I am not an Environmentalist

My name is Noam Dolgin.  I am environmental educator, activist, organizer, advocate, campaigner, crusader, agitator, professional, and I aspire to someday play the role of envrio-guru. But I am not an environmentalist!

I do not ascribe to a ‘distinct doctrine’ known as environmentalism.  It is not my ‘belief’ that I exist due my relationship with the Earth, I know it to be true.  The fact is, each of us breaths eats and drinks from the Earth. We utilize Earth’s minerals, fossil fuels, and land in every moment.  Our carbon footprint, our waste, and the resources we extract from Earth are not beliefs, they are an unfortunate reality (Someone else once called them an ‘inconvenient truth’). Teaching people about nurturing and sustaining that relationship for the betterment of the planet and human kind is not an ideology, it is a necessity. 

 

Over the years I have explored and taught many isms:  Judaism, Humanism, Zionism, Socialism, Libertarianism, and more.  One of the challenges in my work as a Jewish environmental educator is to simultaneously separate and integrate the beliefs of Judaism with the facts of environmental responsibility.  Fortunately, more often than not, the belief system of Judaism and the facts of environmental responsibility go hand in hand. Judaism is a belief that I hope will lead me to morally right behavior. Environmental responsibility is the reality of our generation if we hope to pass on a planet similar to the one we inherited. 

This is not just a matter of definition. In the United States and around the world, the Right has effectively branded environmental responsibility, and, by extension science, as an ‘ism’, where it has been debated as a matter of ideology and relegated to far left politics.  As a result, scientific discourse often holds equal weight to religious discourse in political and policy discussions, leading to endless debate and inaction, where action is imminently needed. 

As religious leaders we must lead the charge in separating fact from belief. We must work to place science and environmental responsibility on a separate plane from religious beliefs. This starts in our daily work, where we must effectively teach science AND religion to our students.  We also need to go beyond our students.    We need to take our message to the streets to politicians and religious leaders.  Religion and science, fact and belief, data and isms; Each are separate and important, but should not be confused with one another.

I work daily to protect people and the planet from human caused environmental degradation and I ask you to join me.  Not as an environmentalist, as a human being.

PotatOde

The 2nd in a series of poems about vegetable growing in my garden.  Enjoy!
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PotatOde

I’m growing potatoes it’s ever so sweet
They grow underground and taste good to eat

They take up much space as the plant it abounds
You pile up dirt over the tubers in mounds

The plants grow wild, a darkish green color
Purple and white comes the small gentle flower

I am forced to choose between beauty and function
Do I remove the flowers at this early junction?

Doing so now would hurt the aesthetic
But might make the harvest less pathetic

If I am lucky the plants last a while
And potatoes abound throughout the pile

The plants that die early, I now eat their fruit
White, red and purple potatoes as loot

And while I assert these spuds hold great appeal
I quickly tire out potatoes at every meal

So to the potato in all incarnations
And to the people of all different nations

Who eat the potato, fried, baked or boiled
And to the farmer who has worked hard and toiled

To bring us our sustenance, carbohydrates and all
To hold us through winter, spring, summer and fall

With thanks to my soil, the sun and the rain
The cycle will continue and all start again

For the potato itself is a full seed
With everything a new potato might need

To start a new plant and give off new spuds
Which we will enjoy with (veggie) burgers and suds

Reflections on a Snow Pea

Reflections on a Snow Pea

Green, flat, with a little elf hat
Crispy, sweet, great to eat

I wanted a snow pea, I planted a seed
It grew past the radishes, carrots and weeds

It reached to the sky, up my stakes and trellis
My neighbors looked on, boy were they jealous

It gave a white flower, then a small pea
Which reached out from its blanket for something to see.

