ethics

What is an emergency? Merriam-Webster defines emergency as “an unforeseen combination of circumstances or the resulting state that calls for immediate action.” Does climate change count as an emergency? Not if an “emergency” is necessarily “unforeseen,” for when it comes to climate change, scientists have been sounding the alarm for decades, telling us that burning massive quantities of fossil fuels would lead to catastrophe. Of course, the fossil fuel industry (see #ExxonKnew) has spent millions of dollars trying to make the climate emergency as “unforeseen” as possible, for as long as possible, to as many people as possible. But the clock has run out. The time of reckoning is at hand. Foreseen or unforeseen, the climate crisis is upon us and it calls for immediate action.

MBJ with Rev. Dr. Gerald L. Durley and Rev. Dr. Jim Antal. Photo credit: Robert A. Jonas

In the same week that the U.K. became the first country to declare “an environment and climate emergency,” and in the same week that the Anglican Communion became, as far as I know, the first global religious body to recognize a climate emergency, National Religious Coalition for Creation gathered for its 20th annual prayer breakfast in Washington, DC. NRCCC is a group composed of members of major faith groups in America, including Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, and Orthodox Christians, and Jews. After opening prayers, a lively presentation by Chad Hanson (Director of the John Muir Project) on forest protection as an essential aspect of addressing climate change, and the bestowal of the 2019 Steward of God’s Creation award to two outstanding climate champions – the Rev. Dr. Gerald L. Durley and the Rev. Dr. Jim Antal – we moved outside to announce the release of Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Climate Emergency.

Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency clarifies two essential facts: humanity has an extremely short window of time in which to avert irreversible climate chaos, and religions around the world consider protecting God’s Creation a moral and spiritual imperative.

Perhaps it was fitting that the Religious Declaration was publicly announced in Pershing Park, a National World War I Memorial. Just as William James and Jimmy Carter spoke of “the moral equivalent of war,” so, too, are increasing numbers of citizens realizing that we need to address climate change with the same focus, fervor and self-sacrifice of a nation that is mobilized to fight a war.

The stakes are high. As stated in the opening lines of the Religious Declaration, climate change is unlike any other challenge that confronts humanity, “because it is largely irreversible ‘for 1,000 years after emissions stop’ with ‘profound impacts on global climate, ecosystems and human societies for the next ten millennia and beyond.’1 The shocking truth is that decisions we make now could, in the words of climate economist Ross Garnaut, ‘haunt humanity until the end of time.’2 Nuclear war, while also irreversible, is only a possibility. Human-induced climate change is underway now, and its impacts are greater and more extensive than scientific models predicted. We will significantly alter the future of civilization as we know it and may eventually cause its collapse if we continue down this path.”

Announcement of Religious Declaration: Anita (Ani) Fête Crews, Jim Davidson, Dr. Mirele Goldsmith, Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, MBJ, David W. Carroll, Dr. Richard W. Miller, Michael Kelly, Rabbi Warren Stone, Richard Cizik. Photo credit: Robert A. Jonas

The Declaration calls for bold, concerted action: “Decades of delay on climate action have made small corrective measures and incremental approaches useless. Those who are invested in maintaining the status quo, or who put forth proposals that are clearly incompatible with what climate science demands, are condemning innocent young people – including their own children and generations to come – to a future of unimaginable suffering: the mass death of human populations and the extinction of species.”

The Declaration places the climate crisis within a moral context: “Further delay in addressing climate change is a radical evil that as people of faith we vigorously oppose.”

One of the principal writers of the document, Dr. Richard W. Miller, Professor of Philosophical Theology and Sustainability Studies, Creighton University, reflected later on this last point. He commented: “The manufacturing of doubt and the sowing of confusion about climate change by fossil-fuel-industry-funded think tanks, the deceptive climate-change reporting by ideologically-driven media outlets, the investing in fossil fuel infrastructure by banks and high-profile investors, the expansion of pipelines, oil, and gas wells are all radically evil actions that continue to this day.  The institutions that engage in these actions are enemies of humanity and the web of life.  We will oppose these institutions from our churches and synagogues, from our pulpits and lecterns, and from our social halls and gathering spaces.  We will fill the halls of power like the young people in the Sunrise Movement in their push for a Green New Deal; we will join school-aged children in the streets striking for climate action; and we will rebel with the young people in the Extinction Rebellion in the race to head off the destabilizing of the climate system within which civilization developed.”

