Jessica Haller – CIO and Director of The Jewish Climate Campaign I’m in Bath. Say it like an Englishman, not like you’re in the shower. Baaath. Six months after Hazon attended the celebration of religions at Windsor Castle, with their 7-year plans to address climate change, I returned to England to take part in the steering committee for the Green Pilgrim Cities program, sponsored by ARC (Alliance of Religions and Conservation) and the United Nations Development Program. The committee was a reunion of old-new friends from the celebration at Windsor castle, including Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem Naomi Tzur, and representatives of pilgrimage cities and religions from across the globe. The idea, hatched at Windsor, was to unite pilgrim destinations around the world in addressing the ever-present problem of pilgrims leaving a mess in their wake. 100 million water bottles were left on the road and in the rubbish on the Hajj (the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca) in 2008. 100 million. That’s a lot of plastic, a lot of oil, a lot of bottles water, and a lot of money spent on a resource that should be free. The stories cross religions and regions. (more…)
