Taking Solace in Slowness

Or - This is gonna take awhile

Most Sundays, you can find me in the pews of Bethany United in Chicago, a rainbow flag church not far from the myriad breweries of Malt Row. And each time I sit in said pews – trying not to fidget endlessly like the weirdo I am – I find myself awash in a beautiful spray of light, cast by the stained-glass windows onto ancient blocks of stone.

Built in 1895, this stunning building is…well, old. When the masons were laying the foundation, The Jungle Book was being published for the first time, and the Chicago subway system had been in operation for just three years. There are lifetimes of history layered up at the church, a beautiful cacophony of styles and eras. Parishioners unironically use terms like “narthex,” and outside the sanctuary, there’s a classic 1950s gym and a coffee hall with cabinets full of 1930s porcelain.

I’ve been thinking about the building a lot lately. Not just because it’s rad – though it is – but because, like the rest of us, it too is going through a climate transition. Outside our walls, the Earth is groaning, and some of the parishioners want to help. Doing so, however, will require a most monumental task, a complex equation of architecture, steam, and seemingly pre-Cambrian technology.

I’ve realized, however, that my church’s overhaul – and the challenges it represents – is a good metaphor for the rest of the climate transition. In the end, what we’re dealing with is a transformation of the built environment, a network of structures we had the privilege of largely building from scratch over the course of many decades. Unfortunately, re-building that infrastructure needs to happen a lot faster than the first time around – and at a scale worthy of the climate crisis.

Today, we’re going to talk about Bethany’s path ahead – and the many steps still between us and our goals. We’ll discuss what an old building’s electrification entails, of course, but also what it means. Part electrification guide and part philosophy, we’re going to attempt to blend the two things this poor writer can only do sort of well on their own. But if that’s what the climate requires, then that’s what you’re gonna get! Join me, and, like church, I promise we’ll have donuts after.

Before You Start, Start Getting Started

Before we even scratch the surface mechanically, it’s important to remember that community is a beautiful, raucous experiment in “small D” democracy. There are many constituencies at play in any group, even a small one like Bethany. It’s not even a given that we’re going to electrify. After months of meetings, I’m just getting enough buy-in to do some fact-finding on what a sustainable overhaul would look like. In that sense, you could say I’m writing this prematurely. (Let’s hear about the time JH failed to get his church to transition!)

But I really do think this is an important point philosophically. Building consensus is the work of the climate transition. After all, the energy transition is not just technical – it’s cultural, philosophical, and spiritual. The sick nasty technology you get to deploy is just the icing on the cake.

In all realms of life, it’s easy to get frustrated by the pace of the transition – especially after an election in which the mere reality of climate science was in question. However, in attempting to electrify Bethany, I’m starting to find some peace in the waiting too. As Katherine Hayhoe recently said in her Substack, Talking Climate, the clean energy transition is like a boulder already rolling down a hill. It may take a while for the boulder to reach the bottom, but that’s simply the way of things. We can – and should – do more. We can even try to push the boulder a little faster. But in the end, moving a giant rock takes time.

I also have begun to realize that to deploy clean energy without consensus would likely give us medicine that isn’t worth the cure. I listened to a great podcast recently with Anne Applebaum, an expert of the fascism of the 1930s, and part of every fascist movement has been a leveraging of technology. And we’re seeing some similar trends in the US now, especially what experts are describing as techno-authoritarianism, driven by billionaires who think democracy is too weak, too slow, and too egalitarian to get anything done.

Those billionaires, of course, have very little interest in sustainability, but it’s a point that opened my eyes a bit. Do I wish Americans were more open to the factual science of climate change? Sure do! Do I wish we were moving faster? Obviously. But I also think we should win them over, not force them. Are we sure we weren’t condescending when we were battling misinformation? Are we positive we made our climate politics big tent politics? I truly believe democracy will be worth it in the end. It’s the only form of government still worth having when we finally conquer the climate crisis. And hey, it is slow. It is noisy and volatile. But it’s worth it too.

So, let’s start there. Whatever your sphere of influence is – be you a Pokémon gym leader, a Rotary Club member, or an equine aficionado – how do you go about convincing your community of the merits of your climate contrivance?

