Margaret wrote an article on Hope, resilience, and climate change, published by Daily Hampshire Gazette on Jan. 16, 2016. Click the link to download a PDF.
Author Archives: mbj
On December 12, 2015, the same day that nearly 200 nations adopted a historic pledge to lower their carbon emissions, more than two thousand people from across New England marched and rallied in Boston in the biggest climate justice demonstration that the city has ever seen. A wide range of groups were represented, including, among others, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Maine’s Penobscot Tribe, National Nurses United, New Bedford Worker Center, 350 Massachusetts, Mothers Out Front, and Climate Action NOW. I spoke on behalf of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts and the newly formed MA Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action. The crowd cheered when I mentioned that faith groups are involved in the climate justice movement.
Whatever mood you were in, there was a banner or a sign to express it: sarcastic (Billionaires for Fossil Fuels) and mournful (Where have all the icebergs gone?), winsome (Save the Earth: It’s the only planet with music) and worried (It’s December and I’m wearing a T-shirt), urgent (Climate delay = global collapse) and resolute (System change, not climate change).
We started with a rally at the Parkman Bandstand on the Boston Common, but we didn’t just stand around, listening to speeches: accompanied by a marching band, we also chanted and sang our way through the streets of Boston. After marching for a mile and half, we held a closing rally in front of the State House. (For Michael Horan’s brief video montage of the march, visit here.)
The U.N. climate deal is an historic first: countries have pledged to rein in their carbon emissions and have expressed an aspiration to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees and maybe even 1.5 degrees Celsius above average temperatures at the start of the Industrial Revolution. Yet the pledges are voluntary, and, even if carried out, insufficient to avert catastrophe. As Bill McKibben quickly observed in the New York Times, “we need to build the movement even bigger in the coming years, so that the Paris agreement turns into a floor and not a ceiling for action.” In a separate article for Grist, McKibben commented that although the international climate pact gives us reasons to be cynical, we still have reasons to hope: we must build a movement to hold countries to their promises (“What, you want to build a pipeline? I thought you were going to go for 1.5 degrees. You want to frack? Are you fracking kidding me? You said you were going for 2 degrees at the absolute worst.”)
Meeting the 1.5 or even 2-degree target will not be easy, McKibben writes in yet another article (boy, he is fast), “given that we’re currently on track for between 4C and 5C. Our only hope is to decisively pick up the pace. In fact, pace is now the key word for climate. Not where we’re going, but how fast we’re going there. Pace – velocity, speed, rate, momentum, tempo. That’s what matters from here on in.”
One of my favorite placards at the Boston rally proclaimed:
3500-2500 B.C. Bronze Age
1800-2015 A.D. Fossil Fuel Age
Do we believe that 2015 marks the end of the Fossil Fuel Age? That’s what the U.N. climate deal in Paris has promised. But that promise won’t come true all by itself. If we want it to come true and are serious about wanting to preserve a habitable world, we’ll have to work for it – to organize, lobby, vote, pray, invent, create, protest, and push – to do it together and do it fast.
We’ll do it because we’re committed to the message proclaimed by another sign:
Love will win.
Here is the speech I gave at the rally in front of the State House:
Friends, I am thrilled to be with you today as we express our shared commitment to a world that works for everyone.
We walked a fair distance to get here, and I invite you to take a moment to feel the sensation of your feet making contact with the ground. Feel the support of the earth under your feet, and let’s notice for a moment that whoever we are – wherever we come from, whatever we do for a living, whatever the color of our skin, whatever our religion or political party, we all stand on one earth. We have just one home, this home, this beloved planet on which all life depends.
I invite you to take a couple of deep breaths and to notice that wherever you’re standing, whether you’re up front or in the middle or the edge of the crowd, we’re all breathing the same air. We’re all immersed in the one atmosphere that we share, taking into our lungs the one flowing mix of gases that encircles the globe and sustains life in every creature that breathes.
We stand on one world and we breathe the one air. That may seem completely obvious, but we’re living in a time when all kinds of forces want to tear us apart – to separate us from each other and to pit us against each other us on the basis of race or class or religion, gender, nationality, or the status of our citizenship. We’re living in a time when all kinds of forces want to make us suspicious or contemptuous or afraid of each other. Some of these forces come from within us, and some from outside us; and it is our great challenge to stand strong and to say No to hatred, and Yes to love and compassion.
So we have gathered in our glorious diversity – people from all walks of life, people of different ages, backgrounds, and experiences – to stand together, shoulder to shoulder. We need each other. We belong to each other. The only way to create a just and sustainable world is to create that world together.
Each of us may bring to the table a particular concern, such as labor or health or poverty or racism or immigration or human rights or the environment, but we know that these supposedly separate issues are in fact deeply connected. We will only find a path forward if we walk that path together – if we reach out to each other, and show up for each other, and work together to heal our shared planet from the threat of climate chaos and social chaos.
