Testing. Each member of the group also presented reports on the important issues from their state or region. “Water” and “public education and action” seemed to be important topics on everyone’s list. This commonality is supported by the United Methodist Book of Resolutions, the directive for the entire church, which contains 38 pages of specific measures relating to the natural world, environment and energy. The Social Principles of The United Methodist Church state, “all creation is the Lord’s and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it.”
One important issue in which the Women’s Division of the United Methodist Church has already been an activist is the promotion of chlorine-free paper. Most paper is bleached with chlorine. This process produces a by-product, Dioxin, a known toxin, which is released into the air, waterways and soil and can cause breast cancer, miscarriages, birth defects, impaired child development, respiratory diseases, diabetes and a reduction in sperm count. Paper can be produced without chlorine and still be white. These processes use oxygen bleaching and hydrogen peroxide in the process. Papers produced from these processes are labeled by the Chlorine Free Products Association as being “Processed Chlorine Free” or “Totally Chlorine Free”. More information about the dangers of dioxin and the United Methodist Chlorine-free Campaign can be found at http://gbgm-umc.org/umw and clicking on Chlorine-free Campaign.
Members of The Green Team will be organizing environmental advocacy groups within their own churches and districts as well as in their communities and states. The mission: “to be the voice for the voiceless.” The natural environment is unable to speak for itself, but as caretakers for God’s creation, it is the responsibility of all the faithful to listen, be responsible for one’s own actions, and to take action to clean up the environment. These advocacy groups will discuss ways to conserve energy and water, reduce waste in their own homes and at church and take action on issues of environmental justice and racism.
If your church or religious organization would like to be a part of either The Green Team or to meet as an interfaith environmental advocacy group, please contact <ahref="diana.sturm@gulfcoastgeo.com">Diana Sturm</a> or by leaving a message for her at Christ United Methodist Church (251) 342-0462.
Click here to watch summary video from initial green team meeting
Date posted:
Apr 15, 2005
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