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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Enviro group calls on Muslims to stop flying to Mecca for Hajj |
| 2007-12-05 |
| Again, you know the drill. In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment. The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere. "The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won't need another miracle," said Liad Ortar, the campaign's cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site's environmental forum. "Global warming is a milestone in human evolution that requires us to rethink how we live our lives, and one of the main paradigms of that is religion and how it fits into the current situation." Cofounder Tom Wegner, who heads the public relations firm Update Marketing Media, spread the campaign via mass e-mails and through social interaction Web sites like Facebook and Hook.co.il. He said no money had been invested in the campaign, but it had already raised awareness around the world and made people realize that they have to consider the environment this Hanukka. Wegner said he did not consider the campaign anti-religious. The unlit candle could be the shamash, which is not required for the mitzva, he said. But he said he would encourage people who do not keep mitzvot not to light a hanukkia at all for environmental and educational reasons. "We have many environmental traditions in Judaism like Tu Bishvat and Succot, but there are also traditions like Lag Ba'omer and Hanukka that made sense when they were instituted but are more problematic now in the days of global warming," Wegner said. "There are many people who just light candles for the tradition and for their children," he said. "To tell a child on the eighth day that we are not lighting the last candle as a sacrifice for the environment is an act that is not only educational but also will prevent the release of a huge amount of carbon dioxide that would hurt the environment." Shas MK Nissim Ze'ev said he was not convinced by the environmentalists' argument. He warned that the campaign would take away from the light of Torah that each and every candle symbolizes. "The environmentalists should think about how much pollution is caused by one solitary diesel truck on the road," Ze'ev said. "They should be fighting the trucks instead of Judaism. This is so trivial, so anti-Jewish and so anti-religious that even the worst anti-Semites couldn't think of it. Just like the Helenists, they are trying to extinguish the flames of the Jewish soul." United Torah Judaism MK Avraham Ravitz called the environmentalists "crazy people who are playing with the minds of innocent Jewish people." He said the campaign would only convince people who do not light candles anyway. "They should encourage people to light one less cigarette instead," Ravitz said. Rabbi Benny Lau of Jerusalem's Ramban Congregation, who is himself an environmental activist, praised the good intentions of the people behind the campaign. But he said the environmentalists should be trying to reach out to observant Jews instead of running campaigns that turn them away. "People in the green movement who have an agenda have unfortunately made it anti-religious," Lau said. "This makes religious people think incorrectly that anything environmentalist is against them. The damage ends up being a thousand times the benefit. Tikkun olam [fixing the world] must be done by adding more light and not by adding more darkness." |
| Posted by:Seafarious |
| #21 I would say that we grab Rosie, do a thorough liposuction (using hand-powered pumps), render the harvested fat and make candles. Carbon neutral scheme. And if Rosie continues her rotund eating habits, we will harvest more in a couple of years. What say you one? What say you all? |
| Posted by: Alaska Paul 2007-12-05 22:07 |
| #20 The "green" religion is idolatry. They worship rocks, trees, the moon, the sun, the stars. Been around thousands of years. And yes, they are going to tell all the religions, their god, Mother Earth, trumps God. Well, I reckon, if God wants to warm up the earth, it might be to get the many, many idol worshippers used to something a bit hotter that is waiting for their butts. |
| Posted by: Victor Emmanuel Whusoque4891 2007-12-05 18:48 |
| #19 It's only a matter of time before the Gaia worshipers reintroduce the concept of shutting everything down one day a week [other then essential emergency medical and security services]. Watch as the enviros |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2007-12-05 18:02 |
| #18 The enviros could have said, "please don't drive on the sabbath or drive minimally" - that would arguably have saved more energy. I think the candle suggestion was simply their way of being in-your-face. Notwithstanding this, the actual halacha (per both the Shulhan Orech and the Rama) is satisfied, although minimally, if only one candle is lit each night in each household. |
| Posted by: mhw 2007-12-05 17:10 |
| #17 Hmm, well...if you burn soy candles, with lead free wicks, made by some oppressed non-white minority group doing their damnedest to preserve their ancient traditions in the face of encroaching globalization, scented with sustainably-forested materials according to fair trade practices....will they finally quit their bitching??? |
| Posted by: Swamp Blondie 2007-12-05 16:18 |
| #16 I've got a much better way to reduce global warming. We'll set up a big mulcher and tell all the enviro's to queue up to save the planet. Then it's 1, 2, 3, HEAVE and into the mulcher they go. Just think of how well the plants will grow with all this nutrient rich fertilizer. |
| Posted by: Silentbrick 2007-12-05 15:32 |
