Preparing to be a Refuge in the Heat

According to the US Environmental Protection Agency, extreme heat is the leading cause of weather-related deaths in the US.  The number of heat deaths can be hard to nail down, but according to a study done out of Texas A&M University (by Dessler and Lee), the death count for the US in 2023 was likely around 11,000 – and the numbers have been going up each year. 

This is already bad and getting worse, but what climate scientists and policy makers are most worried about is the growing possibility of lasting heatwaves that reach dangerous levels on a combined temperature/humidity index called “wet bulb.”  Wet bulb 95 F is the upper limit of human survivability and can be experienced at numerous temperature/humidity combinations – 95 F at 100% humidity, 105 F at 75% humidity, or 115 F at 50% are all wet bulb 95 F.  Being exposed to this humidity-temperature for 6 hours or more generally leads to death because a human body simply can’t cool itself enough in this environment to function.  One of the great and growing dangers with the climate crisis is that an extreme heat dome could settle over a populated area long enough and hot enough that all the AC usage maxes out the power grid and leaves people to bake in the heat without any way to get cool.  And extreme heat waves typically last days – not hours. 

Kim Stanley Robinson’s (amazing) novel, “The Ministry for the Future,” begins with a massive heatwave in the relatively near future in India which overloads and blacks out the electric grid, killing several hundred thousand people over the course of a day.  This scenario is a very real possibility – and to add to this, the heaviest death tolls are most likely to play out in poorer communities or nations because they (a) live in historically disinvested and/or deforested neighborhoods, (b) don’t have widespread access to air conditioning or public cooling centers, or (c) live in areas with shaky power grids and no localized power like solar.  And to bring this very close to home, Hunting Park (along with several other neighborhoods in Philadelphia) recently underwent a heat study and were found to be a full 22 F hotter than cooler parts of the city during extreme heatwaves.  How could this dramatic difference exist within a single city?  Hunting Park is much hotter because historic disinvestment, redlining, and poverty have resulted in deforestation of the neighborhood, less in the way of green public spaces, and an excessive amount of concrete surfaces and old heat-absorbing black roofs.  Poverty makes spaces hotter and less resilient.

So what does all of this mean for us as Christians?  In Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25, he essentially sums up his final judgment according to how people show hospitality.   Verses 34-36 say, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’”  The layers of this passage as they pertain to the Christian response to the human impacts of climate change are many.  But through the lens of extreme heat we can read it the following way: People will become thirsty as their bodies sweat excessively to try and cool them down – will we give them something to drink?  They will need to be brought in out of the heat and into a cool space – will we welcome them in?  They will need to be clothed not with warm clothes to keep out the cold, but with a cool environment to keep out the heat – will we provide this?  Heat stroke makes people sick – often leading to nausea, vomiting, and fainting – will we nurse them back to health or get them to a hospital?  And those who are more likely to have these needs will be those who have the least resources to begin with – will our homes be open to neighbors who have less than us?

So for us, the question is – will we be a Matthew 25 neighbor to the suffering around us.  And there are two parts to this question that impact how we will answer it.  First, will we have the capacity to provide a space for our neighbors to cool down?  And second, if we do will we welcome them in their time of need?  A positive answer to the first question requires planning.  A positive answer to the second requires embracing the way of Christ and offering what we have. 

To address the first question, how can you be a person who has a cool space if an extreme heatwave settles over your neighborhood and blacks out the power grid?  The only way to do this right now is to have a white roof coating, solar on your roof and a way to cool your house electrically.  The white roof coating reflects heat.  Rooftop solar provides power that can run your electricity even if the grid goes down.  As for cooling your home electrically, if you can afford heat pumps, they are much more efficient than AC window units and can both cool and heat your home.  But if not, AC units will do – and I’ve even heard that there are low cost heat pump window units starting to become available.  In addition to all of this, it is important to have a home energy efficiency upgrade – so that all the power and cooling doesn’t just bleed out your windows and walls.  If these things are in place, your home can become a refuge in the heat.

I will get into more of the practicalities for how to do this in later posts, but for now I will say that there are many ways to get leased solar panels on your home at zero cost, to get solar ownership at no cost through public programs like Built to Last, or to purchase panels on your own.  But however we do it, here is the point: we as the body of Christ should be preparing our homes to have the capability to be a cool refuge during a heatwave black out – and we should be preparing our hearts to welcome in the heat-oppressed during their time of need.  Imagine Hunting Park – and any other neighborhood – with a growing network of solar powered homes that can stay cool and become a refuge for neighbors in times of extreme heat.  This is what the Kingdom of God is all about – we’re here to breathe God’s cooling wind into a parched and suffering world, and give it more and more of a taste of the shalom Jesus will one day complete here.

