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How can we live generously within the world’s limited resources? How can we create sustainable home, work, and worship environments? Learn more from a panel of religious, community, and business leaders.

When: Monday, November 12, 2007 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Where: First Congregational Church-United Church of Christ 7171 N. Pennsylvania St., Indianapolis, IN 46240
This is a Spirit and Place event

Dr. Carol Johnston, director of Lifelong Theological Education at Christian Theological Seminary, will discuss religious reasons for Earthkeeping, and talk about the ecojustice movement for economic sufficiency and ecological sustainability. Carol Johnston is the associate professor of theology and culture and director of Lifelong Theological Education at Christian Theological Seminary. Johnston has taught internationally on issues of economics, the environment, eco-justice, the Bible and nature, as well as the public role of congregations. She is ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

An all-star panel of local environmental thinkers and doers will join Dr. Johnston:

Anne Laker built a green home. She serves as a board member for Ecology House of Indianapolis and the Hoosier Environmental Council and has worked on issues of education and marketing related to expanding the environmental movement, including freelancing for NUVO Newsweekly with articles on local environmental topics. She has helped organize public forums on green design through Ecology House and in 2006, Ms. Laker and her husband were invited to open their home as part of the biannual Herron Morton Home Tour. Over 300 people came to see an example of green architecture. Anne works as Manager of Public Programs at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

Bill Brown, Indianapolis architect, will discuss green building at work. For over a decade he has applied his background in biology to architecture. In the early 1990s, he served on the Greening of the White House national task group, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Committee on the Environment, and Educating Architects for a Sustainable Environment national task force. He was awarded an AIA Presidential Citation in 1993 for his pioneering work in promoting environmentally sustainable design education for architects. Brown has presented his research and case studies at international, national and regional professional conferences. He pioneered the use of aerated autoclaved concrete with recycled fly ash content in Indiana and has advanced the state of the art in vegetated roof design and earth-sheltered public architecture. He was Project Architect for Oaklyn Public Library, an earth-sheltered design with a national-award-winning meadow roof, which was also an AIA Indiana Honor Award Winner. Mr. Brown was honored by the Ball State University College of Architecture and Planning Alumni Association in 2006 with an Award of Outstanding Achievement for his work to advance the science and art of sustainable design. He is an Indianapolis resident who serves on the Board of Directors of USGBC Indiana, Earth Charter Indiana and AIA Indianapolis.

Janet McCabe, executive director of Improving Kid’s Environment, will discuss the Green Sanctuary movement. Improving Kids’ Environment IS a non-profit advocacy group based in Indianapolis that works to reduce environmental threats to children’s health and assure information is available to families about environmental threats. She has been working through the Unitarian Universalist Church of Indianapolis to encourage local congregations to become Green Sanctuaries, which means their places of worship meet the very highest Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Ratings. Ms. McCabe is an adjunct professor at the IUPUI School of Public and Environmental Affairs and at the Department of Public Health at the IU School of Medicine. From 1993-2005, Ms. McCabe held several positions in the Office of Air Quality of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management, and was the director of that office beginning in 1998. Prior to moving to Indiana, Ms. McCabe was assistant secretary for environmental affairs for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, overseeing that state’s environmental impact review program and from 1984-1989 was a Massachusetts Assistant Attorney General in the Environmental Protection Division. She graduated from Harvard Law School in 1983 and Harvard College in 1980.

Admission is free. Presented by Earth Charter Indiana, Butler University Center for Faith and Vocation, Ecology House of Indianapolis, First Congregational Church-United Church of Christ, and U.S. Green Building Council-Indiana Chapter.

Questions? Call 317-925-9297 or e-mail jgibson99@sbcglobal.net

Know before you go … Read about the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards. For a preview of Dr. Johnston’s concept of “Ecojustice” see what the Witherspoon Society has to say. You can get a good sense of “Earthkeeping with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s guide Awakening to God’s call to Earthkeeping.

If this sounds like an interesting event, you should check out the symposium on economics and sustainability September 15, DePauw’s Discourse on Sustainability and Global Citizenship is October 4-6; Can Tzedakah, Tithing, and Zakat Save the World? seeks grounding in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam for solving global problems; and Sheila Kennedy explores how some religious leaders have obstructed addressing environmental problems November 14. But this event challenges us to think even more broadly than “living green” … it ought to force us to think more fundamentally about the way we live with one another as well as the earth. Helping make sense of this will be CICF’s Brian Payne, who discusses “Culture, Connectivity, and Quality of Life” October 24, and Witold Rybczynski’s talk on “Development and Desire” September 27 … which in turn ought to get you into IMA’s “SuburbanNation” exhibit.

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This entry was posted on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 4:16 am and is filed under Events, Religion, Environment, Energy politics, Way we live, GLOCAL-ization, Living Green. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.