Does God recycle?

Tree-huggers and politicians have had their chance. Now it's faith-based groups that are weaving in the eco message into kirtans and sermons, and seeing an unprecedented surge of commitment. If the United Nations Development Programme Assistant Secretary is to be believed, the war against climate change can be won far easily at sacred sites than at global climate conferences

In December last year, 20,000 influential leaders from over 190 countries flew into Cancun, a sun-soaked Mexican holiday resort, to discuss climate change. Some saw the 2010 United Nations Climate Change Conference's outcome as positive. Nations had readily agreed that the world average temperature should be allowed to rise by not more than 2 degrees Celsius but they refused to collectively commit to binding targets for emission cuts.

Experts, however, scoffed at how Cancun's most significant outcome was delaying tough decisions until UN's next summit in South Africa. "The outcome wasn't enough to save the planet," Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists said.

On March 14 this year, retired lieutenant commander Harcharan Singh had his handsu00a0 full. President of the Sri Guru Nanak Darbar gurdwara in Mira Road, Singh was keeping an eagle's eye on Sikh women volunteers distributing 400 saplings in the neighbourhood.

But the volunteers' job is far from over. Building up to Baisakhi on April 14, the Mira Road gurdwara has planned visits to homes in the vicinity to keep an eye on how the community is faring at nurturing the plants. "Special prizes will be given to those who show green initiative. We hope to adopt the use of solar cookers in the gurdwara by the end of this year," says Singh.

Like several others who are using religion as an eco-friendly bludgeon to battle climate change, Singh is a small but significant player making more serious headway than diplomats stuck in the rhetoric of dialogue.

While Sri Guru Nanak Darbar carried out its tree drive, across the Atlantic, the Connecticut Sikh Association was installing solar panels across new gurdwaras to reduce energy costs by an estimated $15,000 per year. In Malaysia, the Sikh Naujawan Sabha was hosting an activity in the country's forest reserves while in West Africa, the sangat in Nigeria was focusing on reducing waste.

What they were doing was answering a call by EcoSikh, an organisation set up in 2009 as a response by the Sikh community to threats posed by climate change.

It's as old as history
"Sri Guru Har Rai Ji, our seventh Master, is remembered in Sikh history for his deep sensitivity to nature. Guruji had a medicinal herb garden called Naulakha baag. Dara Shikoh, the eldest son of Emperor Jahangir was cured by Guru Har Rai Ji's medicine. Caring for creation is part of our religious tradition," says EcoSikh India Project Manager Ravneet Singh over the telephone from his office in Ludhiana.

Naulakha baag still exists in Kiratpur Sahib, Roopnagar district in Punjab.

Singh says it's been a slow but certain movement towards sustainability with most gurudwaras taking their own initiative.

Padma Shri Baba Sewa Singh of Khadoor in Amritsar has launched a project to adopt 100 villages a year. Neem and Jamun trees will be planted in every home, and the owners will be made to commit to taking care of them. Kendri Sri Guru Singh Sabha in Amritsar has installed solar panels and rainwater harvesting facilities. "The major focus is to make Sikh festivals green and celebrations plastic-free. An appeal has been made to the community across the world through major Sikh organisations."

Olav Kj rven, Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has hailed Sikh activism, saying he admires "the work undertaken and am impressed with the far-reaching proactive changes that are necessary to address climate change, provide environmental protection and ensure the regeneration that our living planet so urgently needs."

In an article he wrote in 2009, Kj rven explained how the reach of religious and faith-based groups was unparalleled, with the world's major faiths owning at least seven per cent of the habitable surface of the planet, founding, running or contributing to 54 per cent of all schools, and being the third largest category of investors in the world. "So what religions do or do not do, what they say or do not say about climate change, and how they address climate change through their worship and rituals matters a great deal."

Harcharan Singh would agree.

Same messsage, different faiths
In January, he was one of 3,000 participants who dropped in on Monday at the St Joseph Church Grounds in Mira Road for an inter-religious dialogue surrounding the environment. Dr William D'souza, Archbishop of Patna, Sadguru Shastri Swami Chandra Prakash Dasji, Founder President of Harikrishna Samaj Samstha, and Maulana Riaz Ahmad Qadri, Imam of Madina Masjid were his co-speakers. "They were all delighted to hear what the scriptures of other religions had to say on the environment," says Fr Dominic Vas, u00a0Parish Priest and Director, St Joseph's Church.

In his message, the Archbishop of Patna quoted the Bible: "Psalm 24:1 tells us that the earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it. We are servants of God entrusted with the caretaking of this world."

Swami Dasji saw nature as our mother; someone who had to be respected and protected at all costs.
"When the speeches wound up, the crowd there realised that they were all saying pretty much the same thing," smiles Vas, who is behind theu00a0 school's Protect Nature and Preserve Life campaign. Through the campaign, 10,000 hand-made cloth bags were sold to revellers during Christmas.

What a waste! no more
At another school across the city in Wadala, 14 year-old Vardhaman Shah winds up his lecture on trigonometry to go water the compost garden that stands in the school backyard. The standard 9 student of St. Joseph's High School is a member of a green school campaign initiated by Greenline, Don Bosco Society.