RESOURCES:

Get a free home energy efficiency upgrade and a 20-year fixed rate rooftop solar lease with Posigen (a great company), and support the Hunting Park Community Solar Initiative at no cost to yourself:  bit.ly/posigen-hpcsi-lead 

Get a low-cost and energy efficient white roof coating with Be Cool Roof Coatings: Contact Allen Drew at AllenCWP12@gmail.com and he will connect you.

Get low-cost heat pump units for your home with New Spirit HVAC at www.newspirithvac.com 

Restoring the Urban Forest and our Connection with Creation through Tree Planting and Community Gardens

A reminder of our monthly pattern for these posts: in week 1 we focus on a spiritual concept, week 2 presents a related story, week three invites us to an individual action, and week 4 offers a collective action.  For this month’s series, the focus has been on creation restoration as a spiritual practice.  We offered the spiritual and Biblical grounding for this, looked at a story of creation restoration in China and Jordan, and invited individuals to plant native species on their property and join Homegrown National Park. 

Today, our week 4 collective action invitation will focus on community gardens and tree planting.

As human beings develop spaces (i.e. build homes and businesses, roads, and other elements of infrastructure), the local ecosystem is almost inevitably deforested and damaged.  Trees are removed, forest ecosystems are eliminated, corridors for animals to move about are blocked, and the living system that was once there becomes far less robust.  Furthermore, as human beings develop areas, they surround themselves with a new kind of environment – one made by people, rather than God.  As a result, people who grow up in increasingly developed areas (particularly cities) can become less and less connected with the living system that sustains us all – and therefore less aware of the local expression of the world that their way of life has pushed out.

It's a sad irony that as human beings develop areas, they simultaneously damage creation and become less aware of the creation they are damaging. 

So what can we do about this together?  We cannot unbuild the cities we live in, but what we can do is work to restore the local forest and reconnect the human residents with the creation our city has been built in.  These two practices work together. The more engaged people are with creation, the more they will want to see it around them.  And the more creation is planted around them, the more engaged they will become with it.  This is a positive feedback loop that helps God’s image bearers who are living in highly developed areas to return to their calling to be caretakers of God’s creation and work to restore it.

So what are some concrete ways we can do this together here in Philadelphia?  We can plant street trees and we can join a community garden.

Street tree planting is important as a collective activity for the collective good because it is done in public spaces that are shared by all, and not just the homeowner.  The difference between a treeless city block and one lined with mature trees would be hard to overstate.  A strong tree canopy provides beauty, shade, cooling (through both shade and evapotranspiration), filtering of the air, habitat, and food for native animal species.  Trees also increase property values, reduce crime, and improve mental and physical health.  As more trees are planted throughout neighborhoods, the urban forest grows and the health of the local ecosystem can start to return around the city that was planted there. 

There is a street tree planting program run by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) called Tree Tenders.  Tree Tenders has chapters all around the city of Philadelphia, and trains people how to both plant street trees and care for them until they are established. The caretaking element is crucial because when trees are planted in urban environments and not cared for, they often die.  When card for intentionally, however, they have much higher rates of survival and can grow up to become important members of the local ecosystem.  There is a chapter in Hunting Park based out of Esperanza, Inc and coordinated by Ivana Gonzalez, who can be reached at igonzalez@esperanza.us

Community gardens are a critical way for community members to come together and reconnect with creation as a group.  I’ve been gardening for a while now, and growing fruit and vegetables is wonderful – anyone who has done this will tell you how much better everything tastes when it comes straight from your own garden.  However, the greatest fruit I’ve experienced by far has been found in the way the practice of gardening has shaped my heart, mind, and connection with creation.  When you buy a tomato from a store, you often get it in a package, with a label, as a product.  When you pick a tomato off your tomato plant, you can only do this after having tended it for a whole season, watering it carefully, giving it healthy soil and plenty of light.  It takes a long time to grow a single tomato – it’s a mysterious and beautiful process requiring a great deal of care and waiting.  A tomato is not a commodity, but part of a living plant – and gardening helps us to reconnect with that reality.  All of our food comes from living plants and animals (and fungi for all you mushroom lovers) that have needed care and tending for a long time in order to bear fruit.  Gardening together through a community garden helps to build a collective awareness of this reality and helps us to see the wonder and value of God’s creation more clearly through the haze of consumerism and commodification that defines our time.