I’m glad we’re standing in front of the State House, for we have many legislative battles ahead of us as we fight to keep fossil fuels in the ground. I’m especially glad to be standing with other founding members of the brand-new Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action. We are committed to an energy future based on clean, safe renewable energy such as sun and wind. Just as important, we are committed to a human future based on justice and compassion. In a society that too often treats people like objects, and corporations like people, we intend to lift up the deep wisdom found at the heart of every religion: the Earth and all its residents are sacred.
We call upon the power of love, the sacred power that created all things and that holds all things together. With that love in our hearts, we stand strong on this good earth. We breathe deep of this sweet air. And we commit ourselves to walk this walk together.
On the eve of the U.N. climate talks in Paris, hundreds of thousands of people worldwide took to the streets to join the Global Climate March. Here in western Massachusetts, 200 people gathered in Amherst and an even larger group assembled nearby in Northampton, all of us calling for decisive international action to keep 80% of current fossil fuel reserves in the ground.
I was the opening speaker at the November 29 rally on the Amherst Common. The crowd included young and old, families, college students and retirees, an 8-foot tall Polar Bear puppet and a little boy in a brown bear suit. We shivered in the cold night air, but our energy was high and our resolve was strong.
A much bigger, regional rally is planned for the day after the conclusion of the U.N. talks. Please join me on the Boston Common on Saturday December 12, 1:00-3:00 p.m. for a Jobs, Justice, and Climate Rally that will bring together a wide range of interests – labor, immigrant rights, faith, racial justice, economic justice, and climate justice groups – as we build an unstoppable grassroots movement to stabilize the climate and create a more just and sustainable society.
Below is what I said last night at the Amherst rally.
I am filled with gratitude as I look into your faces. We stand together tonight in the center of town, under the stars, to express our longing for a safe, just, and sustainable future. All eyes are on Paris tonight. West of here, across the river, another group has assembled in Northampton. South of here, down the road, other people gathered this afternoon in Springfield. East of here, across the state, a group is gathering in Boston. Around the world, in every direction, from Beirut to Barcelona, from Ottawa to Melbourne, thousands of events are in progress, as people from every walk of life turn their hearts and hopes to the U.N. climate negotiations that begin tomorrow in Paris.
We know that the situation is urgent. We have only a short amount of time in which to avert a level of climate disruption that would render the world ungovernable and possibly uninhabitable within the lifetimes of our children and our children’s children. To cite just one example of where we’re headed if we don’t change course, a few weeks ago the World Bank – hardly a leftist organization – warned that unless we rein in greenhouse gas emissions quickly, climate change will drive 100 million people into extreme poverty – extreme poverty – within the next 15 years. Just think about the human suffering and social upheaval that this would engender worldwide.
We know we can do better than that. And we refuse to stand idly by and to let business as usual continue to destroy human communities and unravel the web of life.
So tonight we join with people around the world to pray for a climate deal in Paris that is ambitious, one that finally gets the world on track to stabilize and lower its carbon emissions.
We also hope for a deal that is fair, one that protects the most vulnerable and low-income populations from the most devastating effects of climate change.
But you know what? This is not just about Paris and it’s not just about tonight. The agreement that comes out of Paris is not going to be enough, by itself, to keep the world below a 2 degree centigrade rise in temperature above preindustrial levels, which we need in order to avert catastrophe.
That’s where you and I come in. Whatever happens in Paris, we’re here for the long haul. We’re not going away. We’re going to keep fighting for a future that runs on clean energy like sun and wind. We’re going to keep fighting for a society and an economy that leave no one out. We’re going to keep building political will and moral pressure until we get this right. As Pope Francis reminded us in his encyclical, the cry of the Earth is intimately connected with the cry of the poor. We hear that cry. We share that cry. And we intend to answer it, by divestment and direct action, by voting and lobbying, by making personal changes in our lifestyle and, perhaps, by engaging in civil disobedience.
A new world is on the horizon, a world that is safe, just and sustainable. We intend to act like midwives, helping that new world to be born. We pray tonight for the climate talks, but those talks are just the beginning. Those talks are just the start.
Sermon for the Twenty-fifth Sunday after Pentecost (Proper 28B), November 15, 2015. Delivered by the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas at Parish of the Epiphany, Winchester, MA.
1 Samuel 1:4-20
Psalm 16
Hebrews 10:11-14, 19-25
Mark 13:1-8
You will show me the path of life
“You will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore.” (Psalm 16:11)I am blessed to be with you this morning. Thank you, Thomas, for inviting me. I serve the other diocese in Massachusetts as the Missioner for Creation Care, so I travel from church to church, preaching the Gospel and speaking about our Christian call to protect the Earth. This morning I must begin with a word about the violence in Paris and in Beirut. Our hearts go out to everyone affected by these acts of terrorism, to the people who were wounded and to the innocents who died, to the families who mourn, to the first responders, and to everyone who is playing some part in weaving these two rattled, frightened, assaulted cities back together into a place of security and peace.
