An Iowa organization is part of a national network that helps faith-based organizations go "green." Tim Kautza is a spokesman for Iowa Interfaith Power & Light. Kautza says: "It’s an interfaith effort among the Islamic community, the Jewish community, Christian community, and other faiths, to work through faith communities to address the threat of global warming. Primarily by improving energy efficiency within the congregational facilities themselves. The churches, the synagogues, the mosques."
Kautza says there are many simple things that can be done to the buildings to save energy.He says things like changing lightbulbs, using L-E-D lights on exit signs, while some of the larger churches are looking at geothermal heating and cooling in their schools and buildings. Others are simply caulking their buildings. Kautza says they also have a program called "Cool Congregation," that trains people to be greener at home.
Kautza says it involves working with families in a congregation to gauge the family’s carbon footprint, or contribution to global warmer. They then give the family some ideas to reduce that carbon footprint and mitigate global warming. Kautza says they just recently increased the number of churches involved through a commitment from 150 churches.
Kautza says the Southeast Iowa Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America is a group of congregations that stretches from Des Moines to Davenport and it the first to join the effort as a group of churches. Kautza says the addition of the Southeast Iowa Synod puts them at a little over 200 faith organizations in the effort.