Knox Green Team
Caring for the Earth – Faith in Action
The Knox United Church Green Team is dedicated to encouraging and supporting green initiatives in our church and community. We seek to create opportunities for connecting our faith and creation care. We hope to inspire and empower people for action through workshops, educational talks, practical programs and worship. We encourage the use of renewable energy and products made from renewable resources. We believe it is our responsibility to live so that our children and grandchildren can have a future.
Green Team Blog
Just a Green Minute...
Project Drawdown: Solution #1 - Refrigerants
Prepare yourselves! This may surprise you.
The #1 solution to Climate Change is to recapture the gases used in old refrigeration units at the end of their life. This includes old refrigerators, freezers and air conditioning units.
The CFC and HCFC gases used in old refrigeration units are about 10,000 times more powerful greenhouse gases than carbon dioxide. That’s not a misprint! The best new refrigerants are about 10X better, but if they escape into the atmosphere they are still very dangerous as a greenhouse gas.
90% of refrigerant emissions happen at end of life so, old or new, refrigerants really need to be recaptured when a refrigeration unit is no longer used so they can be responsibly recycled or reduced to harmless compounds.
The work to actively seek out and evacuate old units has begun in other parts of the world. But it needs to happen everywhere. It needs to happen here, in our homes, in our communities.
What can we do? Find out what your municipalities and province are doing. Lobby for very aggressive recapture policies and programs. Make sure we dispose of our own old refrigeration units in a responsible way. Manitoba Hydro is offering free pick up and a $50 rebate for old, working units. Manitoba Hydro Refrigerator Pick Up (showmethegreen.ca)
https://showmethegreen.ca/home/home-improvement/manitoba-hydro-refrigerator-pick-up/#:~:text=Removing%20an%20old%20or%20second%20freezer%2Ffridge%20saves%20customers,it%20is%20recycled%20in%20an%20environmentally%20responsible%20way
This one fix is equivalent to 89.74 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide! This one solution alone would remedy about 3% of the problem. That is almost double the effects of all transportation related fixes (according to the Drawdown document).
This can be done very easily with technology we already have. So let’s get right on this solution! It is number One!
Refrigerants: Major Role in Saving the Planet - accelerate24.news
https://accelerate24.news/regions/global/refrigerants-major-role-in-saving-the-planet/2020/
Alternative Refrigerants | Project drawdown
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/alternative-refrigerants/technical-summary
Refrigerant Management | Project Drawdown
https://www.drawdown.org/solutions/refrigerant-management
Movie Night
Green Team Movie Recommendation
This week we are thinking a lot about food waste. Globally 1/3 of the food we produce is wasted. Here in Canada much of the waste happens in our homes so the answer is to change the way we shop, cook and store food.
Just Eat It is a documentary about a BC couple who decided that for 6 months they would only eat food that was destined to be discarded and then filming that journey. The movie tells the story of food waste from farm to fork. This film will surprise and entertain you and might make you commit to wasting less.
You can see Just Eat It on the Knowledge channel It’s free!
Just Eat It |Knowledge.ca https://www.knowledge.ca/program/just-eat-it
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