These tragic events shock us. They move us to anger, fear, and grief, for we feel a visceral connection with our French brothers and sisters across the Atlantic, with our Lebanese brothers and sisters across the Mediterranean, and with people everywhere who are subject to acts of violence and terror. We share their human vulnerability. We, too, are mortal. Like it or not, we too live in a world of danger, violence, and uncertainty. Jesus also lived in such a world, and every year, in late November, as the cycle of the church year draws to a close and we start to head into Advent, we hear Scripture readings that turn our attention to the end times, giving us images of breakdown and distress. In today’s Gospel passage, just as Jesus is coming out of the temple one of his disciples admires how solid the building is, how large it is, how grand. Surely it will last forever! But Jesus turns to him and says, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down” (Mark 13:2). All will be thrown down. He goes on to predict natural disaster and social unrest, “wars and rumors of wars” (Mark 13:7a). “Nation will rise against nation,” he says, “and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines” (Mark 13:8). Christianity is bracingly realistic about the human condition and the reality of natural disaster and human-caused disaster. Today Jesus predicts suffering and turmoil, and he says, “All will be thrown down.” Yet in the very same passage, in practically the very same breath, he also says: “Do not be alarmed” (Mark 13:7). “Do not be alarmed… This is but the beginning of the birth pangs.” (Mark 13:8). Birth pangs? It seems that Jesus was so deeply rooted and grounded in the love of God, so attuned to God’s dream for the world, so open to God’s creative Spirit and power, that even in the midst of suffering and war, even in the midst of violence, terrorism, and death, he could see beyond everything that was passing away and stand fast in the unshakable, ever-new, ever-abundant love of God. Jesus trusted in God’s abiding presence and in God’s vision for the future. He trusted in God’s dream that human beings can find peace within themselves, with each other, and with the whole creation. Jesus knew that even in the midst of death, something new and holy is being born, and he offered himself to that birthing process as a midwife, a healer and peacemaker. He showed us the path of life and he invited us to walk it with him. I wonder what it would it be like to share so consciously in Jesus’ mission of justice, compassion, and hope that we, too, thought of ourselves as midwives helping a new world to be born. I wonder what it would be like to throw our selves into birthing that new world with the same ardor that Hannah felt as she prayed to conceive and give birth to a child. As we heard in today’s first reading, Hannah prayed so ardently to be a generator of life that the priest who was watching her accused her of being drunk! May we all get drunk like that! Heaven knows that our beautiful, suffering world needs people who are wholeheartedly committed to the struggle to safeguard life as it has evolved on this planet and to conceive and bring forth a compassionate, just, and life-sustaining society. We know what we’re up against. The terrorist attacks in Paris and Beirut are linked with other deadly threats, such as climate change. Researchers tell us that ISIS, the Islamic State, arose partly because of climate change, which caused an extreme drought in Syria between 2006 and 2009. When crops failed, as many as 1.5 million people were forced to migrate from rural areas into cities. Social unrest escalated into civil war and eventually into the multifaceted conflict that now affects many millions of people. Of course climate change is not the only cause of terrorism, but it’s what the Pentagon calls a “threat multiplier.” Earlier this week the World Bank – hardly a leftist organization – warned that unless we change course quickly and rein in greenhouse gas emissions, climate change will drive 100 million people into extreme poverty – extreme poverty – within the next 15 years. We don’t have to be expert analysts in order to grasp how much suffering, upheaval and conflict that would engender worldwide. When I look around, I see a planet at risk of catapulting into runaway climate disruption because of an ever-expanding economic system that depends on fossil fuels. I see terrorism and poverty, rising seas and melting glaciers, and I see people so locked in fear, anger, or despair that they are unable to imagine, much less to create, a better future. It’s as if we’ve fallen under a spell and made what U.N. Secretary General Ban-ki Moon has denounced as a “global suicide pact.” But I also see this: person after person reaching deep into their souls and then standing up to offer their energy and time to the shared struggle to re-weave the fabric of life and to create a just and sustainable future. I see a wave of religious protest and activism rising up around the world, propelled in part by the release of Pope Francis’ groundbreaking encyclical, Laudato Si, which makes a powerful connection between the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. I see people rising up for life, refusing to settle for a killing status quo, and proclaiming with one voice that climate change is a spiritual and moral issue that must be tackled without delay. Just think of all the signs we see of a new social order being born. We see people blocking the path of new fracked gas pipelines and being arrested for civil disobedience as they read aloud from Pope Francis’ encyclical. We see people lobbying for a fair price on carbon, so that we can build a clean green economy that provides decent jobs and improves public health. We see our own Episcopal Church deciding – miracles of miracles! – to divest from fossil fuels, since it makes no financial or moral sense to invest in companies that are ruining the planet. We see new coalitions being formed and new alliances forged, as people realize that the environmental crisis is closely connected with the social crises of poverty, income inequality, and racial injustice. Just this week I spent a day lobbying at the State House with a new interfaith coalition that is dedicated to climate justice right here in Massachusetts. Together we are fighting to keep fossil fuels in the ground and to accelerate a transition to clean, safe, renewable sources of energy, such as sun and wind, that are accessible to all our communities, including low-income. As climate activist Bill McKibben has pointed out, “The fight for a just world is the same as the fight for a livable one.” The Church was made for a time like this – a time when God calls human beings to know that we belong to one Earth, that we form one human family, and that God entrusted the Earth and all its residents to our care. We may live in a society where we’re told that pleasure lies in being self-centered consumers who grab and hoard everything we can for ourselves and the devil take the hindmost, but we know the truth: our deepest identity and joy is found in being rooted and grounded in love and in serving the common good. With the psalmist, we turn to our Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, and say: “You will show me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy, and in your right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11).If you’ve been wondering whether public opinion on climate change has changed in the U.S. since Pope Francis published his encyclical in June, look no further. A new study shows that during the six months since Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home was released, Americans have become more concerned about global warming and are more actively engaged in the issue. About 17% of the study’s respondents overall, and 35% of its Roman Catholic respondents, said they had been influenced by Francis’ message. Between spring and fall of 2015, more Americans reported they were more concerned about climate change, and more Americans considered climate change a moral issue that involves fairness/social justice and poverty. The authors of the survey found the shift in public opinion so striking that they dubbed it “The Francis Effect.” (Download the pdf here.)
