Organic Garden:

Come on Sunday mornings to work in our beautiful garden and harvest, and meet the members who maintain the organic garden. Or join us on Saturdays from 8:00am to 10:00am. to help out.

Green Team

To get involved in the Green Team, contact Phibun Ny

Some of the actions we engage in as a Green Team:

• Maintaining our native plant and Organic Learning Gardens 
• Write to our local and national representatives
• Support local organizations such as East Yards and Grid Alternatives
• Make other campus projects greener-trash pickup, beach cleanups, volunteer for work parties
• Vegetarian/Vegan Cooking Classes
• Plant trees
• Event field trips using public transportation
• Helpful hints given out at tables after services, also in newsletter
• Promote recycling and sustainability in all our choices

Our Green Team formed in 2014 to continue work on environmental issues. The Green Team developed the Solar Panel Project, which culminated in a successful fund raising event and the installation of Solar Panels on the church in July 2015.  In 2023 enough additional solar panels were installed that the two arrays now produce all the electricity needed by the campus when averaged over the year.

Climate change has been a major concern at the church for many years. Our main goal in approaching climate change on our campus is to make our campus run on 100% renewable energy. This means replacing all natural gas appliances with electric and ensuring that we have enough solar power to operate the new ones. Caring for our Earth and preventing climate change is a socially responsible goal and will reduce pollution all around us. It will also have safety and health benefits for the children using our campus. Once we have reached 100% renewable energy on our campus, we would like to work on projects to assist other churches or organizations in Long Beach to do the same.

The Green Team is also encouraging support of these Local and Interfaith Climate initiatives:

Citizen’s Climate Lobby

Long Beach 350.org

Interfaith Power and Light

Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth

A Brief History of Our Green Sanctuary

A Green Sanctuary is a congregation that lives out its commitment to the Earth by creating a sustainable life style for its members as individuals and as a faith community. Sustainable living is not about our material comfort (though these choices are an important part of the overall lifestyle); it is about choosing to live in a way that nurtures life, builds relationships, and rejects material consumption as the sole measure of happiness.

In 2007, the Green Sanctuary leaders began to gather information about current energy consumption, recycling habits, food and shopping choices, and the use of toxic substances – both around the campus and at the homes of members. Based on that data, the Green Sanctuary leaders identified areas for education and improvement and are currently designing twelve projects to submit with the application for Candidacy in the UUA Green Sanctuary Program.

As of 2013, much of the work for Green Sanctuary Certification had been done. We have held services, improved our water and electric usage, planted native plants, held classes on vegan eating, saved a local park, and monitored air quality projects near the port. One big piece we are missing is an all church project for environmental justice in which we partner with another organization. Please contact Social Justice HERE, if you have ideas for this project.

On May 7, 2017, our congregation unanimously passed the following:

Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach
Resolution on Climate Change

WHEREAS, global climate change is a moral and ethical crisis induced and exacerbated by human activity; and

WHEREAS, this climate crisis can and must be addressed to maintain a livable world for ourselves, our descendants, and all species; and

WHEREAS, we recognize that, while our individual efforts to be non-polluters are important, we cannot solely rely on personal choice to halt climate change; and

WHEREAS, on Aug. 23, 2016, the Assembly and the Senate of the State of California, in AJR 43 jointly urged the United States Congress to enact, without delay, a tax on carbon-based fossil fuels, with the tax revenue being returned to middle and low-income households; and

WHEREAS, on Sept 20, 2016, 375 National Academy of Sciences members signed an open letter expressing frustration at political inaction on climate change; and

WHEREAS, as of December 2016, 195 UN member nations, including the United States, have signed the “Paris Agreement” COP21 which sets global standards and timelines for worldwide reduction of greenhouse gases, and the Paris Agreement entered into force; and

WHEREAS, Unitarian Universalists overwhelmingly voted to adopt a Statement of Conscience on the Threat of Global Warming and Climate Change in 2006, and voted again in 2015 to pass a Resolution on Climate Change; and

WHEREAS, in October 2014, Peter Morales, Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) President and Bill Schulz, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC) President and CEO, both affirmed that, “The crisis of climate change is the gravest threat facing our world today”; and

WHEREAS, 77 members and friends of UUCLB signed the “Paris Pledge” in an act of solidarity with global leaders and nations before the 2015 UN Climate Talks in Paris; and

WHEREAS, our Unitarian Universalist Principles compel us to act on climate change; therefore

BE IT RESOLVED, that the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach calls on the US Congress to keep the promises our country made at the “Paris Agreement,” to pass legislation to reduce carbon emissions; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the first carbon legislation must place a fee on fossil fuels, and that revenue from said carbon fee be returned to all American households to protect them from the impact of rising fuel prices and to stimulate the economy; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Unitarian Universalist Church of Long Beach commits as a congregation to actively support any campaign or legislation, approved by our Board of Trustees, to mitigate climate change on the local, state and national level.