I, too, was one of the principal authors of the Religious Declaration, and in our press release, I commented: “God sent us into the world to bless and heal, not to ravage and destroy. But as a species we are hurtling willy-nilly down a suicidal path that risks bringing down not only our own civilization but also the web of life as it has evolved for millennia. As people of faith, we stand with the Spirit of life, who calls us to build a more just society in which all people and all God’s creatures can thrive.”

The three principal authors of the Religious Declaration: MBJ, David W. Carroll, and Dr. Richard W. Miller. Photo credit: Robert A. Jonas

The third lead author of the Religious Declaration, inventor and tech business entrepreneur David W. Carroll, asserted: “There is no moment more critical for all-out personal and cooperative action. Today’s environmental emergency demands we implement solar and wind with power storage immediately. It is ready, and it provides unequalled economic value. Let us not fail in our duty to serve and protect Planet Earth.”

The Declaration amplifies statements that major denominations have already issued on climate change. Religious groups across the United States, including the National Council of Churches, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Central Conference of American Rabbis, National Association of Evangelicals, and the Standing Conference of Canonical Orthodox Bishops, have all called upon policymakers and elected officials to take strong action to address global climate change.

Are there risks in declaring climate change an “emergency”? I will name two. One risk is that the moment will be wasted – the proposed solutions will be weak and ineffective. A recent blog post from Council Action in the Climate Emergency (CACE) explains: “As climate emergency talking and thinking shifts further towards climate emergency action, it is imperative that ‘climate emergency’ is not co-opted to mean something ‘convenient’ or ‘pragmatic’ (i.e. weak goals and slow action). Climate emergency has to stand for safe climate principles for restoring a safe climate.” (The article, which is by Bryony Edwards, goes on to propose how to set targets for climate emergency emissions.)

A second risk in declaring a climate emergency is that political and corporate powers could thereby be given free rein to consolidate their advantages and shut out the people who suffer the most. Casey Williams, a writer in North Carolina, points out in an article for The Outline, “…Given that the American right seems to be quietly coming around to the reality of climate change (despite some high-profile acts of denial), ‘national emergency’ rhetoric and policy could easily become a conservative strategy for dealing with climate change by building ‘big, beautiful walls’ to exclude various Others from America’s relative stability. Meanwhile, the wealthy in the U.S. and around the globe will continue to erect seawalls around their coastal villas and hire private firefighters to protect their Malibu mansions. The real tragedy of treating climate change as an emergency, rather than an uneven distribution of physical and social harm, is that it would worsen the inequality that brought us to this point in the first place.”

In my view, the Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency successfully avoids both risks. It presents a menu of effective solutions. And it also lifts up the need to tackle both the ecological and the economic crises. As Pope Francis stated in his encyclical, Laudato Si’, we need to hear both the cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor – neither one can be adequately addressed alone.

That is why Religious Declaration supports “the bold direction of the Green New Deal, or other similar science-based proposals, as an opportunity for this country to commit to stabilizing the climate while creating ‘unprecedented levels of prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States.’ This specifically includes low-income communities, communities of color, and those that have historically been marginalized or underserved. The Green New Deal is the first resolution that addresses the climate crisis with the urgency, focus, and comprehensiveness that the situation requires. Our nation mobilized every part of society during World War II and the Great Depression. Like the Greatest Generation, we must rise to the occasion and commit to doing what science says it takes to avoid irreversible catastrophic climate chaos and make a rapid and just transition to a clean energy economy.”

A group from NRCCC gathers before lobbying a staffer of U.S. Rep. Garret Graves, a Republican representing Louisiana’s Sixth Congressional District: MBJ, Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, Dr. Richard W. Miller, Michael Kelly, Richard Cizik, Fred Krueger (Executive Coordinator of NRCCC), David W. Carroll, and Dr. Robert A. Jonas.
  • Other interfaith groups also support the Green New Deal. GND is not a piece of legislation, but a statement of vision and values. To sign “Faith Principles for a Green New Deal” sponsored by Interfaith Power & Light, click here. To learn more about the Green New Deal and to sign a GreenFaith statement of support, click here.

