My children like to quote the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov musing about inspiration: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka' (I found it) but 'That's funny...' "

Curiosity, wonder and a desire to solve a problem are what drive the scientific imagination.

Hearing that, I wondered what magic words ignite the social entrepreneurial imagination. What drives some people to choose to work for change, begin or join new organizations, shake up structures set in their ways and otherwise make trouble for a settled but faulty world. It seems to me that those words are just as simple, almost as terse, and even more searing. They are: "Oh. That's not good."

Social entrepreneurs see the world the way it is and say that is not the way it could and should be. But that is just the beginning. Many people, even most, see that things are not right, just as many people look at something and wonder what makes it work. But they don't move from thought to action. So what is the extra impulse that urges one to become a scientist and turns a person from someone who tsks and laments to someone who digs in and acts? I would argue that the answer is twofold: an inner demon that drives them to do more coupled with a hope that perhaps they really can.

So the scientist and the social entrepreneur are similar in some ways. But in one huge way they differ. The scientist can research, study, think, tinker and try a thousand experiments by themselves. Though they may achieve a breakthrough sooner with others to help think things through, they do not need them to make their discovery.

Not so with the social entrepreneur. No social entrepreneur ever achieved their goals alone. Their very medium is other people - speaking with them, inspiring them, and being inspired by them in turn.

All of you reading this are social entrepreneurs. You would not bother to be here, at this site, on this blog, engaged in this issue to the depth you are if you had not at one point looked at what the human race is doing to the world and said, "That is not good." So thank you not just for noticing, but for taking that extra step.

Thanks to all of you who have worked with BJEN over the past year and a half. With your help, five synagogues have voted to join our Green Synagogue initiative to date. More are exploring the option. Sustainable actions are also underway in various sectors of the Baltimore Jewish community including the Associated, the JCC and of course Pearlstone Conference and Retreat Center and Kayam Farm. The tide is turning, but there is still much to do. And with your help, BJEN will continue to be certain is gets done.

So as daylight hours begin to lengthen, and as we turn from a political era of environmental degradation to one of renewal, healing and growth, I offer you thanks for being wayfarers on this most important of journeys. There is still much to do and I look forward to doing it with you.

The Natural Step

"The non-sustainable path of society is not about some natural catastrophe that we need to tackle. It's about human desires and curiosity and wittiness and the decisions that lie behind our non-sustainable development..." ( The Natural Step Story).

This is why BJEN and the Jewish community and the entire religious world need to get behind the sustainability movement. We live in a world of limited resources and capacity but with a human appetite that is expansive and infinite. That is the human blessing. And if not well-guided, that will be our curse. How we reconcile these two conflicting elements of life is a spiritual question. What, or when, is enough? How do we get beyond stuffness to satisfaction? What is our rightful place on this earth? To what extent do we have rights to the earth's resources? In how long a time horizon do we measure satisfaction, reciprocity and compensation?

Judaism, as all religious traditions, seeks to help us answer these questions. Ultimately, their answers determine our behavior. It is not as if we have no current environmental ethic. We do. We may not have named it yet, and we may not like it when we do. But we live one. The question is: is it the one we are proud of?

Meanwhile, in the world of litigation and EPA, the 11/14 Grist.org reports:

In a major win for environmentalists, the U.S. EPA's Environmental Appeals Board handed down a landmark decision on Thursday that essentially puts a freeze on the construction of as many as 100 new coal-fired power plants around the U.S.

It will now be up to the Obama administration to develop rules on carbon dioxide emissions from such plants.

In July 2007, the EPA issued a permit for a proposed Bonanza coal-fired power plant in Utah. Lawyers for the Sierra Club, Western Resource Advocates, and Environmental Defense filed a request that the permit be overturned because it did not require any controls on carbon dioxide pollution. The enviros pointed to the Supreme Court's April 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, which found that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act.

"Essentially what this decision does is it gives the Obama administration a clean slate to decide what our nation's energy future should be," said Joanne Spalding, the senior attorney at the Sierra Club who argued the case before the board. "It puts it back in the lap of an Obama EPA to determine how to treat greenhouse-gas emissions under the Clean Air Act, and it gives the opportunity to establish policies that will essentially favor clean energy and impose restrictions on fossil fuels that emit lots of greenhouse gases."

Many of us have great hopes for the Obama administration, in this area as so many others. But we cannot sit idly by and observe and judge. We must continue to support and advocate. Even if only from our computers at home! Shabbat shalom.

Eleven green(ing) synagogues

Sunday morning, 12 people representing 9 synagogues gathered at my house as part of the BJEN (Baltimore Jewish Environmental Network) training kick-off for greening our local synagogues.

We studied Jewish text; reviewed our Green Covenant of Commitment (online at www.bjen.org along with our Green Synagogue guide) that participating synagogues will sign as an expression of their values, actions and commitment; we learned about energy audits and greening our simchas, where to find additional practical guidance and resources; and most of all, met to support each other as we all embark on this sacred task.

Each synagogue is approaching this effort in a way that is unique to its needs, demography and capacity. That is as it should be. Greening is not a one-size-fits-all enterprise. But it does have a few elements in come that we felt in abundance yesterday:

-- a deep concern and conscientious awe for the natural world and the gifts it offers us
-- an optimism and belief that we can make a difference, that the human spirit and technological advances can help us reverse this unsustainable lifestyle, even as they helped us get into it
-- that living an environmentally aware and self-renewing (aka sustainable) life brings us meaning, purpose, joy and delight
-- that being more aware of our consuming habits and of the origins of the things we eat and use and buy to live, and of all the people along the way who made getting that stuff possible, raises our appreciation for the miracles of life and all those who participated in the long process of enabling us to have what we have.
-- a sense that we are privileged to be able to work on this effort

It was a moving, historic morning. Yasher koach, kudos, to all the participants and synagogues involved in greening Baltimore's Jewish community. May your hard work see great results. And may you be satisfied with the fruit of your labor.