Hanukkah’s Green Messages

  • President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama watch as a child lights the Hanukkah candles at a reception in the White House on December 16th, 2009. (Photo by Samantha Appleton, courtesy of the White House)

A lot of people worry that we make
too much waste during the holidays.
But some religious leaders are trying
to change that. Julie Grant reports
on one rabbi who wants people to see
Hanukkah as a holiday about sustainability:

Transcript

A lot of people worry that we make
too much waste during the holidays.
But some religious leaders are trying
to change that. Julie Grant reports
on one rabbi who wants people to see
Hanukkah as a holiday about sustainability:

Jewish people light candles each of the eight nights of Hanukkah – a tradition dates back 2200 hundred years – when the Jews reclaimed the Holy Temple in Jerusalem from the Greeks.

Rabbi Arthur Waskow says they needed oil to light the temple.

“They lit the menorah with just one day’s worth of oil, and, according to the legend, it lasted for eight days, until the new oil was ready.”

A few years ago, Rabbi Waskow realized this is an environmental message for people today.

“This could be seen as the conservation of oil.”

So Waskow wants people to see Hanukkah as a time to conserve natural resources in their own lives – and in public policy.

He’s encouraging people to drive less,
to support biking, railways and walking paths, and
to rest more, so we emit less carbon.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Big Apple Tree-Huggers

  • One NYC artist recruited arborists and neighbors to record messages about the city's trees. She placed markers in the cement listing numbers to call to hear the recordings. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Trees along big city streets have a rough
life. Between pollution, development,
and vandalism, street trees die off at
a pretty alarming rate. One New York
artist thinks if people knew more about
street trees, they’d appreciate them more –
and treat them better. Samara Freemark reports from New York’s “Tree
Museum”:

Transcript

Trees along big city streets have a rough
life. Between pollution, development,
and vandalism, street trees die off at
a pretty alarming rate. One New York
artist thinks if people knew more about
street trees, they’d appreciate them more –
and treat them better. Samara Freemark reports from New York’s “Tree
Museum”:

When artist Katie Holten was commissioned to do a piece commemorating Grand Concourse boulevard in the Bronx, the first thing she thought of was trees. The Concourse, after all, is lined with them. The problem was, no one else seemed to notice they were even there.

“I had conversations with people who were sitting under the trees for the shade. And I’d ask them about what they thought of the trees. And they would say, ‘oh, there aren’t any trees on the concourse.’ But they were sitting underneath one.”

And if people did notice the trees, they weren’t always thrilled they were there.

“Kids told me that trees should all be chopped down because they couldn’t see the view. A teacher told me that all trees were the same, that there was only one kind of tree.”

People didn’t pay much attention to the trees. When they did, they often abused them – which is pretty common treatment for the trees that line city streets. People pin street trees with flyers. They spray trees with grafitti. They chain their bikes around trees, stripping their bark. City buses jump curbs and plow into trees. And developers chop them down to put up new buildings.

“You can’t just stick a tree in the ground and hope for the best. It’s a really tough environment.”

In fact, half of all trees planted in New York City die.

Holten figured one way to protect street trees was to get people to understand all the good that trees do.

So she recruited arborists and neighbors to record messages about the Grand Concourse’s trees. She placed markers in the cement listing numbers to call to hear the recordings. And she called the whole thing the Tree Museum.


“There are 100 trees along the 4 miles. And each of the trees gets a small marker. So we can walk up here to 165th street and I’ll show you one. Here’s one of the markers- nice and dirty.”

(sound of dialing in)

We dial and hear…

“I’d like to a moment to say thank you to this tree. This tree is busy cooling the air and helping to keep the river clean. The leaves in the canopy above are pulling water out of the air, reducing humidity, like an AC.”

It’s not really clear how many people are actually calling in to the museum, or whether the recordings are changing anyone’s mind. But it’s a start.

Joyce Hoagy lives further up the Concourse. She recorded a message for tree number 31. And now she feels kind of possessive of it.

“This is my tree. It’s a honey locust and I’m identified by it.”

Hoagy says Bronx trees have been under particular threat lately. This year the city cut down hundreds of mature oaks to make room for the new Yankees stadium.

“One street had these giant oaks, and they formed this canopy. And on the hottest day of the year you could walk down…people didn’t know what they had till it was gone.”

So now Joyce Hoagy’s spreading the word about the Tree Museum too. She hopes it will give her neighbors a hundred reasons to care about trees around them – and watch out for them.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

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Books With a Green Ending

  • The reporter's husband reading "I Can Save The Earth" to their daughter. (Photo by Charity Nebbe)

Book publishers have always had
a close relationship with trees, mostly
dead ones. Now many publishers are trying
to make nice with the planet by introducing
green books on environmental themes and
often on recycled paper. Charity Nebbe finds this trend has reached the
children’s section of your local bookstore:

Transcript

Book publishers have always had
a close relationship with trees, mostly
dead ones. Now many publishers are trying
to make nice with the planet by introducing
green books on environmental themes and
often on recycled paper. Charity Nebbe
finds this trend has reached the
children’s section of your local bookstore:

(sound of reading)

That’s my husband reading to our three year old daughter. They’re reading “I Can Save
the Earth: One Little Monster Learns to Reduce, Reuse and Recycle.” It’s a new book
from a new division of Simon and Schuster called “Little Green Books.” Simon and
Schuster is not the only publisher trying to take advantage of the modern green
movement.

Melanie Rhodes is a children’s book buyer for Borders.

“I would say, for Fall 08 rolling into 09, I would say this is the one new trend. We’re
seeing Green product, recycled with soy based ink, or a lot of detail on the product saying
it’s planet friendly.”

Rhodes decides what will be on the shelves at Borders for babies and toddlers.

Ruta Drummond buys for the older kids – picture books for 3-7 year olds. The green
books she’s getting are on environmental themes, rather than on recycled paper.

“I’m starting to see titles: “That Litter Bug Doug”, “Michael Recycle”, “We Are
Extremely Very Good Recyclers”.

She’s also seen a few publishers try to claim the green mantle without really earning it.

“There was a publisher with a classic white book, and they said, ‘oh, well, we have a
green version. And they made the cover green. It was a green version.”

Literally green – the content was unchanged, the paper the same. Of course publishers are
in the business to sell books, so they’ll do what they have to do.

Parents who buy the books have another goal in mind. Presumably they want to raise
environmentally aware and responsible children. Can a book help them do that?

Elizabeth Goodenough teaches a course on Children’s literature for the Residential
College at the University of Michigan. She’s not a fan of books specifically designed to
teach kids a lesson.

“We all know that when someone is trying to teach us something, it’s a tough message.
We resist it and it usually backfires, and children don’t get the message that we’re trying
to convey.”

In spite of that, Goodenough does believe that books can influence children as they
develop their worldview – but the most important element of any book is its story. If
nature and the environment play an important role in a great story the kids will get the
message.

Which brings us back to bedtime at my house with “I Can Save the Earth”. The book
may be preachy, and it is, but it managed to capture my daughter’s imagination. This is
her favorite part.

(sound of reading)

The result? I’ve found toilet paper strewn all over the bathroom three times in the past
two days. The book has certainly had an environmental impact in my house and tonight
we’re gonna read something else.

For The Environment Report, I’m Charity Nebbe.

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