The NRCCC’s Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency has been signed by religious leaders across the country, including heads of denominations, bishops, clergy, and leaders of interfaith environmental organizations. Here are some of the religious leaders who signed the Declaration: Rev. John Dorhauer (General Minister and President, United Church of Christ); Rt. Rev. Marc Andrus (Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of California); Rt. Rev. Doug Fisher (Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Western Massachusetts); Rt. Rev. Gregory H. Rickel (Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Olympia, Seattle, WA); Rt. Rev. A. Robert Hirschfeld (Bishop, Episcopal Church of New Hampshire); Rt. Rev. Alan M. Gates (Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts); Rt. Rev. Roy F. (Bud) Cederholm Jr. (Retired Bishop Suffragan, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts); Rev. Fletcher Harper (Executive Director, GreenFaith); Phoebe Morad (Executive Director, Lutherans Restoring Creation); Rabbi Warren Stone (Central Conference of American Rabbis), Rabbi Benjamin Weiner (Jewish Community of Amherst, MA); Rabbi Alison Adler (Temple B’nai Abraham, Beverly, MA); Rabbi Moshe Givental (West Bloomfield, MI); Rabbi Katy Z. Allen (Jewish Climate Action Network, Wayland MA); Rev. Dr. Jim Antal (Special Advisor on Climate Justice to UCC General Minister and President); Rev. Brooks Berndt, Ph.D. (Minister for Environmental Justice, United Church of Christ); Rev. Mariama White-Hammond (Pastor, New Roots AME Church, Boston); Rev. Fred Small (Minister for Climate Justice, Arlington Street Church, Unitarian Universalist, Boston).

I will give the last word to a rabbi and a pastor. Each of them was moved to write a short response to the Religious Declaration, praying that it would reach many minds and hearts.

Rabbi Warren Stone (Central Conference of American Rabbis and Co-chair of NRCCC) wrote: “We must act boldly and with vision to stem the tides of climate change’s devastating impact on humanity and all God’s creation. May we look back on our day and age and say that we saw what was happening to the climate and we acted with courage and prescience to do what was necessary to cut our CO2 emissions and dramatically reduce the threats of climate destruction for future generations.”

The Rev. Dr. Jim Antal (Special Advisor on Climate Justice to UCC General Minister and President) wrote: “Momentum is growing as congregations from every faith tradition are shifting their focus from personal salvation to collective salvation. Along with the outspoken voices of children and youth, people of faith are declaring that we are now in a time of reckoning. To continue ‘business as usual’ as the corporate powers insist is morally bankrupt. God is calling us to re-build our economy and center our lives on sustainable, earth-restoring values and practices.”

Religious Declaration of Unprecedented Human Emergency is posted at the NRCCC Website and can be read and downloaded here.

1. Susan Solomon, Gian-Kasper Plattner, Reto Knutti, Pierre Friedlingstein, (2009) Irreversible Climate Change Due to Carbon Dioxide Emissions,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106 (6) 1704-1709, at 1704; DOI:10.1073/pnas.0812721106; and Peter U. Clark et al, (2016). Consequences of Twenty-First-Century Policy for Multi-Millennial Climate and Sea-Level Change.Nature Climate Change. 6.10.1038/nclimate2923.

2. http://www.garnautreview.org.au/pdf/Garnaut_Chapter24.pdf (last lines of the review)
https://cosmosmagazine.com/climate/ross-garnaut-s-bright-idea.

Next month, leaders in the Episcopal Church will gather in Salt Lake City for our triennial General Convention.   Among the significant decisions that will be made is a decision about whether to divest from fossil fuels – that is, whether to sell off holdings of stocks and bonds from the world’s leading 200 fossil fuel companies as identified by the Carbon Underground and to re-invest in the clean energy sector.

In many respects the Episcopal Church has a history of leadership in addressing the climate crisis (for a summary of that history, you can download here a pdf of my article, “The Episcopal Church and Climate Change: The First Twenty-Five Years,” The Anglican Theological Review, Fall 2013). As a community of faith, the Episcopal Church cherishes the study of science and accepts the consensus of climate scientists that climate change is real and is largely caused by human activity. In fact, our Presiding Bishop, Katharine Jefferts Schori (who was an oceanographer before she began studying for ordination) told a reporter a couple of months ago that it is “immoral” to deny the conclusions of climate science. Yet in the same public remarks Bishop Schori also stated that she opposes divesting from fossil fuels.

