Seniors at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate auto shop, Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, raised money to convert a 1997 GMC Sonoma S-10 pick-up truck from gas to electric. While students studied pollution, they created a vehicle that is useful for the average citizen and much healthier for the environment. The truck uses batteries that are 98 percent recyclable and, by the end of next semester, will have no direct emissions. At its completion in the coming months, the truck will be sold and the proceeds put toward future environmental projects at the school.

To read more, click on “Past Issues.” Go into 2009 and click on Volume 13 No. 15. “The Wheels are Turning” can be found in the left hand column. 

Milverton Mennonite Fellowship, Milverton, ON, has heated their church building with a ground source heat pump since 1991! The congregation has a sanctuary that seats 350 and is happy to keep those seats warm with lower CO2 emissions. Read about Milverton in Mennonite Central Committee Canada’s Creation Care Crossroads newsletter, winter 2009.

by Darren Kropf, Creation Care Crossroads

Mennonite Central Committee Ontario has “greened” the electricity of its 50 Kent office in Kitchener by purchasing renewable energy from Bullfrog
Power. Bullfrog Power provides renewable energy for
homes and businesses in Ontario, through the regular
distribution grid.

Without any hardware installations or
changes to your regular utility, Bullfrog simply agrees to
feed an amount of renewable energy into the grid that is
equivalent to your buildings’ needs. While Bullfrog does
charge a premium price for its wind and low-impact hydro
electricity, MCC is committed to investing the extra cost
to protect God’s creation and our global neighbours
affected by climate change.
Through Bullfrog Power, MCC is lowering its carbon
emissions on a yearly basis by 19.2 tonnes, about the
equivalent of 19 flights from Toronto to Calgary. We also
prevent 56.8 Kg of sulphur dioxide and 24.5 Kg of nitric
oxide, which are major contributors to smog.
To bullfrogpower your house, apartment, workplace or
church building, see www.bullfrog.com

Kitchener, Ont.
Photovoltaic Man—student Alec Barrett—leads Rockway students in a cheer as the school’s fledgling solar power system was turned on last month.

Environmental superhero Photovoltaic Man and “Bob Dylan” made special appearances at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate last month as the school switched on its fledgling solar power system. (more…)

Members of Rockway Mennonite Church, Kitchener, ON, have gotten our their calculators and their check books lately. They’ve been figuring out how much C02 their lifestyles are putting into the air and offsetting that amount at the rate of $30 per tonne. (more…)

You’ve heard of Community-Supported Agriculture, but what about Community-Supported Music?

Brian Moyer Suderman, Willowgrove, Ontario, is a different kind of recording artist. He recognizes that much about the lifestyle of a professional musician can be damaging. Constant travel to long-distance concerts is hard on family relationships; it also consumes fossil fuels and puts carbon dioxide in the air. (more…)

By Joanna Reesor-McDowell
Special to Canadian Mennonite
SCARBOROUGH, ONT.
The adult Sunday school class at Warden
Woods Mennonite Church devoted a
year to studying issues related to climate
change, a process that culminated in a
passionate letter to Prime Minister Stephen
Harper, calling on him to go beyond
the Kyoto Protocol to address “one of the
greatest moral challenges of our time.”
Dale Hildebrand, co-teacher of the class,
says that after studying the theological basis
for caring for creation, the group agreed
that these issues are an “integral part of
faith” and they asked themselves, “What
is God calling us to do?” (more…)