Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light welcomes our newest faith partner, Kaleo Nashville. Kaleo Nashville is a local church indigenous to the streets of south Nashville in the Woodbine neighborhood. Kaleo’s dream is to see how heaven can break into our lives, our city, and our world. Hospitality, presence, mutuality, authenticity, local, growing, and embodied are words used to describe Kaleo.

Kaleo is particularly committed to the Christian calling of serving and keeping creation. Inwardly, Kaleo is committed to a zero-waste church lifestyle and using all resources as regeneratively as possible. This commitment is expressed through everything from dish-washing together to collecting compost. Outwardly, Kaleo’s commitment to Earth-care is expressed through community gardening, stream clean-ups, and other impacts. We strive to send our resources where our bodies cannot go and use our bodies in the places where our hands can reach.

Kaleo Nashville is co-pastored by Emily and Caleb Haynes. In 2021, Caleb released his book “Garbage Theology, The unseen world of waste and what it means for the salvation of every person, every place, and every thing.” The book is a helpful resource for the people of God in reconnecting with issues of environmental justice.

Kaleo Nashville loves visitors! Kaleo is part of the Church of the Nazarene and meets Sundays at 10 am in the Coleman Community Center, 384 Thompson Lane.

After community input from advocates like the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE), at their December 16 meeting, the Knoxville Utilities Board (KUB) board passed a resolution to reallocate Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) pandemic recovery funds to emergency bill assistance programs ($5 million) and weatherization ($1 million). KUB was offered $7.3 million to assist customers impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic through TVA’s pandemic relief credit program. This program offering is available to all utilities in TVA’s service territory, though the amount differs.

Advocates and Board speak up for KUB customers behind on bills

Initially, KUB staff presented a resolution at their October meeting which would have allocated $1.3 million of the funds toward assisting customers with payment arrangements for past due bills. The remaining $6 million was to be provided as a bill credit to all residential and standard business customers. This blanket credit would have saved the average residential customer about $17 over a 12 month period or about $1.40 per month for 12 months.

However, several KUB board members spoke up during the October meeting, after being urged by members of the Knoxville Water and Energy for All Coalition, of which SACE is a part, and asked that the $6 million instead be allocated to low-income weatherization and bill assistance for KUB customers behind on their utility bills.

SACE Civic Engagement Coordinator, Brady Watson, delivers comments and the KWEA petition at the October KUB board meeting.

KWEA also gave public comments at the October meeting (49:51) asking that the funding be reallocated so as to better assist community members most in need. Additionally, the KWEA coalition circulated a petition in the Knoxville community and gathered nearly 200 signatures which were delivered to the KUB board at the October meeting asking that KUB use the funding to forgive all KUB customer outstanding debt, and use the remaining funds of the recovery credit to provide relief to customers who are struggling to pay their bills. While KUB did not pledge to forgive ALL debt, this is certainly still a major win for our community.

KUB listens to its board and the community

Fast forward to the December meeting, and the KUB board delivered, listening to the Knoxville community by diverting funds to help those most in need. KUB staff will apply the estimated remaining $6 million in credits toward emergency utility bill assistance ($5 million) and home weatherization ($1 million).

After the resolution passed, the KWEA coalition expressed gratitude to KUB for listening to the community:

“As we work towards a strong and vibrant community, it is critical for our public utility to be responsive to the needs of the most vulnerable rate payers. Although there is more work to be done to establish sustainable solutions for families who face financial barriers, KUB’s move to use the pandemic recovery credit towards emergency bill assistance is the right move. I am grateful for the voices from our community who continue to make their voices heard for the betterment of all families.” – KWEA Steering Committee Member, Rev. Calvin Taylor Skinner

How did we get here? How do we move forward?

The Southeast faces a multitude of challenges that have manifested into some of the highest electricity bills in the country. For Tennesseans, and Knoxvillians, the layered challenges the community faces, including disproportionate energy burdens, have resulted in some KUB customers finding themselves behind on their utility bills. It doesn’t help that TVA has failed to invest in meaningful energy efficiency programs that would help ratepayers use less energy in their homes, and thus save money.

This funding reallocation would not have happened without public pressure and community members raising their voices. The KWEA coalition and SACE will continue to monitor the situation to ensure the aid is distributed to households that need it.