This national survey focused on the three largest groups of American Christians: Roman Catholics, non-evangelical Protestants, and born again/Evangelical Christians. It didn’t report on other religious groups in the U.S. or on people without any religious affiliation. Perhaps further research will reveal how far the Francis Effect has extended to these latter groups. But it’s already clear that Pope Francis’ message has touched the lives of at least some individuals who belong to religions not included in the survey.
Take, for instance, Lise Olney and Amy Benjamin, two Boston-area social justice activists who are members, respectively, of a Unitarian Universalist and a Jewish congregation. The two women were so moved by Pope Francis’ message that they began to organize an interfaith response. On Columbus Day, October 12, they pulled together “Answering the Call: An Interfaith Gathering for Climate Action,” which was held at Temple Beth Elohim in Wellesley. Billed as “part service, part forum, and part rally,” the event focused on how Pope Francis is connecting faith, social justice, and climate change; on what the call to climate action means to people of faith in Massachusetts; and on what we can accomplish together as people of faith that we cannot accomplish alone.
They expected only a small crowd. Instead, almost 600 people showed up.
Thus launched the Massachusetts Interfaith Coalition for Climate Action, a network so new that even now we are trying to decide how to pronounce the acronym. Should “MAICCA” sound like “May-cah” or maybe “Micah,” in deference to the Hebrew prophet who enjoined his followers “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God” (Micah 6:8)?
Less than a month after MAICCA – however you pronounce it – burst onto the scene, its core team convened a legislative day of action in Boston on November 10. Well over 200 religious leaders and members of faith communities came from across Massachusetts for a spirited rally inside the State House, asking legislators to make a swift transition to clean, safe, renewable energy and to honor our moral mandate to protect low-income and other historically under-served communities.
“We are here today because we know that there are crucial decisions to be made,” said Mariama White-Hammond, a minister in training at Bethel A.M.E. Church in Jamaica Plain. “There are decisions that will impact not just the here and now, but generations to come. And so we are here, in these hallowed halls, because we are ready to start a revolution.”
Rev. Fred Small, the Unitarian Universalist minister who recently quit his job at First Parish in Cambridge to work fulltime for climate justice, gave an impassioned call to action. “Too long,” he said, “have people of faith hung back from political engagement to defend creation, future generations, and the most vulnerable of our neighbors. Politics is complicated, it’s messy, and it’s a lot of work. But it is holy work. It is necessary work. Today we embrace it in the name of love. There are powerful interests invested in the status quo. They are not evil people, but they are captive to an energy system that is deadly to life on earth… Today we lift our voices – the voices of people of faith, the voices of neighborhoods, the voices of our descendants yet to come, the voices of all God’s creatures. And we shall be heard!” (For the full text of his remarks, click here.)
Our coalition, whose members come from more than 60 religious and spiritual organizations, is pushing for a comprehensive energy plan that invests in renewables (solar and wind power) and in local economies. Its priorities for upcoming energy legislation include
• lifting the caps on solar energy and expanding incentives for community and low-income solar installations;
• investing in off-shore wind development, particularly in communities where coal-fired power plants have closed or are closing;
• ensuring that energy efficiency programs serve all communities, including low- and moderate income homes, renters, and people who speak no English;
• fixing natural gas leaks; and
• rejecting public subsidies for new natural gas pipelines (for a full description of the priorities, visit here.
After the rally, most of us fanned out to visit more than 60 legislators’ offices, where we outlined and advocated for our legislative priorities, and delivered some 1500 postcards. Along with a small group of MAICCA leaders, I headed to the office of Speaker of the House, Robert DeLeo (D-Winthrop) and then to the office of the Chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, Brian S. Dempsey (D-Haverhill). Because this is a critical moment for solar legislation in Massachusetts, we focused particularly on the moral mandate both to lift the caps on solar power and to protect community and low-income solar so that everyone can enjoy the benefits of solar energy. (In the hall we ran into Rep. Frank Smizik (Brookline), Chair of the House Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change, and nabbed a quick photo.)