The pea grew quite quickly, we’ve had lots of sun
It’s time for the harvest, where we’ll reap a ton

One as a tester and one to confirm
One for my strength and one to affirm

I love snow peas, so crispy and sweet
There really is nothing better than fresh snow peas to eat

But how many have I harvested? Four, five or six
I’ve been so busy eating, my basket depicts

My love for this vegetable, fresh and in season
I eat them with passion beyond any reason

My thanks to the Source that created this all
A system that works from winter to fall

To feed a small planet, 7 billion humans alone
Imagine how many seeds must be sown.

We continue the harvest, the basket and me
Till all that was left on the plant I could see

Was small little pea pods not ready to pick
I’ll be back tomorrow, these things sure grow quick!

As quickly as they come, the last pea will be eaten
And I will be harvesting what’s new and in season

So here’s to the snow pea, today’s ample crop
And to the fine Earth which operates nonstop

To keep us well fed, healthy and happy
As long as we don’t treat her so crappy

With toxins, destruction and climate emissions stacking
Ongoing expansion of drilling and fracking

I could go on, but you’ve all heard that story
It’s an ongoing challenge and it’s really quite gory


So it’s a wonder that with all this destruction
My back yard is a place of ample production

Of beautiful green, crispy, elf hatted fruit
And I can eat dinner without having to pollute!

The Renewal of Jewish Life in Germany

This past week I had the pleasure of being an invited presenter at Limmud Germany, which took place about 1 hour East of Berlin at a former East Germany workers retreat.  Being one of 500 German Jews in attendance, (the rest actually live in Germany; I just carry the passport) was an amazing and eye opening experience, and since the end of the conference, I have not been able to get the song ‘Am Israel Chai’(The Jewish people live) out of my head, and I have always hated this song.

For most Jews in Israel or North America, Germany represents death and the end of possibility.  But after being here for just over a week, what I see is life and potential.  The Berlin Jewish communty, for example, which recently had less than 3,000 Jewish residents, now has more than 12,000 and they have come from all over the world:  Russia, Israel, France, Netherlands, U.K., U.S.A., and more.  These “chalutzim” (pioneers) are reshaping what was once the center of Askenazi Jewish thought.  In the style of great German Jewish thinkers like Buber, Fromm, Rashi, Hirsch and Marx, they are debating what it means to be Jewish, to be ethical human beings and to be German.

For those of us in the Jewish environmental community, this is of particular interests as the Germans are the ‘greenest’ and most environmental conscious people in the world. A new initiative of the German Jewish community entitled ‘Jews Go Green’ is currenly in development, and I look forward to Germany once again becoming the frontline in modern Jewish thought.

My trip has been an interesting combination of experiencing Jewish life in Germany and viewing Jewish death, but the latter has been hard to focus on with the former such a pleasant surprise.  I am writing currently from Wittlich, near Trier/Luxembourg, the town from which my grandfather was forced to flee in 1937.  While no Jews remain in this small city, the community has gone above and beyond, restoring the synagogue and cemetary, building a Jewish museum, reaching out to each and every survivor and their families.

I came to my grandfathers birth place expecting to spend my time in mourning, instead I have been overjoyed by the response of the local community, their dedication to the memory of those lost and their desire to share the motto ‘Never again!’  Our local hosts were delighted by my interests in attending Shavuot services, so together we had the pleasure of joining the commmunity of Trier, just 30 minutes away. While most of the community was old, there was a core group of excited young adults and even an overly excited child, the German Jewish story is clearly not over.

Back in Berlin, before coming to Wittlich, I was faced with a dilemma I never thought I would have to face in Germany. For Tikkun Leil Shavuot (Tuesday night/Shavuot eve), I had to choose between the local synagogue service & learning, and the group of secular Israelis and Germans staying up all night reading the Book of Ruth in a private home.  An active synagogue and a living room Havurah (community) in the heart of Berlin, represents an amazing return and renewal. I chose the Havurah, and while we may not have uttered a single prayer or lit a candle, we sat up all night discussing what it means to be Jews.  It was a truly Jewish experience! 