She is not alone. In speaking with Episcopalians in person, by mail, and on the phone, in small groups and one-on-one, I’ve discovered that although some of us are ardent advocates of fossil fuel divestment, others are moderately or strongly opposed.

Some Church leaders are uncertain, actively wrestling with their conscience, trying to sort out what faithfulness to the Gospel requires. The most poignant conversation I have had so far was with a man who spoke about divestment in terms of religious conversion. His deepest intention is to be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ. As a person charged with investment responsibilities in the Church he believes that divestment from fossil fuels is the right thing to do, but he does not feel ready to advocate for it. Very candidly he tells me that where he is as a follower of Jesus is different from where he is in carrying out his financial responsibilities. He is aware of the incongruity, and it troubles him. I sense that he lives in an in-between place, not at peace with his conscience. I sense his discomfort. I honor his desire for conversion.

I want to dedicate this blog post to him, and to all people of good will who want our behavior to line up with our conscience, so that the choices we make around money (and everything else) increasingly express our deepest values.

Here are some arguments against divestment that I’ve heard from several leaders in the Episcopal Church, and how I respond.

1) The Episcopal Church has a considered theological belief that encourages positive engagement when change is desired. We do not believe that shunning or cutting off conversation is an effective way to encourage conversion or transformation.

Conversation – including stockholders being in dialogue with corporate management – is indeed an essential aspect of positive engagement, but conversation is not the only or necessarily the best way to engage constructively or to encourage conversion or transformation. Jesus had many conversations that transformed lives, but he did not rely only on words to express his message. He also communicated God’s presence by touch, gesture, silence, and action.

Divesting from fossil fuels does not cut off conversation with the fossil fuel industry. Quite the contrary – it clarifies the message that we need to convey: 80% of fossil fuels must stay in the ground.

There are times when conversation by itself has no power to encourage conversion or transformation, but must be accompanied by action. A personal story may illustrate the point: my father was alcoholic. I spent many years reasoning and arguing with him, until at last I realized that talking with a drunk about his addiction would never change a thing. It was only when I helped organize a family intervention – a disciplined conversation that includes real consequences – that he became willing, however briefly, to address his addiction.

Words by themselves are not enough when it comes to transforming deep patterns of addiction and sin. Divestment, or the threat of divestment, raises the ante, builds social and political pressure, and increases the likelihood that fossil fuel companies will have to listen and change.

2) Stockholder engagement has the potential to shift energy companies’ focus to alternative, renewable, and less polluting sources.

Stockholder engagement makes sense when we want a company to change aspects of how it carries out its business. It does not make sense when we want a company to stop carrying out its core business.

When it comes to fossil fuels, we need to shut down an entire industry, not to fine-tune its operations. Fossil fuel companies now hold five times the amount of fuel that, if burned, would catapult the world into catastrophic climate disruption. Nevertheless these companies continue to aggressively explore for more oil, and they have every intention of burning it. If fossil fuel companies are successful in carrying out their business plans, which require unlimited expansion of markets and ever-increasing extraction and burning of fossil fuels, they will destroy life as it has evolved on this planet, along with human civilization. Their core business is destroying life on Earth.

Fossil fuel companies like to present themselves as being “energy” companies, as if they were equally involved in developing solar and wind power alongside power from fossil fuels (for a while BP tried to persuade the public to call the company “Beyond Petroleum”). In fact, developing power from sun and wind is a miniscule part of what fossil fuel companies do. Meanwhile the industry blocks regulations that would promote clean, safe, renewable energy; funds climate deniers and think-tanks that deny climate science; confuses the public by spreading misinformation; and pours billions of dollars into the effort to persuade the public that fossil fuels are the answer to our energy needs.

I know of no example of shareholder engagement persuading a company to replace its core business with a different business.

3) Pragmatically, an immediate end to fossil fuel use is unmanageable. The world is going to have to continue to utilize fossil sources like gas as a bridge to a sustainable future.