On October 2010, Greenline instituted the Green School Awards. "We realised the students were eager but didn't know where to start. This is exactly the platform we'd like to provide," says Principal Fr Savio Silveira of Don Bosco School, Matunga, who launched Greenline last year.u00a0

With the Archdiocese of Bombay choosing Care for Creation as the theme for 2011, the school sent out invitations to 150 schools in Mumbai, out of which twelve accepted. The aim of the awards was that teachers could be trained in green initiatives and students could come up with their own ideas rather than offer tailor-made solutions.

The programme includes segregation of waste that the school throws up, into dry and wet, composting wet garbage and turning dry waste into utility products.

"We turned dry waste into pretty greeting cards that were a sell-out," says Sacred Heart High School (Vashi) science professor Nirmala Nair.u00a0 The school won the Greenest School award at the campaign.

Next up for Greenline is ZeGarb, a project that looks at effective disposal of e-waste.

Hear a chirp for help?
It was a distress signal but they weren't using morse code. Project SOS (Save Our Sparrows) is currently underway across 300 Indian cities and more than 52,000 families have joined the fight to up the dwindling sparrow population in Indian metros.

An initiative of The Burhani Foundation backed by the Dawoodi Bohra community of India, SOS was launched on March 5 on the occasion of the 100th birthday of their spiritual leader Dr Syedna Mohammed Burhanuddin. Volunteers distributed over half a lakh bird feeders (devices placed outdoors that contain bird food) to individuals across faiths willing to look out for the cause of sparrows.

The Foundation was approached by Nashik NGO Nature Forever. Research revealed that the sparrow population in urban areas was dipping because there was no grain openly available for them to eat. "We realised that most people were ignorant of the fact but when we brought up the issue, they agreed that they had noticed the dip," says Shaikh Abdeali Bhanpurawala, secretary of Burhani Foundation.

The close-knit community trust established in 1991 has been planning the project for the last four months. Using mass SMS, emails and networking through its centres across 21 countries including Kenya, Sweden and Madagascar, it spread the word in the Bohra community. The Foundation plans to monitor the number of sparrows with help from Nature Forever and the Center for Environmental Studies in Visakhapatnam, which it set up to carry out eco research projects.

Blogging for mother earth
Zaufishan Iqbal understands the power of modern networking tools in a fight for environment preservation. The UK-based reporter for Green Prophet, a leading source of environment news on the Middle East region, is a popular blogger. She launched ecojihad.org in 2010 to share what she calls her "personal experiences as a eco Muslim, and Islam's deep rooted environment protection principals".

"I was taught 'eco ethics' at home and in both, my public and Islamic schools. This meant I made an extra effort to not only ensure my food was 'halal' (lawful by Islam), but also had an organic origin, from farms that did not abuse animals," says Iqbal.

The 25u00a0 year-old closely follow the 3 Rs: Recycle, Reuse, Reduce. She has recently added a fourth R to her list ufffd Refuse. "I refuse to oversee the neglect of natural sources, and excessive water consumption," she says in an email interview from Yorkshire.

Interesting eco-Islamic blogposts include one about the proposal for an eco-friendly mosque by Chicago-based NGO Faith in Place. It proposes solar cells in the dome, and a library, soup kitchen and lecture hall capped with green roofs that mitigate the heat, improve air quality, and help cool the area around the mosque.

The fashion-conscious will dig a discussion on the Eco-Hijab, a veiled ensemble that uses bamboo as base fabric.

Ecohijab introduces netizens to fellow Muslim bloggers like the Green Hijabi who offers advice on how to raise an organic garden, and make a mean all-natural smoothie.

Recycled paper and soy ink for the The Green Bible
In 2009 the best-selling book on the planet, the Bible decided to go green, with publishing company Harper One releasing a Green Bible printed on recycled paper with soy ink. It had a cotton/linen cover.

Within the first week of its release it sold more that 25,000 copies. This version carries all the verses that talk about the environment, printed in green, totalling 1000 verses. The Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN), a ministry that seeks to mobilise Christians in their effort to care for God's creation and protect the environment is behind the initiative although there has been considerable controversy over the idea.

There is a conflict between those who think Christians should embrace environmentalism and those who worry that activism of this sort distracts believers from their mission to spread the word of God.

The Green Bible also includes contributions by Desmond Tutu who actively campaigned to fight against homophobia.

The handbook

Your guide to holy destinations and their green deeds
Early this year, the Shirdi Sai Sansthan launched a campaign to minimise the use of polythene bags and gradually do away with their use. Pilgrims are being advised to carry bio-degradable bags manufactured by the sansthan. These decompose within 180 days, and come handy to carry mithai and flowers.

The Golden Temple in Amritsar uses solar energy to cook food in its volunteer-run kitchen that feeds close to 1,00,000 people every day.

In July 2007, the Vatican became the only carbon neutral state by installing photovoltaic cells on the roof of its main auditorium to convert sunlight into electricity, and by joining a reforestation project aimed at offsetting its Co2 emissions.

In 2009, Singapore built its first eco-friendly mosque fitted with energy-saving solar tubes that double as skylights, a garden rooftop, motion sensor lights and taps fitted with water-flow-regulating devices.

The Jade Buddha monastery in 2009 opened its Environmental Protection Office with plans including the Mother River Care Project for the clean-up of Shanghai's Suzhou river.

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