Recently in Environment Category

Sung-ok Lee is the Assistant General Secretary of the Section of Christian Social Action, Women's Division of the United Methodist Women.

For many in government and industry circles, the discussion around the topic of climate change crisis focuses on energy efficiency, cap and trades and adjusting environmental policy to meet financial and economic ends.  For people all over the world, it's a very real crisis, the effects of which they are already witnessing.  But for many people of faith, including me, climate change is a primary moral challenge of our time, and the upcoming United Nations Summit on Climate Change gives us a unique opportunity to call attention to the need to reverse this dangerous trend.

As believers, we see the need to tackle climate change as a matter of social justice. Yes, it's true that we cherish and want to preserve Creation, but we are also keenly aware that while the poorest 1 billion people on the planet are responsible for only 3 percent of total emissions, they disproportionately bear the brunt of the devastating effects of climate change as their homelands suffer exacerbated droughts and floods, unpredictable rain patterns and crop failures. By contrast, the U.S. and other wealthy nations have benefited greatly from growth and prosperity fueled by carbon-based economies. Although our nation comprises only about 4-5% of the world's population, we are responsible for about 25% of historical emissions. 

I am also concerned about the effects of climate change on women and girls the world over.  This week, the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) released a report called State of World Population 2009.  What it reveals in terms of the impact of global warming on women and girls around the world is startling.  The report points out that the female half of the world's population is indeed disproportionately more affected by the effects of climate change. 

While it's true that all around the planet people are feeling the effects of global warming, women in developing countries are among the most vulnerable because they tend to make up a larger share of the agricultural workforce and typically don't have access to income-generating opportunities.  Because they are in charge of households and family care, women are limited in their mobility, so that when tragedy strikes in the form of weather-related natural disasters, they are highly susceptible to the loss of livelihood, home, loved ones or event their own lives.

UNFPA's report highlights how girls often drop out of school to help their mothers secure food, water and energy.  As climate affects their livelihoods, women often bear the increased financial burden by taking on extra jobs to support their families.  Of greater consequence is that while stuck in this cycle of deprivation, poverty and inequality, these women and girls are unable to build the necessary social capital - like education, political power, and influence in their communities - to effectively take on climate change.

As global leaders gather in Copenhagen next month for the UN Summit on Climate Change, a four-person delegation of United Methodist Women committed to social justice will travel to Denmark to lend their voices to the women and the many others who are not able to attend and speak for themselves.  The team hopes to meet fellow advocates and learn what other organizations and governments the world over are doing to combat climate change.  The delegation will not only to press for strong, binding and fair greenhouse gas emissions targets, but will also demand that the U.S. join other nations to provide adaptation aid to the most vulnerable communities.

It is crucial that the governments of the U.S. and other industrialized nations responsible for greenhouse gas emissions implement effective and comprehensive, science-based approaches to reversing global warming.  As women of faith and advocates for social justice, we see it as our duty to hold global leaders accountable and ask that they assist developing nations to adapt to climate change, address energy poverty, and grow in ways that reduce poverty while protecting the environment.

John Gehring is the Media Director and Senior Writer for Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good

As an urbanite fortunate to live within walking distance of work and trendy restaurants, I rarely drive these days. But running late to a pickup basketball game recently, I was low on gas and quickly pulled into the first station on the road. It wasn't until my tank was nearly full that I looked up and saw a glowing CHEVRON sign. My stomach sank. Last Friday, I attended the premier of "Crude," a powerful documentary that chronicles the 16-year lawsuit waged against the oil company on behalf of nearly 30,000 indigenous people living in the rainforests of Ecuador.

The lawsuit alleges that Texaco (bought by Chevron in 2001) dumped more than 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Amazon from 1964 to 1990. Plaintiffs for the indigenous tribes believe the ecological disaster poisoned an area the size of Rhode Island and is at least 30 times larger than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. The once pristine waters that nourished generations of indigenous communities now run black with oil. Infants are born with birth defects, cancer is ravaging villages, and a way of life dating back 500 years has been destroyed. Chevron executives deny responsibility and have used deep pockets to drag out the case. The company, based in San Ramon, Calif., recently reported profits of $3.8 billion and has no shortage of savvy PR consultants or expensive legal minds at their disposal. The non-profit Amazon Watch is leading a coalition of international groups demanding accountability from the oil giant. Rep. James McGovern of Massachusetts, who attended the premier in Washington, DC, visited the affected areas of Ecuador last year and in a letter to President Obama described what he saw as a "terrible humanitarian and environmental crisis" that as an American left him "angry and ashamed." 