In calling for divestment from fossil fuels, we recognize that we continue to depend on fossil fuels in just about every aspect of modern life. We see divestment as expressing our intention to break society’s dependence on fossil fuels and to create a path to a sustainable future. The goal of divestment is to propel a shift to clean, safe, renewable energy.

So-called “natural” gas has been touted as a bridge to a sustainable future, though that claim is increasingly in doubt, given the methane leaks that result from extracting and distributing this fuel. Methane is an even more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide, and fracking is associated with contamination of groundwater and aquifers, and with earthquakes.

Pragmatically, all of us depend on a fossil-fuel-based economy, but we know enough about the effects of burning fossil fuels to know that we must create a new clean-energy economy as quickly as possible. As individuals, we must reduce our carbon footprint as much as we can. As citizens, we must push for policies and regulations that keep fossil fuels in the ground and enable a swift transition to clean renewables.

Back in the days of slavery, everyone depended on slaves. Slave-holding was considered essential to a healthy economy. Yet people who depended on slaves – people who wore clothes made by slaves, people who ate food produced by slaves – had a moral awakening, rose up to say that slavery was wrong, and actively engaged in the struggle to bring slavery to an end.

We can do the same thing. The shift to clean, safe, renewable energy won’t happen overnight, but it needs to start right now.  Thanks to the political and economic clout of the fossil fuel industry, most of us depend on fossil fuels because we have no other choice. Generally speaking, fossil fuel is the only source of energy that is available or affordable.  So using fossil fuels by no means removes our responsibility to push for societal change. Even while recognizing that we ourselves remain embedded in an economy based on fossil fuels, we can and must do everything in our power to change that economy, to hold fossil companies accountable for their actions, and to withdraw their social license to keep wrecking the planet. (For an excellent essay on this subject, read KC Golden’s “We have met the wrong enemy”).

4) We don’t want to make a political statement with our investments. Our endowment (or pension fund) is a resource, not an instrument to promote social or political change.

What we do with our money – how we spend it, how we save it, how we give it away, how we invest it – always has political ramifications. Money is always an expression of our values. Jesus had more to say about money than about any other topic.

If it is immoral to destroy life on this planet, then it is equally immoral to profit from that destruction. This is one reason that Archbishop Desmond Tutu – who knows first-hand the powerful role that was played by divestment in bringing down apartheid in South Africa – urges divestment from fossil fuels. Tutu affirms that “people of conscience need to break their ties with corporations financing the injustice of climate change.”

5) Our number one priority as responsible investors is to make money. Our fiduciary responsibility requires ongoing investment in fossil fuels.

Regarding financial risk, a strong case can be made that divesting from fossil fuels is a responsible financial decision. Financial analysts have shown that the short-term financial impact of divestment is negligible (see, for instance, “Extracting Fossil Fuels from Your Portfolio”). The long-term financial impact of divestment may actually strengthen a portfolio, because the so-called “carbon bubble” could burst as climate disruption forces governments to limit the burning of fossil fuels and to put a steep price on carbon. Continuing to invest in fossil fuels could lead to financial loss as fossil fuel reserves lose value and become stranded assets.

That said, of all the arguments against divestment, the argument that earning top dollar takes precedence over any other value is the argument – especially when voiced by Christians – that most breaks my heart.

Define “fiduciary responsibility” as being faithful to the future and it makes no sense to invest in fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels undermines any hope of a livable, healthy future for future generations, including our children and grandchildren.

I imagine a dystopian vision: a scorched and desolate Earth, devoid of myriad species that have long-since gone extinct; billions of refugees on the move, searching for food and fresh water; extreme storms and waves of heat; local, regional, and national conflicts erupting over scarce resources; authoritarian governments crushing democracy in the name of national security. In such a world blighted by runaway climate change, will anybody who profited from fossil fuels look back with satisfaction on their investments?  Will the people who managed pension funds and endowments and kept investing in fossil fuels congratulate themselves on their fiduciary responsibility to their clients? We wrecked the Earth, but hey, no problem, we did the right thing – we made a few bucks!