How to Talk Turkey

Remember our piece on “being a menace?” Well, that’s a great place to start. Whenever you see an opportunity, you have to seize it, “sticking your face in the fan blade” as the sales bros say. In my case, Bethany was already planning a capital campaign in an attempt to prepare the building for future generations – and get outlets that can hold more than one crock pot for our potlucks… So, the first step is having your voice heard:

1. Becoming the Menace

   In my case, I put on my big boy courage pants (which I do not wear often) and asked the pastor if I could join the capital campaign committee to talk about sustainability. He very readily said yes, so, in one sense, this was not all that hard. Bethany is a very modern church, and there’s certainly a broad appetite already for sustainability. If anything, I’ve had a much harder time convincing my apartment’s HOA board to take climate action – and I became the secretary just to try and win some influence! (Shout out to my HOA and sorry for my sloppy note taking…)

   However, an appetite for sustainability is not always the same as readiness. For one, the median age of our congregation, like most churches these days, is around 60. That age gap is not a bad thing – it comes with a lot of wisdom – but we simply haven’t caught up with climate education in the older generations. When I first brought up sustainability at our first meeting nearly six months ago, there was an eager “yes” followed by “so, we’re going to replace the paper towels in the bathroom, right?” We should do that, definitely, but when it comes to our carbon footprint, it’s barely a drop in the bucket.

   Slowly, however, through multiple conversations, I think we have a group that’s very on board with taking the next steps on clean energy and electrification. That’s assuming we can find enough funding to pay for it – something I’ll talk about at the end – but the vision is there. And that’s the point of engagement, of actively having hard conversations to build consensus. One of the committee members even got a heat pump for their own house as a result. Eureka!

2. Finding your People

   Thankfully, I also don’t have to be alone in this endeavor. Thanks to our church’s incredible intern and community-building genius, Xander King, we now have a sustainability small-group that meets weekly. And through that work, we’re about to launch a “Green Team,” a sustainability leadership group affiliated with Faith in Place, an organization that helps churches of all faiths jump into the climate conversation – including with grants and funding to get it all done.

   Xander, for one, has been an inspiration – and I’m not just saying that because he very kindly reads this absurdist newsletter. He’s an MDiv student at University of Chicago, and he’s very astutely made love for creation an active part of his faith. Through his sustainability small-group, we’ve had sewing sessions to reduce our reliance fast fashion, started composting as a church, and come spring, we’re going to work even harder on the garden so we can harvest enough for the meals we regularly cook for local shelters.

Between these two things, I feel really hopeful that we have a community ready to take action. The only question now is what that action is going to look like. And, frankly, from a mechanical perspective, it’s…daunting.

Complication Station

A building like Bethany’s is both asset and albatross. It’s the primary way we interact with the world, a living billboard of our values. In the summer, we grow vegetables outside and do church on the lawn – where we try not to annoy our neighbors with our singing. At the same time, the church also has a treasure trove of mid-century maladies – asbestos tile, lead paint, and secret mold. Hidden within that vortex of complexity, however, is a mountain of promise. A normal person could never own this much Chicago real estate on their own, but together, we have a giant piece of cosmic possibility.

Ultimately, as we’ve seen from our other electrification discussions, there are two main questions to consider in a building: How is it powered, and how does it heat itself? Unlike our houses, however, where the furnace may be fifteen or twenty years-old, at Bethany, we’re approaching a century. We also easily have 20,000 square feet of space to deal with, and it isn’t all used at the same time. On the other hand, the square footage is covered by an epic ceiling – one we could maybe even put solar panels on if the roof isn’t too old to take it.

So, what’s an eco-minded community to do? Let’s start with the HVAC.

Hitting The Boiling Point

The boiler room at Bethany feels a lot like the basement in Queen’s Gambit where Anya Taylor-Joy learns to play chess. It’s dusty, damp, and full of secrets. It also has a massive Kawanee boiler in it, a brand that isn’t even in operation anymore, having closed up shop in 2002 after 134 years in business – their illustrious beginning coming just three years after the Civil War ended. But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play?  

If you live in an older apartment building, you may be all too familiar with the workings of a boiler – and the philharmonic clanging of your radiators. Essentially, though, the boiler heats water, making a bunch of steam it then pipes throughout the building in a loop. Unfortunately, this both a) runs on gas and b) can be inefficient given the building’s size. At Bethany, the sanctuary is always cold, and the fellowship hall is always sizzling.

What can be done?

Well, for starters, I don’t think we’re moving the Kawanee anytime soon. I mean, it weighs approximately seven billion tons and is connected to those huge lengths of pipe running under the floor. I also doubt it would make sense to try to replace it with a modern furnace, especially at the scale of building we’re talking about. However, that doesn’t mean we can’t make things more efficient. In three escalating steps, there is still a lot you can do with an old building.

1. Energy audit

   This is actually a service offered by Faith in Place for churches, but you can have a pro do one at your house as well – and get some money through the IRA to pay for it! Through the magic of thermal imaging, an audit can help find where the precious heat you’re paying for is slipping out into the void. We can also re-caulk some of our nearly seventy-year-old windows, insulate, wrap pipes, etc. Anything that keeps the boiler from working quite so hard.