I am delighted to report that the spirits of Buber, Rashi, Marx and my Gandfather Paul live!  The intellectual curiosity that created the Jewish enlightenment, the reform and orthodox movements, Marxism, etc. survives and even thrives!  For the first time in my life I am proud to be a German citizen.  I look forward to watching this diverse community grow and can’t wait till once again we can start to follow the German Jewish lead, hopefully down an ecologically sustainable path.

Am Israel Chai! The Jewish people live!!

The Future of Nuclear Energy and the Threats of Coal & Natural Gas

Like most of the world, I have been giving a lot of thought recently to the question of nuclear energy.  Just 4 weeks ago, before the Fukushima disaster, I was asked a question about Nuclear energy while presenting at Tribefest in Las Vegas.  I gave my standard answer, an answer that has been haunting me for weeks. “Unfortunately, while nuclear energy may have long term environmental consequences, the imminent threat of climate change and the economic realities of the energy markets make nuclear a necessity in the short term.”

What is clear in my answers was a miscalculation of the short term threat of nuclear energy, especially in older reactors. After Chernobyl the world was promised that this type of disaster would not happen again, that safeguards were in place.  It is clear now that this was not true. But are all nuclear reactors unsafe? Was it design, location, age or something else that causes this crisis? Which should we close down and which to keep open? Can we keep building modern nuclear facilities, are they safe enough?

We find ourselves faced with a terrible choice.  Ideally the world would move towards wind, solar, geothermal and other alternative energies, but this is not the political and economic reality our leaders are choosing.  Our societies are instead faced with the short term dilemma, as the grassroots works to change the political and economic landscape, of making the choice between nuclear and carbon based fuels such as coal and natural gas. 

“I don’t think we are going to pursue civil nuclear energy in coming years,” said Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu when asked by Piers Morgan on CNN whether the situation in Japan will affect plans to construct nuclear plants in Israel. “The cloud of radioactivity, the uncertainty of what will happen with it, is the cloud that hangs over the people of Japan, and I think right now hangs over the world... I think we’ll go for the gas and skip the nuclear.” (Of course Israel is the leading provider of solar and wind technology in the world and has huge renewal energy potential, but that’s a discussion for another time.)

Coal extraction leads to thousands of deaths and immense environmental destruction annually (Approx 3500 miners dies each year in China, 50 in the United States). A far larger toll in six months, than have resulted in the 25 years since the Chernobyl disaster.

In both Israel and the United States a move towards natural gas exploration through hydraulic fracturing (fracking) has the potential for similarly disastrous environmental and human health results. Concerns associated with fracking include ground water contamination and air pollution through the use of hydraulic fracturing chemicals and the mishandling of solid, liquid and gas waste. Already a well established practice in the United States, a study published in 2010 by the EPA reported contaminants in drinking water including: arsenic, copper, and more. Many of these contaminants are known to cause a variety of illnesses such as cancer, kidney failure, anaemia, and fertility problems.

In 2008, Israel’s Ministry of Infrastructure granted Israel Energy Initiatives (IEI) the right to produce gas and liquid fuel from oil shale in the Elah Valley, where David fought Goliath, without requiring an environmental impact assessment or master plan. In August 2010, Adam Teva V’Din, the Union for Environmental Defence, challenged the legality of those rights, and requested a revocation of IEI’s mining license from the Israeli High Court.  in November 2010 Rupert Murdoch and Lord Jacob Rothschild purchased shares worth $11 million in Genie Oil and Gas Inc., the company that owns 89% of IEI, Putting a lot of support behind the project and the move to bring fracking to Israel. No ruling has yet been made.

The ongoing nuclear disaster in Fukushima has brought the world’s attention back to the dangers of nuclear energy.  This is an important awakening to a huge potential environmental threat and hopefully another motivator to implement alternative energy technologies.  But while we close old and dangerous nuclear power plants, let us not rush to eliminate the technology entirely if the alternative is an increased dependency on coal and natural gas, even if just in the short term.

As is often the case, a more careful examination of the evidence is needed or our desires to do the right thing in response to the Fukushima disaster may cause us to do more damage than good.