I imagine a life-sustaining vision: one after another, organizations of all kinds – educational institutions, non-profit groups, communities of faith – rise up to say yes to life. In a wave of moral clarity, they divest from fossil fuels. By divesting, they open up a space for a new future and build momentum for deep societal change. By divesting, they make it easier to pass laws that limit carbon pollution. By divesting, they break the mental grip that the fossil fuel industry has on our collective consciousness. By divesting, they make it crystal clear that if business as usual is wrecking the planet, then business as usual must stop.

A wave of religious activism, including, in some cases, civil disobedience, is beginning to sweep the globe, as religious leaders and institutions increasingly proclaim that climate disruption is not just a scientific or economic or political issue, but also a moral issue. I ask you – is it ethical to ruin the world for our children and grandchildren and for generations yet unborn? Do we have no moral responsibility for the cascade of extinctions now underway among our brother and sister species, in large part because of climate change? Are we willing to stand idly by and devastate the lives of the poor, who suffer first and hardest from the effects of climate change? Are we willing to thumb our noses at our Creator, who entrusted the Earth to our care and to whom the Creation ultimately belongs (Psalm 24:1)? Will we refuse to bear witness to the Risen Christ, whose redemptive love embraces the whole Creation?

For more and more of us, thank God, the answer is No. We want to abide in God’s love. We want to be faithful to Jesus. We want the love that is pouring into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5) to be manifest in how we treat each other and how we treat the Earth.

Recently the Church of England announced that it is divesting from two of the most polluting fuels, coal and tar sands. The World Council of Churches, the Unitarian Universalist Association, and the United Church of Christ have already announced that they are divesting from fossil fuels, as have a number of dioceses in the Anglican Communion and several dioceses in the Episcopal Church, including my own, the Diocese of Western Massachusetts.

Fossil fuel divestment by the Episcopal Church at this summer’s General Convention would send a powerful message that climate change is a moral issue. Divestment would also enlarge our capacity to make positive investments in renewable energy, such as sun and wind, and to help build a new, carbon-free economy.

In these perilous times, I pray that the Holy Spirit will transform every member of the Episcopal Church by the renewing of our mind, and will help us to discern what is the will of God (Romans 12:2).

How do we stay spiritually grounded in the midst of tackling very complex issues? That question came to mind as I sat with a row of panelists behind a table in the chapel of Amherst College, waiting for my turn to speak. The focus of the conference was on whether we can make a carbon fee and rebate work in Massachusetts. Every speaker emphasized that in order to solve the climate crisis we must put a price on carbon emissions and put the money that is raised back into people’s pockets. My role on the panel was to address the spiritual and ethical foundation for supporting a carbon fee and rebate.

Climate XChange, an organization of advocates and citizens working for a carbon fee and rebate in Massachusetts, had assembled some leading thinkers to address the issue’s complexities, including Professor James Boyce, who teaches economics at UMass/Amherst; State Rep. Tom Conroy (13th Middlesex), the author and co-sponsor of the 2013 Carbon Tax Bill; Dan Gatti, the Executive Director of Carbon XChange; and State Rep. Ellen Story (Third Hampshire District). The moderator was Professor Jan Dizard, who teaches sociology and environmental studies at Amherst College.

I was glad to be the last panelist to speak, for as I listened to my co-panelists, I could see how much time, patience, and effort it takes for economists and politicians to explain clearly – and for listeners to grasp – how the carbon rebate will work, how it will achieve emissions reductions, and how it will be set up so that lower income and disadvantaged residents are not harmed. (For a clear and pithy explanation of how a carbon fee and rebate works, view this 4-minute clip from the forum, in remarks by economist James Boyce.)

Enacting a carbon fee and rebate is one of the most promising tools we have for changing consumers’ behavior, reducing our use of dirty energy, developing clean, renewable energy, creating green jobs, and stabilizing the climate. (Another promising tool would be for our government to quit subsidizing fossil fuel companies, but that’s another story.) A carbon tax can also strengthen a region’s economy: British Columbia has had a carbon tax since 2008, and that province’s economy has become the fastest growing in Canada.

But from the discussion in Amherst that night, it was clear to me that understanding how a carbon tax works, and pushing for its passage, will take a good deal of effort, stamina, and skill. What will keep our personal and collective energy from flagging? From what source of spiritual and ethical wisdom will we draw as we struggle to build a better future?

