Compass Conference February 6th – 12th, 2021

Tennessee Interfaith Power & Light is co-sponsoring the 2021 New Green Economy Compass Conference coming up in February!

Find information about the conference, registration, and the schedule below.
Register Here!

Join us for the 2021 New Green Economy Compass Conference!

The New Green Economy Compass Conference will enable people from organizations throughout the Tennessee Valley region to learn about and strategize around approaches to economic development that foster both sustainability and equitable employment. National, regional and local strategies will all be focused on.  These include furthering the Green New Deal and capturing green stimulus funding for projects focused on growing Green Collar jobs for underserved communities.  Innovative cooperative community development programs will be featured. Community, environmental, labor and religious organizations will be engaged in both planning the conference and implementing the strategies that emerge.

We will be meeting over Zoom. Click the link above to register for the event and instructions on how to join!

Conference Schedule

Saturday, February 6 (9-11 am CT)
Opening Keynote from Colette Pichon-Battle,
Workshop on the Green New Deal and the Southeast, and Strategy Session

Monday, February 8 – Thursday, February 11
Workshops (Noon and 6 pm CT):
Monday (Feb 2nd, Noon): Energy Democracy and Economy
Monday (Feb 2nd, 6pm): Energy Jobs in a Green Economy
Tuesday (Feb 9th, Noon): Labor and Green Jobs
Tuesday (Feb 9th, 6pm): Equitable Transportation and Green Jobs
Wednesday (Feb 10th, Noon): Regenerative Agriculture
Wednesday (Feb 10th, 6pm): Federal Stimulus  & Green Jobs
Thursday (Feb 11th, Noon): Religion, Labor and Ecology
Thursday (Feb 11th, 6pm): Worker Co-ops and Green Jobs
Friday, February 12 (10:00 am CT)
Closing Strategy Session

Speakers & Workshop Leaders

Keynote Speaker: Colette Pichon-Battle
Saturday, February 6th at 9:00am
Colette Pichon-Battle
Founder and Executive Director, Gulf Coast Center for Law & PolicyColette is a generational native of Bayou Liberty, Louisiana. As founder and Executive Director of the Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy, she develops programming focused on Equitable Disaster Recovery, Global Migration, Community Economic Development, Climate Justice and Energy Democracy.  Colette works with local communities, national funders and elected officials in the post-Katrina/post-BP disaster recovery. Pichon Battle works to advance equitable recovery from climate disasters ranging from hurricanes to oil drilling disasters. In addition to developing advocacy initiatives that intersect race, systems of power and ecology, Pichon Battle manages GCCLP’s legal services for immigration law and disaster law. She was named an Echoing Green Climate fellow in 2015 and in 2019 was named an Obama Fellow for her work with Black and Native communities on the frontline of climate change.

…other workshop leaders to be announced!

Sponsors & Co-Sponsors

Sponsors
Tennessee Alliance for Progress | Nashville Peace & Justice Center Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice

Co-Sponsors
Appalachian Voices | People’s Justice Council
Memphis and Mid-South Regional Chapter of the Climate Reality Project
Nashville Chapter of the Climate Reality Project
Sierra Club –  Harvey Broome Group | Sierra Club – Middle Tennessee Group
Southeast Center for Cooperative Development | Southeast Climate and Energy Network
Southeast Faith Leaders Network | Sunrise Movement- Nashville Chapter
Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light| Tennessee Valley Democracy Movement
Creation Care Ministries of the Tennessee Conference of the United Methodist Church

Register Here!

TIPL’s Annual Holiday Party & Fundraiser

Sunday, December 6th, 2020 Nashville: 3-5pm | Knoxville & Chattanooga: 4-6pm

We have had a wild year so far, but we’ve all been working as hard as we can. Now it’s time to have some fun! Join us as we gear up for 2021 by first taking some time to celebrate, engage in virtual festivities, and raise some dollars for our work at our third annual holiday party! The schedule for the evening will include:

• * Live music (from local Tennessee artists),
• * Engaging storytelling,
• * Lots of time to brag about TIPL’s work this year,
• * An interactive poetry contest (hint: study up on poetry with five lines and an AABBA rhyming pattern),
• * and a live auction, opening on December 3rd!

Because this year’s holiday party must be virtual, we will be celebrating over Zoom and with all three TIPL chapters from Chattanooga, Knoxville, and Nashville!

RSVP using this link so we know you can make it.

No donation is required to attend, but if you can make a gift of any size to help us raise money for 2021, your gift would be greatly appreciated!

Donate via Check: Please make a tax-deductible check out to “Southern Alliance for Clean Energy” or “SACE” with “TIPL” on the “for” line.

SACE is TIPL’s 501(c)(3) Nonprofit Fiscal Sponsor. Send your gift (made out to “SACE”) to TIPL, PO Box 26313, Knoxville, TN 37912.

Or use the Donate Link found throughout the TIPL website.

Hello Tennessee Interfaith Power & Light Friends:

We don’t need to tell you how important the upcoming election is.  In this post, you will find:

1. Information that might be useful as you plan how you will vote and how to track your ballot if you are voting by mail.   
2. Information on how to volunteer with the national Environmental Voter Project, a non-partisan organization working hard to increase turnout of pro-environment voters.

