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Religious groups have always provided guidance on a range of issues, but historically, the environment hasn’t been one of them. Global warming seems to have changed all that, as leaders and followers of faith traditions contemplate our impact on the planet and on ourselves, and how we might change it.

While the Reverend Billy and the Church of LIfe after Shopping have been taking their environmental campaigns to the streets, with guerrilla theater protesting consumer culture, Reverend Fletcher Harper, executive director of Green Faith, has taken it to the Internet. Early this winter, as Congress considered the American Clean Energy and Security Act and the world geared up for the Copenhagen summit, the national faith-based organization hosted a webcast on "Green Jobs, Climate Justice."

Rev. Harper introduced the Web cast with the observation that, “More and more U.S. citizens recognize climate change is real and that we need to respond.” He pointed to the both the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina and the popularity of the documentary film An Inconvenient Truth as significant contributors to the increased level of awareness.

 

Six guests joined Rev. Harper for the roundtable discussion that was Web cast to more than 200 congregations nationwide:

 

• Dr. Laurel Kearns, Associate Professor of Sociology of Religion & Environmental Studies at Drew Theological School;
• Rabbi Steve Gutow, Executive Director of the Coalition on Environment and Jewish Life and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs;
• Reverend Alfred Bailey, Minister of Missions and Outreach, at the New Psalmist Baptist Church, in Baltimore, Maryland;
• Dr. Doug Boucher, Director of the Tropical Forest and Clmate Initiative, of the Union of Concerned Scientists;
• Dr. Nicky Sheats, Director of the Center for the Urban Environment at Thomas Edison State College, and a member of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance; and
• Jim Young, National Education Policy Director of the TrinityWallstreet.org.

The focus of the discussion was intended to be green jobs, defined by Jim Young as blue-collar jobs with a green purpose or any job that reduces our climate footprint. (Young said, “We hope that’s an obsolete term very soon. We hope all jobs will be green someday.”)

The group, however, found themselves needing to establish common ground on the more immediate issue of climate change before getting into any depth on green jobs.

 

Common ground included recognizing the moral imperative to address the needs of those who are suffering the worst effects of environmental degradation and climate change, and the need to empower people so that they can take action, together.

 

On environmental justice:

Gutow: “Funding projects to help people adapt is a justice issue, a moral question.”

Sheats: "We are very concerned about climate change because we believe it’s going to impact our communities first and worst {. . .} you can’t get a job if you’re dead. Climate change policy can and should be fashioned in such a manner that it will have immediate, significant, positive impact on residents in communities around the country.”

Boucher: “Given that we’ve benefited so much from dirty development, we have an obligation to help other countries avoid the mistakes we’ve made and to help them through the difficult times we’ve created.

"Dealing with climate change can be a way to improve health and save people here from pollution. Dealing with tropical deforestation is a way to save a large number of species all over the world, and help to preserve the livelihood of people who depend on tropical forests for their existence.”

Kearns: Many different voices are unified “on the fact that justice has to be part of this conversation.”

On empowering people to act:

Kearns: “As a college professor, I’m on the front lines with young people and also with my own children. In the headlines, they’re angry, they’re despairing, and they’re looking to us for answers.”

Bailey: “We experienced our awakening when we took a trip to Nairobi, Kenya, and we saw the devastation of families that just did not have water…We wanted to look at what we do in the form of empowerment and look at how we could help our brothers and sisters in Kenya.”

Gutow: “Education, causing people to be aware is step one... Second is passion… because here's not that much passion yet...Passion is when people say, "My world's going to go down... I’ve got to do something.’ Third is activism... It’s going to happen because the world will force it to happen.”

 

On churches and environmental groups working together:

 

Kearns: “It’s a very exciting interfaith movement that brings a lot of groups into contact that might not work with each other…We really are all in this together.”

Sheats: “The Holy Grail of our movement is to have an African-American church validating and saying to the community, ‘This is an issue you have to pay attention to. This is basic stuff. We want you to be able to breathe. We want you to be able to get a job.’ ...Can you think of any other place where people go once a week in an organized fashion?”

Bailey: “Getting more people employed with green jobs is key, crucial. We have people who need jobs and an environment that needs to be helped, and getting young people excited about the environmental movement is key… When people relate it to their faith, people are more likely not just to get involved, but to stay involved.”

Boucher: "We've found that some of our strongest allies are in the religious community... While we may have different explanations of creation, how it came about, we have a common devotion to preserving it. We have a common feeling of responsibility for the world we've been given. And frankly, we don't have the right to destroy it It's something that we as people of faith and people of science have the responsibility because we're the dominant species on earth... We have to take that responsibility seriously."

Young: “Fundamentally, we’re optimists. If Sierra Club and Steelworkers can work together, we all can.”

In mid-January, Green Faith will be releasing its theological statement, “Green Jobs, Climate Justice – a Religious Response to Global Warming,” and accompanying discussion guide and advocacy resources. The hour-long program can still be viewed at TrinityWallstreet.org.