The answer, it seems to me, is no further away than our body, where everything begins. We may come from different spiritual traditions, or from none, but we all have a body. Perhaps through our bodies we can tap into a spring of spiritual energy that will renew our hearts and give us strength and guidance for the struggles ahead. What follows is based on what I said to the audience in Amherst about the spiritual and ethical foundation of our efforts to secure a carbon tax and to stabilize the climate.

I invite you to take a moment to feel your feet on the ground. Beneath the floor is the earth. Let yourself feel the support of the good earth beneath your feet. Feel the sensations of your feet on the floor, and let the good earth hold you up. Feel how solid your body is, as solid as the earth… I invite you take a couple of good, deep breaths. As you take in the sweet air and then let it go, feel the air passing into and out of your lungs. Notice that you are exchanging the elements of life with plants and green-growing things… Take a moment to experience yourself as a living creature, connected to the earth and air and to all living beings.

As we sit here with our feet on the ground, breathing with awareness, we may notice that none of us owns our breath. Our breath does not belong to us. We can’t hold on to it or save it up for later. We simply receive it freely and then let it go. Moment by moment, each breath is given to us. Breath by breath, we receive the gift of life. All of it is gift – everything we see and hear and taste and touch. This is where amazement springs up, along with wonder, gratefulness and awe. Here we are! Breathing!

Gratitude is the wellspring of all spiritual traditions, and from gratitude flows the perception that everything is precious. Everything is sacred. We belong to a sacred Mystery that is much larger than we are. We are part of a much larger whole. In our stressed and busy lives it’s easy to forget that we are part of something greater than ourselves, which is why so many of us come home to ourselves when we spend time outdoors – when we climb a mountain and get the big view, or when we pause in the midst of a busy day to admire a bird or a tree.

When we are spiritually awake we feel our connection, our kinship, with other living beings, human and other than human. We recognize that we’re in this together, that all of us are part of one single, precious, and intricate web of life. Perceiving the world like this elicits a certain tenderness: we want to nurture and protect the mysterious gift of inhabiting a living planet. That’s the spiritual wisdom we can learn from being aware of our feet on the ground and our lungs filling and emptying with air.

But our bodies also teach us about the ethical dimension, the justice dimension of the world. The good earth beneath our feet is the same earth that fossil fuel companies are blowing apart by mountaintop removal in order to extract coal; the same earth that is being violently injected with tons of chemicals that crack apart shale, release natural gas and methane, and poison rivers and streams; the same earth that is flooding in some places, going dry in others, and manifesting unpredictable, violent extremes of weather because of the abrupt changes inflicted by global warming.

The life-giving air that fills our lungs is the same air into which fossil fuel companies are pouring greenhouse gases as if the atmosphere were an open sewer; the same air that contains more carbon dioxide than it has for millions of years; the same air whose delicate balance is being disrupted and destroyed.

Our own bodies connect us to the wounding of the world and to the cries of the poor, who are affected first and hardest by climate change, and who are already suffering from its effects, including extreme storms and rapidly rising seas, food and water shortages and infectious diseases.

That is the spiritual and ethical context in which I welcome a carbon tax and rebate. Putting a stable and meaningful price on carbon, and distributing the fee in a way that is fair and does not harm the poor, is an essential step in moving toward a fossil free economy and healing the devastation of climate change.

We need to protect the web of life, which is unraveling before our eyes. We need to move quickly to build a just and sustainable future for our children and our children’s children. We need to plant our feet firmly on this beautiful earth, to take a good deep breath of air, and to press together for a strong, fair, and equitable carbon fee and rebate plan. I hope that Massachusetts will lead the way.

—–

A YouTube video of part of the conference is here (MBJ’s remarks begin at 8’30”).

Bloomberg View has posted articles about why even people who doubt climate science should support a carbon tax; how a well-designed carbon tax can cut harmful emissions; how carbon taxes don’t kill jobs; and how carbon taxes can shrink government and help the poor.

Climate XChange is pushing for a carbon fee and rebate in Massachusetts.

Citizens’ Climate Lobby (CCL) is supporting national carbon-pollution fee and dividend legislation. CCL is a non-partisan, international, volunteer organization whose mission is to create the political will for a stable climate and to empower individuals to have breakthroughs in exercising their personal and political power.