Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota

"On Earth as it is in Heaven: Witnessing to God's Healing of Creation"
 
Members of the conference numbered about 350, we were told, from 39-40 states.  Plenary sessions and workshops filled Sunday evening, all of Monday, and the first few hours of Tuesday.  Then on Tuesday conference members went to Capitol Hill to visit with their Senators, Representatives, and their respective staff people, about their opposing fossil fuels and nuclear power, and the urgent need of their linking energy policy to global warming.  [See the NCCC's news release about this on May 22, 2001.]

The clearest outline of most of our concerns came from an Episcopal diocese (which one?) "out East."  Their 4 points help to organize the wealth of information and objectives that feed ecologically sensitive communities:

• Global warming is real
• The science is sound
• The effects will be severe
• It is a religious issue

For some folks this extensive inheritance of ecological commitment suffices to motivate the practices of environmental ethics.  Yet even those who know this tradition also want and need the best available evidence about the scope and depth of our current ecological crisis.  Furthermore, the public at large will more likely be moved to action by the first 3 points than by religious or humanistic values alone.  Accordingly, the conference stressed all 4 points rather equally.

Global warming is real.
The science is real.
The effects of global warming will be severe.

As it seems to me, the first and third assertions depend on the validity of that second claim.  Unless "the science is real," all claims about global warming and the severity of its effects can be dismissed as subjective speculation.

All we can do as non-scientists is bring to public attention, or recall for people, what scientists themselves report about their conclusions and their methods of working.  Accordingly, we need to be quite precise and accurate in reporting the sources of our information about scientific evidence that the climate is now experiencing unprecedented thermal change.

To help accomplish that objective we might well include not only more bibliographical references to books and other print material from scientists, but also provide on our website some links to scientific organizations such as the Union of Concerned Scientists.

Various groups of scientists have appealed to the churches to help them mobilize public action to diminish as much as possible the effects of the climate change that is now underway.  They tell us that the effects of global warming cannot be averted altogether, since they have already begun, and thus their appeal that we at least diminish those effects carries palpable urgency.

Though there were many display booths that included scientific information (even including from the national EPA), our speakers did not assail us with documentation for their reports about scientific evidence.  So the following assertions are not documented, and need our research to "nail down:"

Bill McKibben ("The Environment as the Moral Crisis of Our Time") reports:

• since 1995 human warming of the climate  is the scientific consensus, and that is reflected by the 1-22-01 report from Beijing by the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change), which is a group of hundreds of scientists that were assembled by the UN in 1988 to assess global warming.  They reported (according to The Washington Post on 1-23-01, p. AO1) that the earth's average temperature could rise by as much as 10.4 degrees during the next 100 years-"the most rapid change in 10 millennia and more than 60 percent higher than the same group predicted less than six years ago."
• in 1998 1 in 20 humans was flooded.
• 25% of carbon emissions are produced by 4% of humans (i.e., in the USA)
• in the year 2000 the USA emitted 12% more carbon than in 1990, that despite the promise made at Rio in 1992 by then-President Bush that USA would not produce any worse in 2000 than it did in 1980.
• by 2030 Glacier National Park will have no glacier.
• by 2050 coral reefs will have disappeared worldwide, due to warmer water.
• thunder has been heard for the first time in parts of far northern Canada and Alaska.

The workshop on "The Politics of Global Warming" reported:

1. wind power is cheaper per KWH than nuclear power.
2. since the Rio conference in 1992 we have learned that voluntary measures do not work.  Only mandatory controls on greenhouse emissions have worked.
3. only OPEC has oil reserves adequate to market demands in USA.  Consequently we cannot meet our needs by drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Natioanl Refuge.  Further, 2 years ago Congress lifted restrictions on exporting our oil, so any oil from the acrtic could easily be exported to Japan and China.
4. President Bush has one team at work on global warming, but a different team at work on national energy policy.  Consequently our national energy policy is not framed within the realistic context of ecological crisis.  Bush's speech in late June on our energy policy will reflect that failure to coordinate policy.
5. Sept. 2002 will be the 10th Anniversary of the Rio Conference.  That will be a good time for extra effort by all ecologically sensitive communities.
6. "History of the Roadless Rule," a 2-page document from leaders of this workshop, details back to 1998 what efforts put that roadless rule into place, and what efforts by the Bush administration and by a US District Judge on May 11, 2001 have now rendered that rule to be illegal.
7. Kalee Kreider (co-leader of the workshop) listed these as 4 top priorities for our efforts with the US Congress:
8. *Reduce and eliminate use of coal (which cannot be made clean), and do this by developing alternative energy sources;
9. *Eliminate SUVs [McKibben agrees, suggesting this bumper sticker for them: "I'm contributing to global change.  Ask me how."], and return to our goals for energy-efficient cars and trucks;
10. *Eliminate nuclear power because of its problems of waste by-products, safety, and prohibitive costs;
11. *Increase efficiency of fuel use within buildings and by all appliances.