Join us for Tennessee Interfaith Power & Light’s
Annual Holiday Party and Concert.

Sunday, December 12th at 3 PM Central Time

Featuring stories, poetry, games and other fun.

We will host an online musical concert starting around 4:30 CT.

Silent Auction

Bid on Wonderful Silent Auction Items
Between 3 and 5 pm in the Zoom Chat

How will I join the Party?

The party will be hosted on Zoom. Once you RSVP, you’ll receive a confirmation email that provides you with a zoom link. This zoom link will be emailed again to you on the morning of the party.

Can’t Make the Party?  Please consider making a year-end donation to TIPL.

Tell TVA to Act on Climate!

Candlelight Climate Vigil
A Chattanooga witness to the key COP 26 UN Climate Conference

Thanks to all of you who attended our Candlelight Climate Vigil in support of COP26 deliberations that hopefully will bring climate change awareness, concern and commitment to our local residents regarding impacts deleterious to all Life. Thanks to Anne Curtis, DIxie Riall, Jamie Fota, Bill Moll, Dan Joranko and Reverend Goheen for leading a meaningful vigil.  Channels 3 and 9 covered our event.  

______________________________________

COP26 in Glasgow is coming to an end, but the work for action continues anew.  The goal of course is to keep the global temperature from warming no more than 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.  Right now warming is at 1.1 degrees Celsius so it is urgent that action be taken immediately. Scientists say that presently we are on course for a 2.4 degree Celsius warming.  

There are a lot of promises, but transparency and reporting is needed to hold countries accountable for what they pledged.  There were several protests especially by young people calling for less talk and more action. Here are some agreements and pledges resulting from COP26.

1.   $1.7 billion funding for Indigenous forest protection and, more broadly, end deforestation by 2030.

2.  The agreement  “urges” countries to “revisit and strengthen” their 2030 climate plans by the end of 2022 and up their original carbon emissions reduction pledges.  (Countries pledged to reduce carbon emissions during the COP22 Paris Accord, but in most cases have not met their commitments.) 

3.  Higher-income countries have committed to doubling the finance they give to lower-income countries for adapting to a warming world.

4. Leaders have vowed to phase out coal financing, cut their methane emissions and halt deforestation. Nations have promised to erase their carbon footprints by the middle of the century.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Our TIPL member and poet Kemmer Anderson has written this thought provoking poem.  You can see it on line at https://dissidentvoice.org/2021/11/sustaining-earth/

Sustaining Earth

by Kemmer Anderson / November 7th, 2021

1.
The Earth is not ours to possess:
We belong to the Earth, who provides
life to sustain us and wisdom to save us.
Listen to poems that Nature grows
from the ground of our being.

2.
The wind roars across Stringer’s Ridge
through the Tennessee River canyon
raising the spirit of the Cherokees.

On the great prairie plains, the indigenous
winds that spoke to the Lakota Sioux turn
blades: wings churning, the gift of energy.

The sun pours across the land with a voice of Light:
Solar farms lift palms and panels, growing power
that surrounds continents with sustaining hope.

The sacred muse of water seeps into the soul
with a reflection pure: streams running with salmon,
pools floating with your face mirrored in grace

Before coal ash, sewage, chemicals, and fracking
poisoned the waters, bathed with our weeping
tears drowning from the heavy weight of greed.

We are losing the ability to sustain life on this
shrouded earth, mined and stripped naked to the core
for the Babel cities that cover soil with asphalt.

The carbon thief of oil, coal, and shale rock
hides behind lies that eat away
truth for wealth, war, waste, and smog.

3.
Find a conversation with wind and wild geese,
learn the vocabulary of boundless Light,
find the syllables of waters that cleanse the mind

thirsty for the sound of ancient springs
where families drew life from Willow Springs,
where sojourners washed in stone troughs at Delphi.

Now a new generation has learned the language
of earth, the Euclidean proof that circles a world
without borders and division of power.

Listen to the air we breathe: Justice spells
the elements of sun, fire, wind, and water
with a freedom beyond ownership and boundary.

Nature calls us home from this prodigal journey
that polluted the map of Liberty and the voice
of the Great Spirit who hovers over the water.