2. Fans

   High tech, I know! But the thing about churches is they usually have these beautiful vaulted ceilings drawing your eyes toward the heavens. The problem? As we all know, hot air rises, and all that steamy dreamy boiler juice ends up sitting forty feet in the air, laughing as it looks down upon your endless shivering. Putting fans up top helps mix the air back up, a process technically known as “destratification.” You can get fancy fans specifically made for the ole “destrat,” but presumably any fan would help you get ahead of the problem.

3. Zoned Heating – aka the Holy Grail

   Long-term fans (victims) of this newsletter know that we’re big fans of the heat pump. However, we’ve mostly talked about them in terms of replacing your central heat because they’re so darn efficient and cheap to run. Mine, for example, simply hooks up to my furnace. But when central heat isn’t an option, heat pumps can also be configured in a modular, split fashion (known as a “mini-split”), connecting the outdoor compressor unit to an air handler anywhere in your building. And as it turns out, this is the perfect solution to heat specific rooms in a massive building that get used at different times…

   Another bonus of heat pumps, of course, is that they do both hot and cold. With the church gym reaching temperatures akin to the surface of the sun all through July, getting air conditioning as a bonus with our electric heat could be a huge win. Meanwhile, with the ability to heat specific rooms to a comfortable temperature should allow us to keep from running the boiler as often.

Sunshine Sublime – Most of the Time

Wowee zowee, I’m way over my page limit! That’s what happens when you mix wine (clean energy) with philosophy. I’ll be brief on the topic of solar power. Thankfully, though, Energy Sage already wrote a great article on the things to consider if your church wants to go solar. Here are a few key highlights:

• Can the roof take it? – Maybe your roof needs updating anyway, but aligning your roof’s lifetime with your solar panels is usually a safer bet. In our case, we have yet to assess the roof, but I fear it won’t be much better than my condo’s roof, which dates back to 1920 and has seven layers of “tar patch” holding things together with paper clips and string.

• What’s your sales pitch? – Are you just offering sustainability, or do you want to save your church some money? We’re currently analyzing our utility bills, which will help us determine how much we’re currently spending and what size of solar setup would help us get to break even.

• Lease or own? – once you decide how much solar you need, you could lease the panels for a predictable monthly payment or you could buy them and maximize your gains when selling your unused energy back to the grid.

Et voila! The quickest spiritual solar snapshot this side of the Mississippi!

Paying for it

I’ll leave you with this, perhaps the most important topic of them all. Like any faith community, we keep ourselves going on the donations of our parishioners, a collective-values crowd-funding effort, if you will. Of course, that also means raising the funds for a capital campaign – above and beyond the money we already raise for daily operations – may prove challenging. We’ll need to be really clear with the congregation on what our hopes and dreams are for the space, and they’ll need to see themselves in that vision, sustainability included. But what could be more inspiring than contributing to the Earth? I sure know I plan on donating to the remodel fund if they indulge my sustainable insanity!

Hopefully, though we won’t be all alone in our endeavors. Here are a few other options for funding to explore:

1. Grant funding – for congregations going one step further with Faith In Place, they offer up to $10k for solar or geothermal updates. Depending on your congregation, you may also be able to get funds from your ecumenical leadership. (The UCC, unfortunately, does not have funds, but I discovered that Episcopalians and Methodists seem to offer money for sustainability upgrades). The Department of Energy also offered $200k grants to update church heating systems through their “BUILT Nonprofits” program. The initial $20M+ of funding (from the bipartisan infrastructure bill) is all paid out, and presumably the program won’t continue under the new administration – but here’s to hoping!

2. Inflation Reduction Act

   One really unique part of the IRA was offering funding to churches and non-profits for clean energy updates despite their lack of taxes. Known as “direct pay” they offer the same incentives to regular folks for money paid on updating key systems – 30% of the cost for solar, for example, with some smaller pots of money for heat pumps and the like.

From me to you, I bid adieu

That’s it, folks, thanks for sticking with me! You may not be the church-going type, but hopefully this helped get the juices flowing for whatever community you’re a part of. And here’s where I offer you the official JH Tomen promise – if you get your Elks Lodge, knitting circle, or book club to put in a heat pump, I’ll personally buy a beer for every member so we can toast your courageous climate action. I hope you enjoyed the philosophy too. This transition of ours is going to take a while. I hope you can find as much peace in that as I have, even if we have a lot of work to do in the meantime.

With love,

JH

*Art by Alf Bruseth, Cathedral Coin Box, c. 1938, Courtesy National Gallery of Art

**Email header art by Karl Nilsson (sigvardnilsson on instagram), includes portions of Beck's Castle Ruins by László Mednyánszky Denbigh Castle, Wales by Edward Dayes & Paysage de la Grand Chartreuse attributed to Jean Lubin Vauzelle