Meanwhile, my husband Robert A. Jonas, who serves as Chair of the Board of the Kestrel Land Trust, headed downstairs to join a packed auditorium for a public hearing on a bill that would strip the protected status from conservation lands in Sandisfield, MA, in order to allow construction of a pipeline carrying fracked natural gas from Pennsylvania. Opposition to the pipeline has been fierce – see, for instance, MassPLAN and No Fracked Gas in Mass.
I doubt that many people involved in the rally, the lobbying, or the hearing had heard of the Francis Effect, but one way or another all of us seemed to have taken to heart the Pope’s concept of “integral ecology,” which stresses how deeply everything is connected. As Pope Francis wrote in his encyclical, “We are faced not with two separate crises, one environmental and the other social, but rather with one complex crisis which is both social and environmental. Strategies for a solution demand an integrated approach to combating poverty, restoring dignity to the excluded, and at the same time protecting nature” (139).
Will we keep building momentum and keep pushing for social transformation? Will we keep finding new partners and keep reaching out to bring new people into the climate justice movement? Will we lobby, vote, phone our legislators, divest from fossil fuels, perhaps even engage in civil disobedience? What happens next is up to us.
Near the end of the survey that reported on “The Francis Effect,” the authors remark: “It is important to note that The Francis Effect may fade or grow over time.”
Whether it fades or grows depends on what you, I, and countless others do next.
Here is what I said at the rally inside the Statehouse (visit here to download a pdf):
It is a joy to stand here with people of so many different religious and spiritual traditions, all of us united for a common purpose.
We’re here because Massachusetts is poised at an energy crossroads, and we have a precious opportunity, a precious responsibility, to choose a more just and sustainable future.
The world’s religions proclaim that the Earth is entrusted to our care and that we have a moral responsibility to build just, generous, and life-sustaining societies. I don’t know what tradition, if any, you belong to – whether you call yourself “religious” or “spiritual” or “none of the above.” However you define your deepest meaning and values, I hope that you will come to think of yourself as a person of faith.
We need people of faith.
Here’s why. Until now, humanity has seemed incapable of breaking away from the power of the fossil fuel industry or of imagining a life-sustaining future. It’s as if we’ve fallen under a spell and made what U.N. Secretary General Ban-ki Moon calls a “global suicide pact.”
I’m here to say that in Massachusetts, we’re not going to settle for a global suicide pact, or for a local one, either. At this energy crossroads, one path leads to “business as usual,” an economy mired in dirty fossil fuels that push the planet toward catastrophic climate disruption. The other path leads to clean, safe, renewable energy from sun and wind, to energy efficiency and energy conservation. One path leads to profit for the few, suffering for the many, and, before too long, death for all. The other path leads to a stable climate, clean air, soil, and water, good “green” jobs, and the ongoing evolution of life as we know it on this planet.
We know which path we choose. We choose life. We choose that path because, whatever our religious tradition, we are people of faith.
Who are people of faith?
People who see the long view, not just short-term quarterly reports;
people who care about the homeless, hungry, and poor, not just about elites;
people who understand that the web of life is a gift to be protected, not a commodity to be exploited and destroyed;
people who place our hope not in the promise of success but in being faithful to the love that created us and that holds all things together.
Thank you for being people of faith. Thank you for your commitment to urging our Commonwealth to choose a good path, one that stabilizes the climate and that ensures that all our communities can enjoy a clean and just energy future.
On Sept. 22, 2015, Margaret joined a delegation of faith leaders who met at the U.S. State Department with Karen Florini, Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change.
On Sept. 21, 2015, Margaret spoke at the prayer breakfast in Washington, D.C. for National Religious Coalition for Creation Care, announcing the release by religious leaders of an Open Letter about climate to President Obama, which she helped to draft. Text of the letter is here.
Margaret speaks about Pope Francis’ encyclical for Bill Newman’s radio show, “The Rev. and the Rabbi” (WHMP, FM 96.9), on Sept. 11, 2015. Podcast is here (Margaret begins speaking 11 minutes into the show).
Some people named the week beginning September 21, 2015, the Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice. Others called it Pope Week. I want to call it Watershed Week: the week when Americans streamed to Washington, D.C., New York City, and Philadelphia, like rivers pouring through a watershed, eager to hear Pope Francis speak about our call to love each other and all Creation. The week was a watershed in another sense, too: a turning point where everything changed.
I spent most of that week in D.C., swimming through crowds and participating in prayer vigils, concerts, strategy sessions, and rallies. On Monday I gave the opening prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast on Creation Care, an annual event organized by the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care (NRCCC). NRCCC is composed of members of all the major religious groups in America, including Catholics and Protestants, Jews and Muslims, Evangelicals and Orthodox Christians. Joined in prayer, and united with people of every religious tradition, we advocate for a right relationship to God’s creation.
Over the summer I’d taken the lead in composing letters from NRCCC to President Obama and to members of Congress about the moral and religious call to address the climate crisis, and on Monday we officially released the letters and began delivering them to members of Congress. (The NRCCC press release is here.)