Okay, once again, this election is incredibly important.  So, most of all, be sure to vote.  And second, if you have the time, get involved with some effort to get out a strong pro-environment vote.  EVP is a good option for that. If you have questions about the EVP effort, contact Rev. Slentz at pslentz53@gmail.com.

In defense of this good Earth, Betsy Garber, TIPL President

First, planning your vote and tracking your ballot if you vote by mail.  

The most important source for voting information is the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Voter Information web page.

On that page, you will find information about ways we can vote in Tennessee:

Absentee Voting By-Mail  Remember that you:

• —  have to meet certain requirements to be able to vote absentee by mail (see website for who is eligible);
• — you must request a ballot from your County Election Commission (the deadline is Oct. 27, but that is way too late given the way mail is running now, go ahead and make the request now);
• — when you get your ballot, follow the instructions carefully and be sure to sign where instructed.
• — your ballot must be mailed back to your County Election Commission through the U.S. Postal Service (can’t be hand delivered and no drop-off boxes), and it must be received by your county election office by election day, November 3.  It is not enough for it to just be postmarked by November 3. 
• —  one $0.55 stamp or first class “forever” stamp is all that is needed to mail in your ballot.

Early Voting – In Person

Locations and times for early in person voting will vary from county to county.  So, to find out specifics for your county, go to the County Elections Commissions Map and click on your county.  Go to this site to find your Voter Registration Information and Polling Place.

Election Day Voting – In Person

Of course, the third option is to vote in person on election day, November 3.  If you have questions about where you vote, again contact your county’s election commission or go to this site: Voter Registration Information and Polling Place.  Be sure to take an Acceptable ID.  

Also, unlike early voting, YOU MUST GO TO THE POLLING SITE YOU ARE ASSIGNED TO (BASED ON YOUR HOME ADDRESS).  Again, go to Voter Registration and Polling Place to be sure where you are to vote on Election Day.

Tracking your absentee by-mail ballot  

If you are eligible to do so and have voted or will vote by mail, you can make sure your ballot has been received by your county election commission by going to Voter Registration Information and Polling Place.

Second, how to volunteer to get out a strong pro-environment vote through The Environmental Voter Project

Believe it or not, environmentalists vote at lower than average rates.  To increase the voting rate for people who care about the Earth, the non-partisan Environmental Voter Project (EVP) has identified pro-environment registered voters (through a variety of means) in 12 key states.  They are using volunteers to call those voters to encourage them to vote and provide them with information about how to vote in their locale.

TIPL-Nashville Chairperson, Rev. Paul Slentz, has done some phone banking with them and can report that the training is good and that it’s really pretty easy (even for somebody as tech-phobic as Paul).  All the equipment you need is a computer and a phone. (Note from Paul:  “I left a fair number of voice mails, had some wrong numbers, and some no answers.  But the ones I did talk to were friendly and appreciated the information I could provide them.  I was calling people in Nevada and it was more fun than I thought it would be!)

You don’t provide any private information to the people you call.  You just use your first name and identify yourself as a volunteer for EVP.  The number that shows up on caller ID is that of EVP.

To sign up to volunteer, go to EVP’s Get Involved web page.  To check out volunteer training times (a good way to figure out if this is something you’d like to do), go to EVP’s Events and Trainings web page.

October Climate Academy: John Lewis, the Beloved Community and Energy Justice

Sunday, October 11th | 3PM CST / 4 PM EST

For Tennessee Interfaith Power & Light’s October Climate Academy, we invite you to a reflection on the life, principles, and practices of John Lewis and how they inform a faith-based approach to nonviolence, community formation, and energy justice. Lewis’s formative years were in the Nashville sit-in movement. This tradition continues on in Nashville. We will continue this reflection by examining two more recent nonviolent campaigns: a four-month long sit-in on health care at the Tennessee State Capitol in Nashville, and a vigorous campaign for energy justice in Chicago.

[Read more…]

“It really boils down to this: that all life is interrelated.
We are all caught in an inescapable network of mutuality; tied into a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
We are made to live together because of the interrelated structure of reality.”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Christmas Eve sermon, 1967 at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta

Members of Tennessee Interfaith Power and Light believe that these beautiful words, spoken 53 years ago by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., simply and eloquently portray the truth about our community of life on Earth.  We believe the social and Earth sciences that teach us about the critical importance of maintaining diversity… of plants, animals, and people. We understand that diversity of beliefs, cultures, traditions, and histories strengthen and enrich us as we live together on this beautiful, miraculous planet.

Living peaceably together requires that we act boldly and swiftly to stop the destruction of Earth. Global warming will not affect us all equally; rather, it will bring particular hardships to minority communities. Living peaceably together requires that we act boldly and swiftly to equalize access to healthcare and education and jobs and housing. For too long Black people, indigenous people, and other people of color have been systematically held down.

We acknowledge and condemn the centuries of abhorrent, demoralizing, and often murderous activities that have been levied upon people of color.  As people of faith, we vow to act upon our principles of faith on behalf of our brothers and sisters. Therefore, we resolve to:

• speak truth to power about the persistent discrimination against minority people;
• engage in peaceful civil action to show solidarity with others who also support minority equality and rights;
• participate in community activities that are intended to bring people together regardless of race;
• consciously support minority-owned businesses;
• actively welcome people of color to join our organization and our activities;
• educate ourselves about systemic racism and white privilege;
• vote our belief that Black Lives Matter.