The path to en-light-enment

Abington Journal

Green Scene

January 16, 2008

Spiritual leader of Temple Hesed issues energy efficient challenge to area congregations and their members

By Christopher J. Hughes chughes@theabingtonjournal.com

“Green Scene” is a five-part series of The Abington Journal looking locally at initiatives toward energy efficiency to combat global climate change. This week, a look inside Temple Hesed and their Low Carb(on) Diet Challenge.

Rabbi Daniel Swartz, inside Scranton's Temple Hesed. Swartz is challenging area congregations to become more energy efficient.

Abington Journal Photo/Christopher J. Hughes

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ABINGTONS – Rabbi Daniel Swartz, a Clarks Summit resident and spiritual leader of Temple Hesed in Scranton, knows what it means to be energy efficient. He drives a Toyota Prius, one of the nation’s top selling hybrid gas-electric vehicles, and powers with energy efficient bulbs, many lights, including the temple’s electric Chanukah menorah.

The trend towards efficiency began last year, Swartz said, when nine compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL) were put into the menorah. “We started it last December to begin setting our own house in order,” he said. “There was a national campaign that we participated in called ‘A Light of the Nations’ based on a quote from the prophet Isaiah. It’s often quoted in a metaphorical sense, but they looked at it quite literally.”

As the year continued, the temple began planning and budgeting for numerous improvements. Now as 2008 begins, many of those plans will be implemented. Over the next few months, current exit signs will be replaced with light emitting diode (LED) signs and the remainder of traditional light bulbs left burning will be replaced with CFL bulbs. LED exit signs use 88 percent less energy than traditional incandescent signs and CFL bulbs use between 66 and 75 percent less energy to their common counterparts, according to www.energystar.gov.

Swartz and the membership at Temple Hesed are also continuing the program with a challenge to other congregations and their members. Starting unofficially last month during Chanukah, Swartz issued what the temple has called the “Low Carb(on) Diet Challenge.” The title is a play on a series of popular traditional diet plans and the idea of reducing carbon emissions.

“We wanted to make this bigger and see what we could do to inspire other folks to get going,” Swartz said. “One of the biggest barriers we faced was a lack of knowledge, but we learned some things over the past year, and hopefully we can make some suggestions to other congregations to help them do the right thing.”

As of late December, Swartz said that representatives from Our Lady of the Snows parish in Clarks Summit and St. Peter’s Evangelical Lutheran Church and Temple Israel in Scranton have responded. He’s also distributing information on energy efficiency through Scranton’s Central City Ministerium and the Abington Ecumenical Ministerium and is hoping for more return phone calls following the end of the busy holiday season.

While the knowledge barrier is among the greatest hurdles, Swartz said many must also be convinced or re-convinced in the benefit of evolving technology. “Some people didn’t like the color (of CFL bulbs), or when they first bought them 10 years ago, they flickered. We’re trying to help them see that there are lots of options now, including the temperature of the light.”

‘A moral issue’

The national and global move to consciousness in energy efficiency and its effects on global climate change are increasingly visible. Former Vice President Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were awarded the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change,” according the Nobel Prize Web site.

“For us, global climate change is clearly a moral issue,” Swartz said. “The place where this intersects with justice and morality is essentially where you have this huge problem and the people who benefit from using energy and the people who pay the cost for global warming are not typically the same. It really becomes a matter of justice for us to say that there’s a poor nation that could pay the price when we cause a problem. That’s about as unfair as you can get, so we ask what we can do to change that.”

Much of the issue can be solved in forethought. Many in the community may not purchase a new refrigerator tomorrow, he said as an example, but spending a little extra for an energy efficient model can produce long-term savings.

“Part of it is understanding that we don’t have to turn completely primitive and camp out in our back yard,” he said, jokingly. “It’s changing a lifestyle, not reducing the quality of life. It’s really that first step in saying that you want to think about energy. It’s something we don’t normally think about. We turn on a switch and we see it when we pay the bill, but most of the time it’s completely off our internal radar.”

Looking ahead

Internally at Temple Hesed, the radar is clean. The building is zoned based on what groups are using it at what time and an energy audit is pending to ensure the effectiveness of their heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) unit. Preliminary results have shown a 10 percent reduction in utility costs, and Swartz said he hopes for another 10 percent drop by the end of 2008.

Swartz recently returned from a bi-annual North American convention of the Reform Movement. While there, he met a contractor who installs solar energy panels at synagogues across the nation. The contractor absorbs the initial costs for supplies and installation and sells the electricity provided.

“We’re on top of a hill, and it’s a great location for solar (energy),” Swartz said. “It’s a substantial early investment so we thought that we wouldn’t be able to do it, but now it looks like we’re going to be able to afford it. If it goes through, we’ll get 100 percent of our energy through our own roof.”

Solar may be an answer for some large groups or organizations, but everyday members of the community can do small things to help themselves. “The biggest things that we can do are not hard. Once you’ve got that change of consciousness where you’re asking questions about energy, the answers aren’t so hard.”

Swartz said that part of growing up in any culture is learning to be polite and telling others “please” and “thank you.” “Part of growing up now should be saying that when I waste electricity somebody else gets hurt. It’s as much a part of being polite and being a grown person in the 21st century can be.”