Church Bells Go Green

Students packing for home or finishing final papers today at 3:50 p.m. may ask for whom—or what—they hear the bells in Harvard Square toll. They toll for environmental awareness. The Harvard Square Clergy Association is organizing a group of churches to ring their bells 350 times at 3:50 p.m. today—the 350th day of the year—in order to raise awareness for Project 350, an environmental activism movement that aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to the “sustainable level” of 350 parts per million. Project 350 says in its mission statement that its “first job is to make sure everyone knows this target so that our political leaders feel real pressure to act.” Memorial Church will be taking part for the first time in synchronous ringing with other churches in the Square. “Hopefully people will have to stop and notice...and ask why are the bells ringing so much at such an odd time,” said Jonathan C. Page ’02, Memorial Church’s liaison member of the Harvard Square Clergy Association. Page said the action has symbolic importance. “We want to make it clear that churches have something to say about environmental awareness,” he said. “God does not want God’s creation destroyed. God does not like greenhouse gasses.” This message is not always clear, Page said. “There are some very vocal Christians,” including former Secretary of the Interior James G. Watt and many members of the Bush administration, “who have been opposed to good stewardship for the environment,” he said. Page also said he was worried that with the impending economic crisis and the drop in oil prices, “the government will not move as fast as possible” to reduce carbon emissions. “This has to go ahead regardless,” he said. Lyman Antolini expressed similar sentiments in her Nov. 30 sermon at St. James Episcopal Church in the Square, where she announced that the church would be participating in the Dec. 15 bell ringing. Antolini said there was an “apocalyptic need” for environmental awareness and action to cut emissions. “This Advent, the dark diagnosis is that world carbon levels are destructively high, and we must negotiate with all other consumer nations to configure a sustainable energy diet.” Page said he wasn’t sure how long it would take for 350 rings in Memorial Church, where the bells are controlled electronically, to sound. “It’s not some freshman up in that chapel pulling the bell 350 times,” he said. “It will basically be me sitting in the basement trying to count 350 rings and stop the bells.” The synchronous ringing may last longer than 10 minutes, in which case the event will override Memorial Church’s regular 4:00 p.m. bells. —Staff writer Charles Bearell can be reached at cbearell@fas.harvard.edu.