| #15 There's something more important at stake here than burning candles: the reason WHY candles are being burned. Up until now, that reason was considered more important than the time and money to buy the candles, set up, light, and put out the candles. It's part of a religious observance, and deliberately has a small footprint so that even the poor can be able to celebrate. If a religion tells you to do something, and someone else tells you not to do it, and you not do it, then that someone else is more important than religion. If God tells you to do something, and someone else tells you not to do it, or doing it sacrifices something else, and you don't do it, then that someone or something is more important than God. It is a matter of priorities, and it is clear that, to these environmentalists, their cause is more important than the Jewish Religion. There is no way around it: it is simple logic and the way power and authority relationships work. It does not matter how small the request is: I doubt that a Jew would obtain an indulgence for pleading with God to spare him the charge of idolatry because the idol he worshipped was micromechanically carved from of a single grain of rice. They need you to give in once, in principle, just as the soviet dissidents learned that the soviet torturers needed them to utter one lie to start the erosion process. If you believe your cause is more important than religion, you cause has just become a religion. |
| Posted by: Ptah 2007-12-05 15:30 |
| #14 That's the wrong formula. 9! = 1 × 2 × 3 Â… × 8 × 9 = 362,880. A Jewish household lights 2 +3 + 4 +Â…+8+9 = (9 × 10)/2 − 1 = 44 candles during the holiday. You're right, Eric, darn it! But it was exciting for a moment, using a factorial -- it's been so long. :-( You see, I'm sure, why I never went on to get that math degree. Oh, well. I'm so glad you caught it so quickly -- it would have been truly mortifying if anybody'd quoted that egregious error. Spot, given the caliber of so many who call themselves experts in the environmental field, I'd much rather think of myself as an enthusiastic amateur, even a dilettante (which is actually the truest description of my approach to a great many things). ;-) What a clever idea, Angie! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-12-05 15:19 |
| #13 And lo! The oil that was to burn for eight days was exhausted after one, thus saving the environment. Gore be praised! Look, can't Jews just get a group carbon offset from the Orthodox, who don't use electricity (or cars) on the Sabbath? |
| Posted by: Angie Schultz 2007-12-05 13:38 |
| #12 Fatwah for their death in 5...4...3... |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2007-12-05 11:41 |
#11 Some excellent comments on this at the Volokh Conspiracy blog:As Joan Rivers would say, "Oy, don't get me started here." |
| Posted by: Mike 2007-12-05 10:31 |
| #10 Big uncle Ted is coming over for the holiday. Better get a candle for the bathroom. Got him trained to light a candle in there after he gets through with business. This one will be water mellon scented. |
| Posted by: Victor Emmanuel Whusoque4891 2007-12-05 10:20 |
| #9 Maybe somebody should jump on a Gulfstream and fly down to Bali and spread the word about this at the Global Warming Conference. Maybe two Gulfstreams, in case one crashes... |
| Posted by: tu3031 2007-12-05 10:00 |
| #8 TW, That's the wrong formula. 9! = 1 × 2 × 3 … × 8 × 9 = 362,880. A Jewish household lights 2 +3 + 4 +…+8+9 = (9 × 10)/2 − 1 = 44 candles during the holiday. |
| Posted by: Eric Jablow 2007-12-05 08:58 |
| #7 I've written to PETA before about the mass slaughter of animals during the Mecca run. Needless to say they didn't give a shit about the hundreds of thousands of goat, camels etc. killed. Asking the Jews to light one less candle is purely an act of anti-western mindless hate. One telling clue is Tom Wegner's political affiliation. A junk solution for junked debunked wankers. Spit. |
| Posted by: Icerigger 2007-12-05 08:17 |
| #6 Don't sell yourself short TW. From your post it sounds like you're a better environmental expert than the idiots behind this campaign. Typical leftist BS: make a silly gesture, claim success, and ignore the real problem. |
| Posted by: Spot 2007-12-05 08:12 |
| #5 In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment. Somebody's parents threw out the baby and raised the bath water. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2007-12-05 07:56 |
| #4 They're fussing about Hanukkah (Channukka, Hanouka (a charming French spelling)) candles? The ones that are the size of a largish birthday candle, and burn only a little longer? The "Total Quality" problem solving process used by the Japanese and later American companies, taught by Peter Drucker, recommended first fixing the few things that caused the most problems. It seems to me that getting China off coal cakes as a heating/cooking fuel, stopping slash & burn agriculture in Latin America and the wooded parts of Asia, or requiring environmental committee meetings to take place by video conference instead of flying to Bali, would significantly reduce pollution and CO2 production, not to mention wasted time. Addressing wasteful water practices would be another big item. Reducing the lighting of one birthday-type candle out of (9!-1 candles)*(18 million Jews world wide)/(4 Jews per household, perhaps a quarter of whom don't light anything, and another quarter use oil lamps in the pre-candle tradition) seems like misplaced enthusiasm to me. But then, I'm no environmental expert. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2007-12-05 07:50 |
| #3 THeir pot-smoking produces a lot more CO2 than Hanouka candles. |
| Posted by: JFM 2007-12-05 06:51 |
| #2 Human beings are contaminants to the pristine environment of Earth. We must rid the world of this scourge to restore Gaia to her natural state of perfection. We should all do the heroic thing like this woman. |
| Posted by: Snarong B. Hayes8239 2007-12-05 05:02 |
| #1 If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere. Oh, brother. That would be like, what, about 10 seconds worth of output from Algore's private jet? These "founders" must have some really serious mental health "issues." |
| Posted by: PBMcL 2007-12-05 01:16 |