"In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.
The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere."
Read the rest of the article.
This brings up a really interesting issue I've been thinking about recently: how much do we change for the sake of curbing global warming? I tend to get really "all or nothing" about it in my own life (which has been a cause for some anxiety). I'm of the mindset that in order to deal with global warming, we have to make real lifestyle changes and not just try to fit sustainability into the existing framework of our lives, since there are fundamental things about the way we live that are just not sustainable. For example, I'm thinking about the need to have food or whatever "to go"--one solution would be to make to go containers out of more recyclable materials, and the other (better, in my opinon) solution would be to encourage people to sit down and eat and take food to go only if they absolutely, last resort have to. Instead of treating the issue superficially, we should get down to the underlying habits and practices--the real source of the problem.
Anyway, that turned into a rant. Basically, as much as I believe in what I just wrote, I feel like there might be areas it'd be weird to mess with (like religious practices). I think I would totally light one less candle this year (if I were actually good about practicing Judaism), but I can understand why there's heated (ha...ha..) opposition to it. What do you think?
Also, in case you're interested in more about "green Judaism" (I just made that up), check out the Green Menorah Covenant.
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