The United Church of Christ (UCC) and The Episcopal Church hosted a leadership conference on climate change in the midst of a major UCC environmental campaign last spring. The speakers included the Most Rev. Katharine Jefferts Schori, the presiding bishop of The Episcopal Church (who is also a marine biologist) and Rev. Geoffrey Black, the President and General Minister of the UCC. There were also video messages from Nobel Peace Prize winner, retired Anglican Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Bill McKibben the founder of 350.org, a global grassroots movement aimed at addressing climate change. Leaders of the United Church of Christ, The Episcopal Church, The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the American Baptist Churches USA issued a joint statement "Lazarus, Come Out: A Shared Statement of Hope in the Face of Climate Change." (PDF)
"It is essential that we, as religious and spiritual leaders, speak up, because climate change is a moral and justice issue."
Interfaith Power and Light is a national network of religious institutions in
40 states addressing a range of concerns. IPL organizes, among other things, an annual "
National Preach-In on Climate Change." The next one will be staged on the weekend of February 14-16, 2014. IPL reports that a thousand congregations participated in 2012 (
PDF) IPL also provides access to a
large catalog of energy saving products at a discount.
This store, through ShopIPL.org, is an online energy efficiency store for faith communities and their members sponsored by Interfaith Power & Light.... a religious response to global warming through the promotion of renewable energy and energy efficiency. Non-affiliated individuals are also welcome to purchase here.
A
UCC church in Townsend, Massachusetts, built in 1830, was in August 2013 the first church in town to
install solar panels.
The reality of climate change has people of faith seeking to create a better world for future generations. In fact, houses of worship leave a notable environmental imprint. Per capita, per hour of use, houses of worship are among the least efficient buildings, and the United States has more houses of worship than any other country!
The members of the Townsend Congregational Church felt a strong need to become better stewards of the environment and, in the process, have worked with experts at SunBug Solar for a good part of the last year to achieve this goal. SunBug Solar is a locally owned and operated energy consulting and service company offering solar solutions for community organizations, businesses, schools and homeowners.
SunBug Solar teamed up with Massachusetts Interfaith Power & Light (MIP&L) and Home Energy Efficiency Team (HEET) to build a program that provides an affordable renewable energy choice to houses of worship across the state.
The Presbyterian social justice journal,
Unbound published a special issue:
Hope for Eco-Activists: Discovering an Environmental Faith. Managing editor Patrick David Heery
wrote:
This issue asks a simple question: What gets us out of bed every morning and gives us the will to fight another day for sustainability, earth care, and eco-justice?
The environmental movement has, in large part, operated from the assumption that if we tell people just how seriously threatened the future of our planet is, they will start to care and take action. This has created a strategy of “awareness raising.” But new (and some old) theories of how people learn and develop identity-markers draw this assumption into question. Moreover, the strategy can backfire. Rather than more information serving as a catalyst, it has often overwhelmed and left many feeling powerless.
In his book, The Nature Principle, Richard Louv describes speaking to an auditorium filled with two hundred high school students—a speaker’s nightmare. He expected the typical blank stares, “gum popping, and note passing.” But what happened next surprised him: the students were paying attention. In fact, they were downright curious and excited. Louv was baffled. Afterward, a science teacher explained: It’s “simple. You said something positive about the future of the environment. They never hear that.”
Not long before Louv’s presentation, an expert on global climate change had spoken to the same group of students—and had received a very different reaction. They were bored; they couldn’t have cared less. What they heard was the typical doom and gloom message: “the planet is in big trouble (but it’s too late to save it anyway).” Young people have heard this message all their lives. They get it: the world is dying.
But Louv said something that they had not heard before. He spoke about them and “their health: a growing body of evidence showing how outdoor experiences can enhance their ability to learn and think, expand their senses, and improve their physical and mental health.” While Louv named the dire threats to the environment, he presented these deteriorating conditions as a rallying cry for “new sources of energy; new types of agriculture; new urban design and new kinds of schools, workplaces, and healthcare… whole new careers.” Without downplaying the seriousness of the earth’s environmental problems, Louv gave a message of hope that spelled out alternative practices and policies that are already being implemented in communities across the world.
“You said something positive about the environment. They never hear that.”
In that spirit, I offer this post as a short festival of links to religious institutions, ecumenical coalitions and interfaith partnerships seeking to make local and global differences, but about which you may not have heard much, if anything.
In addition to the organizations mentioned above, there is the interfaith organization, GreenFaith, and programs of the National Council of Churches, Presbyterian Church USA, Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, Catholic Coalition on Climate Change, National Religious Partnership for the Environment, and many, many, more.
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