There is a wonderful community garden in Hunting Park – the aptly named Hunting Park Community Garden.  It is located right in the park itself and if you are interested in joining it, you can contact its director, Mike Wilcox, at huntingparkgarden@gmail.com  If you are closer to the Upper Darby area, there is a lovely community garden run by the Bywood Community Association and located on the property of the Upper Darby Prayer Chapel.  You can learn more at www.bywoodcommunity.org  Finally, the Climate Witness Project, the Evangelical Environmental Network, and the Bywood Community Association are working together to try to get grant money to build a community garden next to the Garden of Prayer Church in Hunting Park at the corner of N 6th St and W Annsbury St.  We’ll keep you posted.  There are other community gardens all over the city as well.  See the resources below for a helpful link.

I encourage you to get involved with Tree Tenders as well as a community garden.  Together we can rebuild our connection with God’s creation, partner to restore the forest around us, and re-shape what it feels like to live in a city. 

RESOURCES: 

Tree Tenders (PHS): https://phsonline.org/programs/tree-programs

            HP Tree Tenders – contact Ivana Gonzalez at igonzalez@esperanza.us

HP Community Garden – Contact Mike Wilcox at huntingparkgarden@gmail.com 

Bywood Community Garden – Go to www.bywoodcommunity.org to learn more

Site with list of community gardens in Philadelphia, as well as a number of other community garden resources: https://www.farmingphilly.com/community-gardens-in-philadelphia/

Homegrown National Park - Restoring the Land Around You With Native Plants

One of the best ways we can start to restore the health of the land and ecosystem that surround us is by planting native plants.  Native plants are crucial for local ecosystem health because they have longstanding and productive roles to play in your area’s particular web of living connections.  They feed local species of insects which in turn feed the local birds.  They feed birds and other animals directly with their nuts and berries.  They sustain local pollinators, which in turn help to support the broader reproductive health of the surrounding plants (which require pollinators to make new seeds).  Local species require less watering because they are well adapted to the local climate.  And there are countless other interactions that native species have with one another that make the local ecosystem healthy, resilient, robust, and life-generating.  It is ironic that the most beautiful garden in the world can actually be a food desert for the local ecosystem if it is planted entirely with non-native species, because the local insects and other animals simply don’t eat the leaves, nuts, or fruits they produce.  So planting at least a significant portion of your garden with native species is key.

A little while back, I had a conversation with a family friend who is a landscape architect, and his personal soap box, for a long time, has been native species.  He spoke to me about the crucial need for them to be planted and this got me to start rethinking how I managed the land I had stewardship over.  I began to imagine a movement where everyone started to treat at least a portion of their garden or yard as a local nature preserve – a place devoted to supporting and sustaining the local ecosystem. 

What if the land we have stewardship over – whether it’s a little square in front of our house next to the street, or a more substantial back yard – doesn’t exist for us to use only for our own pleasure?  What if God has given us whatever land we have as a place to tend so that it might be a productive and healthy contributor to the local ecosystem?  What if the land isn’t really ours at all, but rather God’s – and we have been entrusted with the ancient Gen 1-2 calling to tend it, protect it, and nurture it so that it can be fruitful?

Biblically, I think this is very clearly our calling – to tend to whatever plot we have and intentionally support its health and, by extension, its productive contribution to the broader health of the local ecosystem – plants, animals, air, water, and people.  And one of the best ways we can do this is by planting native species. 

There is an organization called Homegrown National Park (www.homegrownnationalpark.org) that is a wonderful resource for planting native species.  The whole concept behind the organization is that we, together, plot by plot, garden by garden, might plant more and more native species and through this build the ecological health of our neighborhoods so that our normal living spaces might become increasingly supportive of the network of local life.  The website has an interactive map where you can register your home and continue to update it with more and more native species as you plant them.  It also has numerous resources on what kinds of native species to plant and where you can buy them.

Restoring our local plots harkens back to our original calling in Genesis 1-2, as well as the great restoration inaugurated by Jesus’ resurrection and envisioned in the Rev 21 Renewed Heavens and Earth.  We stand in between these two Biblical sign posts and in the midst of a global ecological crisis, with two hands, a heart, the Spirit of God, and whatever small land we have.  We can start a restoration movement here, in our own homes, gardens, and yards.

I’ve planted a bunch of native species this spring and registered on Homegrown National Park. I invite you to join me – and please let me know if you do!

RESOURCES:

Homegrown National Park: www.homegrownnationalpark.org 

Schuylkill Center for Environmental Education native plants sale: https://shop.schuylkillcenter.org/native-plants

“Regreening the Desert” Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDgDWbQtlKI

“Kiss the Ground” documentary – you can find it on Netflix, Apple TV, Google Play, and Amazon Prime

Tree Tenders (PHS): https://phsonline.org/programs/tree-programs

HP Community Garden – Contact Mike Wilcox at huntingparkgarden@gmail.com