This Fall every couple of weeks, green team members and supporters will be sharing some personal stories and insights on what embracing values of sustainability means to them in their own lives and as members of the Hamline Church community.  We invite you to learn and become inspired to take further action in your own life or as a member of our community.

Craig Bowron with his wife Stephanie and their children Isak, Caleb and Julia.

My name is Craig Bowron, and I’m a member of Hamline Church’s Green Team. It’s a very select group:  we only admit church members who are biologically dependent on the Earth for their existence. If you breathe in oxygen every five or six seconds, then you’re in. We evaluate non-breathers on a case-by-case basis.

Two main interests brought me to the Green Team: avoiding unnecessary waste, and solar power.

For myself, I believe waste is the sincerest form of ingratitude to the earth; it is the opposite of reverence. Since a sense of gratitude has been proven to be a key indicator in happiness, eliminating waste is a key to happiness. Take an aluminum can for instance. Aluminum is made from a raw ore called bauxite; refining bauxite into aluminum is very energy intensive. Why would we collectively dig a hole to mine bauxite, spend all the resources required to make it into an aluminum can, and then dig another hole (landfill) to throw it into? We don’t have too many aluminum cans around Hamline Church, but an audit shows that we’re wasting a lot of energy. I’d rather put my money in the offering plate than throw it out a leaky window.

Solar power: it’s already the dominant form of energy on this planet. The gas you use to drive to church is old sunshine—sunlight that hit the Earth 300 million years ago and was captured by an array of microscopic photosynthetic organisms that eventually became buried under the seas. Percolating under intense heat and pressure, these microorganisms were slowly distilled into oil and gas.

Putting solar panels on the education wing of Hamline Church is not only a good investment, it sends a message that we are a forward-thinking congregation that recognizes both the science of climate change and the injustice of its consequences. I anticipate that Hurricane Harvey, Irma, and now Maria will prove, yet again, that when disaster strikes, the rich lose a little, and the poor lose a lot—maybe everything. And Jesus has called us to help the poor. We can shine a light by capturing the light.

Hamline Church will begin producing solar energy beginning in late Spring 2018.  We expect it will be enough energy to offset about half our current electricity consumption.

If you missed the first Green Team blog post by Natalie Freund click here.