Environmental Stewardship at Trinity Lime Rock

2006 has marked the beginnings of an interest within our congregation that might have surprised our founders:  active involvement and participation in stewardship of our environment.

In other ways, perhaps, it might not have surprised them after all.  While the iron business has historically been a dirty and polluting one, there were aspects of the operation of Barnum and Richardson Company that reflected an awareness that resources were not infinite and a desire to make use of renewable resources where possible.  Cases in point are B&R's insistence on use of charcoal and water power for making iron.  The company owned or controlled tens of thousands of acres of forest land as far away as Vermont from which it harvested wood for charcoal at regular intervals -- while its competitors in Pittsburgh and elsewhere used non-renewable coal at lower cost.  And the use of water power at such facilities as the East Canaan works clearly represented use of a resource that renewed itself regularly.

Today, however, such modest efforts at environmental stewardship would have been recognized as painfully inadequate.  The reality of global warming has made it clear that we have not exercised adequate environmental stewardship in the past, and are, as a society, getting worse at it rather than better.

In 2006 we took two modest steps at Trinity, partnering with the Interreligious Eco-Justice Network:

First, we held one of our famous potluck suppers along with a free screening of "An Inconvenient Truth".  Despite very limited advance publicity, we were delighted to welcome more than 60 of our neighbors, most of whom had no previous connection with Trinity. 

Second, under the leadership of our buildings and grounds chair, Judith Sherman, we are currently particpating in "This Old Church," a program also sponsored by the Interreligious Eco-Justice Network.  This program recognizes that houses of worship are not exemplary stewards of our environment in an age of concern about global warming.  To begin to address the realization, This Old Church is educating our Buildings and Grounds committee, as well as other interested parishioners, in how to make a church a better environmental steward. 

The second session of this six-session series was hosted by Trinity Lime Rock.  While we were praised for a number of energy-conscious features of our facility, the intensive scrutiny of our facility by both instructors and class members from other churches did turn up some areas where we will be making improvements shortly.  We are grateful for the opportunity this course has given us to be better stewards.

In 2007, our annual Robertson Alford Lecture Series is dedicated to "Domestic Green"  -- wherein we learn that environmental stewardship does indeed begin at home!