The film raises haunting questions for those of us privileged to live in comfort while others suffer from the greed of U.S. corporations. How do we reconcile our call as Christians to live simply and seek justice for the most vulnerable amid a culture of excessive consumerism? How do we avoid becoming indifferent to human rights abuses far from our daily experiences? "Crude" shakes us out of the cocoon of complacency. It forces us to consider how personal choices relate to systemic injustices.

I grew up steeped in the intricate vocabulary of sin. In classes that should have been called Catholic Guilt 101, I learned about mortal sins, venal sins, sins of omission and sins of commission from the good sisters at Immaculate Conception Elementary School. It was also a sin, I was sorry to hear, not to confess all my sins during confession. I suspect most of us still think about sin as personal slights and wrongdoing against another individual. Christian conservatives are particularly fond of railing against sexual sins and could barely contain themselves when Bill Clinton got into trouble in the Oval Office. But we hear much less indignation about "social sins" that include environmental exploitation or the humanitarian impact of war. Consider the potential for progress on some of our most urgent moral challenges if we could channel some of the anger fanning the flames of our ubiquitous "culture wars" into campaigns against global poverty, preventable diseases and ecological disasters.    

While some elected officials like Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma still deny the reality of global climate change and lobbyists for Big Oil engage in what amounts to legalized bribery on Capitol Hill, I'm proud that Christians are on the front lines of a growing movement for environmental justice and corporate accountability. Sister Patricia Daly and her fellow Dominican sisters of Caldwell, N.J. challenge companies like Exxon Mobile, Dow and General Electric at shareholder meetings. The Catholic sisters are part of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, an association of 275 faith-based institutional investors that press companies to be socially and environmentally responsible. Each year religious institutional investors sponsor over 200 shareholder resolutions. Pope Benedict XIV has been dubbed the Green Pope for his resolute commitment to environmental justice. The Vatican even became the first "carbon neutral" state in the world. The pope's latest encyclical addressed the need for sustainable development, and the responsibility wealthy nations have to help developing countries escape the deadly traps of debt and poverty. Last spring, the Catholic Coalition Against Climate Change launched A Catholic Climate Covenant: the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor. As Christians, we recognize that ending the poisoning of our planet is a pro-life issue central to defending human dignity.

Colonialism, in the official sense, is the shameful legacy of a bygone era. But multinational corporations that plunder and exploit the rainforests of South America or the mines of Africa continue this brutal cycle with tragic consequences. If those of us who know the truth fail to speak out, we stand complicit in our silence.

Senator Inhofe is known for his denial of climate change by relying on an ever dwindling number of scientists who believe that our present global warming is part of a cyclical warming and cooling, and insist that human produced pollution has no affect on this cycle.   The important policy implications of this belief is that it paints efforts to curb and reduce such pollution as futile, and certainly not worth the economic hardship they may cost.   The fact that scientists overwhelmingly agree that human pollution is affecting climate change by warming the earth is not convincing to Sen. Inhofe.  When the great majority of scientists agree, generally you can believe them, but, of course, the Senator is right -scientists can be wrong.   Why anyone would want to go down in history as the one who was against reducing pollution is a bit beyond me but he is entitled to his opinion.   I disagree with Sen. Inhofe and the few scientists that he can still cite to support him, but where I know he is wrong is when he brings God into it.

In a video on C-Span, Sen. Inhofe attempts to calm what he clearly views as overly concerned environmentalists and hysterical politicians by graciously reminding us that "God is still up there."  By this, I am sure, he means God is in heaven (up there) and that God is in control and we don't have to worry about climate change because it's out of our hands and safely in the hands of God.  But in his theologizing he is omitting the Christian proposition  that God can be in control even as we exercise our free will disobey God and to  sin against God and our fellow humans.   If one is to speak in theological terms about the environment then one should recognize that God gave humans the privilege and burden of stewardship of the earth and all its resources.   When we squander our resources, destroy the earth's beauty, and jeopardize the health of God's creation then we are sinning and the wages of sin are death. 

