Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

Welcome to the Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship Nature and Spirituality web page, aka Green Sanctuary, also sometimes referred to as Environmental Joys and Concerns. Direct your questions, suggestions or complaints to Green Sanctuary committee chair Jim Allen – This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it  or 334-499-2380. 

1. Green Sanctuary is the name of the AUUF committee addressing environmental issues, and the name of a program first started some years ago by the UU Ministry for the Earth (uuministryforearth.org but recently adopted by the national Unitarian Universalist Association and now administered through their office (uua.org).  AUUF is a congregational member of the UU Ministry for Earth, and all members and friends are urged to consider becoming personally involved in this ministry (go to their website above). Basically, the Green Sanctuary program calls UU congregations to: 

• build awareness of societal environmental issues among UUs; 
• generate commitment for personal lifestyle changes; 
• motivate UUs to community action on environmental issues; 
• build a connection between spiritual practice and environmental consciousness; and 
• build awareness of and rectify environmental injustices.

 Over the last several years, AUUF has accomplished most of the steps required to become officially certified as a Green Sanctuary congregation. We're currently working to formulate a major project focusing on environmental justice. You can help -- contact Jim Allen to get connected.

2. The AUUF Green Pages Newsletter, Living Green, Living Well is a monthly two-pager  that is posted separately on the AUUF.net website as a PDF (in color!) and is included (in black and white) in the print edition of the general monthly AUUF newsletter. On the AUUF.net home page, click on Information and then on Newsletters. 

3. Ethical Eating? Yes, what and how we feed ourselves has urgent moral, environmental and social justice consequences on local and global scales. At General Assembly last June, the UUA adopted Ethical Eating as our 2008-12 Congregational Study and Action Issue. The Study guide for this important CSAI is at: http://www.uua.org/socialjustice/issuesprocess/currentissues/ethicaleating/12903.shtml.

Relevantly: About a dozen AUUF members & friends are currently engaged in an adult discussion course titled Menu for the Future, focusing on the ethical, environmental and social justice consequences of our food choices. The course is produced by Northwest Earth Institute and is based on a really-good book of up-to-date articles which is available in the AUUF Library. So if you are interested but were unable to sign up for the course, at least check out the book. More info: nwei.org/ and click on Menu for the Future. 

4.Environmental justice outreach opportunity: The Community Garden on the AU campus grows fresh vegetables for the Community Market (a Food Bank component), serving the needs of local "least among us" families. Lack of access to healthy food is an environmental injustice as well as a social injustice. Both the Garden and the Market need help of various kinds. See Jim Allen, Green Sanctuary chair. More info:foodbankofeastalabama.com, click on Community Market on left side of page; and on the right hand side of the Community Market web page, click on Community Garden. 

5. Your environmental impact: What is more important, the way we eat or the way we drive? The October issue of the AUUF Living Green, Living Well newsletter notes that many AUUF members and friends have switched to hybrid or other high-mileage cars as an effective way to reduce their carbon contribution to global harming as well as reduce the harm done to their checking accounts by high fuel costs. We salute those who are able to make this choice (recognizing that some of us have too large families or other hauling needs, or just can't afford a new car). The cost of fuel and the contribution of our fossil-fuel based transportation system to global harming are getting a great deal of media attention, and are certainly important. But we also ask, is switching to a high-mileage vehicle the most effective way to reduce our environmental impact? The truth is that for a typical family eating meat (from our industrial confined animal feeding operations) at most meals, going to an at least mostly vegetarian diet (or eating only local free-range meats) would be a much more effective (also probably healthier) choice. Consider: When methane and nitrous oxide are measured in CO2 equivalent units, livestock are responsible for 18 percent of the total greenhouse gases that cause global warming worldwide – more greenhouse gas than that generated by cars, planes and all other forms of transportation combined. Source: The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization publication Livestock's Long Shadow (2006), cited in the Community Solution's New Solutions Report #13, Food, Feed and Fuel. (http://www.communitysolution.org/pdfs/NS13.pdf)

Come back often! to see how we will be developing this web page with more green news and useful links, green living tips and how-to's, etc.