The Open Letter to President Obama focuses on actions he can take without approval of Congress, such as becoming an advocate for a carbon tax, modifying the Trans-Pacific Partnership, rejecting the Keystone XL Pipeline, and rejecting new coal leases on public lands. The letter urges the President to adopt the language of “emergency” whenever he speaks about climate change, and “to mobilize the nation with the same focus and determination with which we mobilized during World War II, so that we reach 100 percent renewable energy in two or three decades.”
We were gratified to hear from the Council on Environmental Quality that the letter was shared widely with the White House climate team. Maybe it will make some waves.
On Tuesday a group of NRCCC members headed to the State Department to meet with Karen Florini, Deputy Special Envoy on Climate Change, and Amy Willis, in the Secretary’s Office for Religion and Global Affairs. With only two months to go until the crucial international climate talks in Paris, we wanted to express in the strongest possible terms our desire for bold leadership by the United States. Ms. Florini welcomed our faith-rooted advocacy – she herself is a person of faith – and we talked about how to push for effective climate action both at home and abroad in the midst of an obstructionist Congress. As she put it, “We are under active political assault.” (Learn more about the visit here.)
From the State Department we headed to the Senate Building to meet with the legal counsel of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. We gave him an earful about the moral mandate to tackle the climate crisis, citing science and Scripture, ethics and economics. In turn, we listened to his concerns about unemployment in Kentucky and the future of coal. A member of our group pointed out, “Coal is over.” So the question becomes: can Republicans and Democrats work together to make a swift and just transition to a new economy based on clean energy? That is something to work and pray for.
Wednesday began with an interfaith coalition of climate leaders meeting over breakfast with the staff of ecoAmerica. EcoAmerica has been instrumental in developing best practices for climate communication, and its Blessed Tomorrow campaign is mobilizing faith communities to engage in the struggle to stabilize the climate. The offices of ecoAmerica happen to be directly across the street from St. Matthew’s Cathedral, where Pope Francis spoke for one hour to Roman Catholic bishops and cardinals. We relished having the chance to see the Pope as he entered and left the sanctuary.
On Wednesday night I joined a large group on the steps of John Marshall Park near the National Mall to mark the end of Yom Kippur. At the start of Yom Kippur the night before, Rabbi Mordechai Liebling had delivered a powerful sermon that called for atonement – At-One-Ment – with the Earth and each other, a watershed moment that can only take place when we “feel in our hearts and know in our guts that what happens to the oceans, to the forests, to other species, to other people is also happening to us.”
A multi-faith prayer vigil completed the marking of Yom Kippur, and I gave the opening prayer, lifting up Jesus’ cry from the cross as the cry of the Earth-community.
“Why have you forsaken me?” We hear that cry
in the din of collapsing glaciers as they tumble into the sea,
in the crash of forests as they are felled,
and in the blast of mountaintops as they are blown open for extraction of
coal.
“Why have you forsaken me?” We hear that cry
in the murmur of refugees searching for water in lands scorched dry,
in the diminishing bleats and roars and chirps worldwide as species go extinct,
one by one,
and in the silence of dying coral reefs as they bleach in acid seas.
At the foot of the cross, we hear the cry of all humanity, and especially the poor, as the climate crisis unfolds around us.
We hear the groaning of all Creation: “Why have you forsaken me?”
The prayer ended with an appeal for divine mercy, asking God to empower us not to forsake each other, but instead to stand with the vulnerable, the poor, and the living world around us. Receiving God’s forgiveness and accepting our interconnection with all Creation can be a watershed moment. The dusk drew shadows around us; above us, the stars began to shine. (The complete prayer is here. )
On Thursday morning, I joined thousands of people at a reserved area on the lawn in front of the Capitol Building, to listen and watch on large screens as Pope Francis addressed a joint session of Congress. Eventually I moved further back on the National Mall to participate in the Moral Action on Climate Justice Rally, which featured lively music, speakers, and a diverse throng of activists. On either side of the stage stretched two long banners in English and in Spanish, quoting from the papal encyclical: Hear the cry of the Earth. Hear the cry of the poor.
A hush settled over the crowd as the Pope began to speak. In a world where so many leaders speak rapidly and evasively, bending the truth to suit their needs and using their words to dominate opponents, defend a narrow, partisan agenda, and push for power, it was rare and sweet to hear a leader speak slowly, truthfully, and from the heart, excluding no one and welcoming everyone. Here was a person whose humility evoked our own basic goodness as human beings, reminding us that in fact we are connected to each other, we do care about the Earth and each other, we do have the capacity to be good, we do have the power to work together and to do the right thing. Was I the only listener moved to tears? I doubt it.
After the Pope left Capitol Hill, I lingered for a while at the rally to meet with friends, old and new. Activist and writer Ted Glick was on the penultimate day of an 18-day, water-only Fast for New Permits, organized by Beyond Extreme Energy. The fast targeted the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), which essentially rubber-stamps approval for gas pipelines. Ted, looking tired but resolute, cited Gandhi’s insight that “fasting is the sincerest form of prayer.”
