Jonna Higgins-Freese

Jonna Higgins-Freese is environmental outreach coordinator at Prairiewoods: Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, Iowa. She is a fellow of the Environmental Leadership Program.

I've been doing environmental work with churches in the Cedar Rapids area for almost four years now, and sometimes I feel like a voice crying in the wilderness. While every major Christian denomination has a social statement about the theological importance of caring for creation, not many churches pay much attention.

However, a growing group of people understand environmental concerns to be spiritual and even religious. CHOOSE Now (Christian Outreach Organization to Save the Earth), based at Hillside Wesleyan Church in Cedar Rapids, is one such group. It recently asked me to join the board, and at last night's meeting we discussed how to design and raise money for the group's first project: a Habitat for Humanity house that will be super-efficient and perhaps offer some renewable energy features. In addition, it wants to furnish the house with energy-efficient appliances.

I love this project because it brings out the social justice dimension of environmental issues -- it will benefit a low-income family that needs energy efficiency the most and usually has the least access to it. Church members already understand and accept Habitat projects, but this one pushes them a little further by showing that super-efficient construction is feasible, affordable, good for the environment, and good for homeowners.

This project arose at the perfect stage in my work. For four years, I've been giving presentations to churches and meeting people who care about the environment from a faith perspective. They've been joining CSAs, using local wine, switching to non-chemical lawn care, using less energy in the church and at home, and trying to be less consumer-oriented. I've been looking for a way to bring them all together around a common, inspiring project, and I think building the Habitat house may be the perfect rallying point.

CHOOSE Now's work also fits right in with Prairiewoods' philosophy that we should live the change we want to create. Prariewoods features solar hot water in the guest house, a Trombe wall at the sisters' residence, earth berming, and super-efficient insulation throughout. Two years ago, we built two new hermitage buildings for our guests who want a solitary retreat. With the help of the Iowa Renewable Energy Association (I-Renew), we held hands-on workshops where people learned about straw bale construction and photovoltaic installation. Now, about 85 people each year learn how happy they can be in a straw-bale building with radiant floor heating, passive solar design, off-grid electricity, and a constructed wetland sewage system.

Our next project is to install a wind turbine, and my task for the day is to research answers to a series of questions about the project from the operating board. I also need to call Alliant Energy to begin negotiating our net metering arrangement; with net metering, we'll remain connected to the grid and buy energy from the utility when we need it. When the wind blows, our meter will run backward. At the end of the month, we pay our bill, or the utility pays us. Typically, utilities prefer that the customer pay retail for electricity used, but receive only the "avoided generation cost" (much less than retail) for what they produce.

Yesterday, the Iowa Utilities Board required MidAmerican Energy to pay customers retail, so I'm thinking it's a good day to begin our talks with Alliant. They've installed several wind farms and offer a green electricity program called Second Nature, so I feel pretty confident that we can come to a good arrangement with them. Besides, I can't imagine they want the PR nightmare of preventing a bunch of "sweet little nuns" from doing what's good for the environment.