If Senator Inhofe is to truly acknowledge the God up there then he should be the first to get on his knees and join with the rest of us to repent of our recklessness with the environment.   It is not too late for us to act in a way that is worthy of the trust that God placed with humans to care for the world.  But time is running out, and so might God's patience.  Yes, God is up there - and God is pissed.

What would you do if you found out that people in your neighborhood had a 30% higher cancer rate, 25% higher infant mortality rate, and 95% higher cirrhosis of the liver rate than the surrounding area?  Then you found out that hair sample surveys of your neighbors showed that 34% of the population have toxic levels of mercury, 55% are contaminated with lead, 69% with arsenic, 69% with cadmium, 90% with aluminum, and 93% with antimony.  What would you do?  What would you expect your government to do? 

The truth is that this is just a hypothetical for most Americans.  If those problems showed up in New York City or St. Louis, MO, the response would be immediate and overwhelming.  But sadly when those problems began to emerge in Vieques, Puerto Rico, and the Americans affected were very poor, often spoke Spanish, and were living without direct representation in our government, the response has been to try to sweep the problem under the rug. 

Thankfully, TIME Magazine has just broken a story at the national level that has been well known to the people of Puerto Rico for a long time.  Studies by Yale, UGA, San Juan College of Engineers, and many other have proven beyond a doubt that the people are being poisoned by the results of 60+ years of naval weapons testing on the island.  But until this Time piece, there was virtually no attention being paid to this crisis. 

The health situation in Vieques is a black and white moral imperative.  We must address the needs of our fellow citizens down there who are truly the least and last in our society.  Americans will demand action if they understand the facts.  Please spread the word and contact your Congressman.

Click here to read the Time article: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1924101,00.html

And click here for more details and history:  http://americanvaluesnetwork.org/vieques/

Last week, Rep. Shuler and Perriello headlined a press conference hosted by Faith in Public Life featuring a who's who of the faith community and rolling out the largest paid media campaign ever by progressives targeting faith voters with an ad on Christian radio voiced by Rev. Joel Hunter, (breath) and the group behind the campaign, the American Values Network, is running a second ad calling out the massive energy conglomerate, Southern Company, for it's opposition to this effort. 

Ok, that was a ton to fit into a one-sentence description...and isn't it something that our side has so much going on these days?!  Not only has a huge assembly of denominations and church groups joined forces with military leaders to lift up this new faith and security message on the climate bill, but they have real funding behind the effort.  And they are being strategic about how they use it.  Instead of just preaching to the converts and our own base (as has often been the case in the past), they are targeting their message at swing constituencies in swing districts.  And the press is paying attention.

The most recent ad running on Country and Christian radio throughout Southern's service region highlights why these efforts are so important and why people of faith need to amplify this message and speak out.  Southern Company, the energy conglomerate that owns a number of the utilities in the South, specifically targeted this coalition of faith and military leaders because Southern rightly saw the coalition's moral/national security message as a serious threat and way for moderate Dems who were in more conservative districts to vote in favor.  Southern unleashed the 70+ DC lobbyists it has hired this year to try to kill the climate bill (it's already spent over $4.2 million on lobbying this year) to push back against the faith and military coalition and threaten and cajole Members thinking of lending their support. 

Southern was especially concerned about the provisions championed by the coalition that would provided adaptation funding to the world's poor to help them adapt to climate change and prevent regions from becoming destabilized, and that would have given direct rebates directly to Americans to help offset rising energy costs.  Even though these provisions would have given more resources to the areas that have the greatest economic need and would likely see their energy costs increase the most under a cap and trade system (which meant people Southern Company supposedly services would have gotten a bigger piece of the pie), Southern wants all the resources from cap and trade to go directly to the energy companies (mostly b/c it knows that will never happen and allow it to kill the bill).  And it rightly saw the moral/national security message of this coalition as a serious threat to those efforts and way for moderate Dems who were in more conservative districts to vote in favor of the bill. 

The only way the people will be able to overcome the money and influence of these big conglomerates is if we speak out and speak often.  Please spread the word, and take the advice in the radio ads to call your Member of Congress at 877-88-CLIMATE to ask them to stand up to Big Energy and vote the right way.