That night I made my way on foot to the National Cathedral (forget driving – roads were closed because the president of China was on his way into town). “Coming Together in Faith on Climate” brought together Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and other national religious leaders to express interfaith and ecumenical support of the Pope’s call to action on climate and Creation care. The Episcopal Church’s Presiding Bishop spoke eloquently, and, with the other faith leaders, committed to five initiatives to address global climate change.
As leaders of many faiths were endorsing and amplifying the Pope’s message in Washington, D.C., so, too, countless communities beyond Washington, D.C., were also bearing witness to the moral imperative to create a just and sustainable world. Take, for instance, Springfield, Massachusetts, where, on the same day that the Pope addressed Congress, a rally was held at City Hall to support funding for a climate justice office. Bishop Doug Fisher of the Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts gave a rousing speech.
I’ve been part of the religious climate movement for many years, but I’ve never experienced as deep and wide an awakening to the urgent call to stand up for life as I did last week. In order to give our children a livable planet, we need the vision and passion of people of faith – people who can see the long view, not just short-term quarterly or annual reports; people who care about the homeless, hungry, and poor, not just about elites; people who understand that the web of life is a gift to be protected, not a commodity to be exploited and destroyed; people who place their hope not in the promise of success but in the faithfulness of God.
People like that are rising up on every side. The image of a watershed may fit this moment in history, but, so, too, does the image of a rising tide. I look back on last week as a watershed moment, because around me and within me I sense a rising tide of activism, resolve, and love.
The most inspiring climate song I’ve yet heard was written by Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman and Yotam Schachter, and first performed by Rabbi Shoshana and Rev. Fred Small on September 20 – just in time for that pivotal week. They also went on to perform it at the National Cathedral on Thursday night.
The song is called: “The tide is rising and so are we.”
The past 24 hours have stretched my sense of time.
One morning I come across a report that in a far off cave in South Africa, scientists have discovered the bones of a previously unknown branch of the human family. A photo on the front page of The New York Times shows an ancient skeleton, neatly laid out from head to toe. The bones of the feet, according to one scientist, are “virtually indistinguishable” from those of modern humans. The finger bones are “extremely curved,” clearly adapted for climbing, and the skull seems to have sheltered a brain no bigger than an orange – one-third the size of a modern human brain. Named after the Rising Star cave in which the bones were found, these ancestors are called Homo naledi (“star” in the local Sesotho language). They walked the Earth more than 2.5 million years ago.
I don’t know what these distant relatives were like – what they thought about, how they spent their time, what mattered to them. But I imagine that in some ways they were just like us: they searched for food when they were hungry; they wept when they were sad; they looked for shelter and safety in a difficult world; they cared for their nearest and dearest. Scientists note that Homo naledi repeatedly placed the bones of their dead in an inaccessible cave, a fact that makes me want to say “the bones of their beloved dead.”
I bow to my ancestors who lived nearly 3 million years ago. Somehow we are kin.
The next morning I come across another report in The New York Times – this one placed not on the front page, but on page 10, as if the editor hoped to shield the reader from frightening news. A new study reports that burning all the world’s deposits of coal, oil, and natural gas would raise the global temperature enough to melt the ice sheet that covers Antarctica, along with the rest of the earth’s land ice. Sea levels would likely rise more than 200 feet.
The big surprise to scientists is that the melting could happen very quickly. Scientists used to think that it would take many thousands of years for Antarctica to melt. It turns out that once large-scale melting begins, half the melting could occur in as little as a thousand years. At that pace, the ocean could rise about one foot every decade, about 10 times faster than it is rising now. The article notes: “Such a pace would almost certainly throw human society into chaos, forcing a rapid retreat from the world’s coastal cities.”
As the lead author, Ricarda Winkelmann, puts it: “To be blunt: If we burn it all, we melt it all.”
What takes my breath away is the list of the world’s regions that would be affected by a sea-level rise of 200 feet. The list of cities lost includes (among others) Miami, New Orleans, Houston, Washington, New York, Amsterdam, Stockholm, London, Paris, Berlin, Venice, Buenos Aires, Beijing, Shanghai, Sydney, Rome and Tokyo.
I read the list of cities printed in The New York Times. I touch my fingers to the page, as if physical contact can help me absorb these facts and make them real. I recall the startling new report from James Hansen and 16 other top climate scientists, which predicts that significant sea level rise could be swift and abrupt. Oceans could rise as much as ten feet in as little as 50 years, which means that we would lose all the coastal cities of the world.
The people living in those ruined cities could include my beloved children and grandchildren. I don’t need to exercise any imagination or empathy to know what these people will be like. They will be just like us. They will search for food when they are hungry, and they will weep when they are sad. They will look for shelter and safety in a difficult world, and they will care for their nearest and dearest.
I know in my bones that we are kin.
That night I go outside and stand barefoot in the backyard. The toes of my feet, not so different from those of Homo naledi, dig into the cool grass. Where am I in time? Behind me, in the past, extend some 3 million years of human evolution. Ahead of me lies a human future that could be unimaginably chaotic and short. Here, in this precious, passing instant of time, I stand on the place where past and future meet.
