Now that we have light from the sun, let’s use is it! The catholic church is doing just that. They have just installed a hugh array of solar panels on a portion of the Vatican. Since the Vatican is technically a city is must be one of the greenest cities on the planet now (based on renewables per capita).
Last year the Southern Baptists stated that climate change is a real issue to be dealt with. All faiths now join in to be more sustainable. There is a local group in Atlanta called Georgia Interfaith Power & Light (GIPL and members are called gippies!) Whether you believe in God or not or climate change or not, you can still adopt some of the basic principles of each. Back to the Judea-Christian ten commandments, following them does not mean that you have to believe in any particular God, it can mean that you just happen to want to get along with your fellow man. Nothing wrong with that.
Climate change is still a debated subject that gets many fired up. Some use it to thwart capitalism, while others that disagree choose to categorize all environmentalists as “tree huggers.” We can all agree the saving energy is directly proportional to saving money and that is good (unless you own stock in a non-green power company,) Clean air and a healthy environment are good as well so why fight about the basic issues? Green is now apolitical. It is okay to want to be green, however STOP making is a divisive issue. We all agree on the basic facts yet we want to destroy the credibility if each others arguments and sustainable progress gets put on hold.
For more information on the Vatican story read on.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – And then there was light — and it was powered by the sun. The Vatican on Wednesday activated a new solar energy system and announced an ambitious plan that could one day make it an alternative energy exporter.
The massive roof of the “Nervi Hall” where popes hold general audiences and concerts are performed, has been covered with 2,400 photovoltaic panels to provide energy for lighting, heat and air conditioning.
After weeks of tests, the system went on line at full throttle hours before Pope Benedict held what officials called the “first ecological general audience in the Vatican.”
The new system on the 5,000 square meter roof will produce 300 megawatt hours (MWh) of clean energy a year for the audience hall and surrounding buildings.
The 1.2 million euro ($1.6 million) system, devised and donated by German companies SolarWorld and SMA Solar Technology, will allow the 108-acre city-state to cut its carbon dioxide emissions by about 225 tons and save the equivalent of 80 tons of oil each year.
“This is a very courageous initiative,” said Carlo Rubbia, the Italian who won the 1984 Nobel Prize in physics and attended the unveiling ceremony in the Vatican.
“The sun has 100,000 times the energy produced by traditional sources of energy on earth. This why we need so much science, so much investment in research for the future,” Rubbia said at the unveiling.
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