That place is on fire with love.
Surging through the dark night air and rising up from the earth beneath my feet are gratitude for the priceless gift of life, grief for what we’ve lost, anger at what we’ve done, and a love that knows no bounds. I feel an urgent call to spend my life well, to place it in the service of life.
Next week I will head to Washington, DC, to participate in the Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice (Sept. 21-25). Pope Francis is coming to DC to address a joint session of Congress, and people of all colors, creeds, and faiths will converge on our nation’s Capitol to amplify his unequivocal call to humanity to create a just and sustainable future. All eyes are on the U.N. climate talks that will be held in Paris this December, which we fervently hope will chart a course to a low-carbon world.
The Pope’s encyclical, Laudato Si’ (Praise Be to You), draws from the best of the Judaeo-Christian tradition. As Wen Stephenson points out in a fascinating cover story in The Nation, the encyclical reclaims the once-marginalized terrain of liberation theology and offers a radical critique of the economic and social system that drives climate change. Francis highlights the fact that in a world beset by a disrupted climate, those who are poor have the fewest resources and are the least able to adapt. What’s more, the same mindset and economic system that exploit the Earth are the same mindset and economic system that exploit the poor. The cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor form a single cry and should evoke an integrated, comprehensive response.
The encyclical itself has generated a strong response: negative reviews from right-wing politicians wedded to the fossil fuel status quo and ringing endorsements from religious leaders worldwide who view climate justice as a moral imperative. More than 400 rabbis have signed a Rabbinic Letter on the Climate Crisis that was timed to support the papal encyclical. Islamic leaders from 20 countries recently released the Islamic Declaration on Climate Change, urging action based on a religious mandate to protect the planet. Anglican bishops just issued a fresh call for action on climate justice.
During the week in DC I will offer a prayer at the National Prayer Breakfast for Creation Care, hosted by National Religious Coalition for Creation Care (NRCCC), and I will offer a prayer at the Interfaith Prayer Vigil near the National Mall that concludes the marking of Yom Kippur, one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar, and a day of atonement. I will walk through the halls of Congress, delivering copies of a letter about the climate emergency that I took the lead on writing on behalf of NRCCC, and I will stand with thousands of people on the National Mall to watch on Jumbo Trons as the Pope delivers his message to Congress. That night I will savor a celebration of song, prayer, sermons, and poetry about faith and climate at the National Cathedral, which will be live-streamed nationally.
For too long humanity has been caught in a trance of greed, resignation, and shortsightedness, as if we have no choice but to keep drilling and fracking, keep plundering the earth and keep plundering the poor. We stand at the brink of disaster. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called it our “global suicide pact.”
But maybe we will start to apprehend the mystery of time, a sacred mystery that extends far beyond our own little lives. We belong to something much greater than ourselves. After all, human beings were born from stars. Members of Homo naledi are not the only Star People – we all are. We exist within a great sweep of Milky Way time. Yet we are also faced with the fact, as Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, that “…tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now.”
In the short span of a lifetime each one of us has countless opportunities to bear witness to what Dante called “the love that moves the sun and other stars.” That love is moving through us, too, and in the brief time we Homo sapiens have left in which to save life as it has evolved on this wondrous planet, it is our call and privilege to do everything we can, because we love our natural world and our descendants, those born and not yet born. They are our future and we are their past.
So we reach out to the ancestors who came before us and to the descendants who, God willing, will arrive long after we have vanished from Earth and are only bones in the ground. We reach out to our human neighbors, to children and the elderly, to the vulnerable and poor, to the countless refugees already on the move as seas rise and drought spreads. We reach out to the living world around us – to all that has been desecrated, to the blasted forests and dying meadows, to the poisoned, acid-drenched oceans and the convoluted air. We reach out in love to all of you, and we say: I stand with you. I belong to you. I am part of you. I will not let you go. We are in this together. I will join the fight to re-weave the web of life.
The most comprehensive schedule I’ve found for the events going on in DC during the Week of Moral Action for Climate Justice is here.
September 21: The National Prayer Breakfast for Creation Care will begin at 10 AM, at Capitol Hill Lutheran Church, 212 East Capitol St NE, Washington, DC 20003.
September 23: Interfaith Prayer Vigil will begin at 7:00 p.m. near the National Mall at John Marshall Park (at Pennsylvania and 4th Street NW, near Judiciary Square Metro), organized by Franciscan Action Network.
September 24: Ignatian Solidarity Network is helping congregations to organize “watch parties” of the Pope’s historic address to Congress, offering a free step-by-step guide for how to set one up.
Three watch parties are scheduled at 7:00 p.m. in the Pioneer Valley (in Amherst, Northampton, and Longmeadow, MA). Details are here.
At 12:30 p.m. on September 24, the same day that Pope Francis addresses Congress, Springfield Climate Justice Coalition will hold an important rally on the steps of the Springfield, Mass. City Hall, to urge the city to fund and implement a climate action plan. Download a flier here: SpringfieldRallyForClimateJustice2015flyer. Please come if you can!