The Bush-Cheney Energy Plan: How it Fares in the 21st Century, a 10-page paper from The Energy Foundation.  This is "A Joint Initiative of The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation;  The McKnight Foundation;  The Joyce Mertz-Gilmore Foundation;  The David and Lucile Packard Foundation;  The Pew Charitable Trusts; and The Rockefeller Foundation."  Refer to energyfund@ef.org.  This paper severely attacks the administration's energy plan.

Analysis of the Bush Energy Plan, a 12-page paper dated May 18, 2001 from Friends of the Earth, demonstrates the chasm between administration rhetoric and its performance, the latter constituting a frontal attack on the environment.

Scientific Community Roadless Letters - Excerpts, a 2-page document has been compiled by Suellen Lowry .  These are quotations from hundreds of scientists to our Presidents Clinton and Bush in the last 4 years.

Global warming is a religious issue.

The Christian Society of the Green Cross has compiled an 8-page collection of biblical texts under 21 thematic headings.  It is titled A Scriptural Call for Environmental Stewardship.

The NCCC has a 4-page list of Environmental Justice Resources that help with worship, learning and teaching, lifestyles both personal and congregational, and public involvement with ecological issues at both community and national levels.

The Eco-Justice Program of the Minnesota Council of Churches has produced a 2-page statement Climate Change: A Matter of Faith, that was signed by 15 Church judicatory leaders (including our Bishop Jelinek).

On May 18, 2001 the NCCC's Office of Environmental Justice and Economic Justice and the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life jointly published An Interfaith Call for Energy Conservation and Climate Justice in the form of "An Open Letter to the President, the Congress, & the American People."  This 2-page document has appended to it 2 pages of signatures from leading pastors, administrators, rabbis, bishops, and Orthodox archbishops.

On April 20, 2001 a letter from our Presiding Bishop and Primate, The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold, was sent to President George W. Bush.

The Cosmic Christology of the Orthodox churches has been strong from the beginning of their tradition and theology.  There was an "Orthodox Summit on the Environment" in Baltimore, MD on Nov. 3-5, 1995.  For that meeting the Serbian Orthodox Church in the USA and Canada's Office of External Affairs produced an 8-page document, The Ecological Responsibility of the Orthodox Parish: A Guide to Parish Program Development.

The conference's plenary on Monday, 8:30 AM.was led by Wesley Granberg-Michaelson.  The task of providing "a theological anchor" was his, the function of the "anchor" not being to drag down but to provide a sure support.  He suggested 4 essential components in the Church's unique contribution to public discussion of eco-justice:

• God's Covenant begins with Creation.  See Gen. 8-9, the covenant between God and all living beings.  God chose Creation before God chose a People.  So also in Hosea 2, the covenant of God with beasts, birds, creeping things.  God's intention is directed toward all creation.
• Sin destroys and distorts the harmony between God and the earth.  A result of sin is the break between Adam and the Garden.  The brother's blood cries out to God from the ground on which it was spilled.  Sin ruptures humanity's relation to creation, but the creation is not evil.  Sin is the alienation of humanity from both creation and God.  That alienation prepares the way for secularization.
• God's redemption reaches out to redeem the earth, and the relations between creation, humanity, and God.  Col. 1:15-20; John 3:16 (where kosmos = world).  The "image of God" stands for or represents God.  That is, the character of God is to be represented by humanity in its dealings with the earth.  Humanity's "dominion" is representative of God's redemptive purpose toward the earth.  So God reaches out redemptively through humanity to creation.
• Creation is a gift of Grace.  The Holy Spirit comes into his own here.  In the Eucharist through bread and wine we celebrate all of creation being transformed.

1. Since this world belongs to God, the objective of business and government and all of us cannot be how to use the creation to get what we want out of it.
2. We need to get through guilt and Grace to gratitude.  "Sacrifice" is a word that we affirm.  A healthy marriage is preserved by sacrifice.  Our whole nation honors those who made the ultimate sacrifice on its behalf.  The whole creation also is upheld by sacrifice.
3. The creation is one whole.  It is a gift not merely to us, but to all humanity.  The question before us is:  how do we keep it preserved "for all"?  Economic globalization at the expense of ecological globalization does not preserve the earth.  Psalm 104 lifts up the creation without reference to humanity-except to speak of the danger that humanity can bring to the creation.

"Earth Ministry (Connecting People with the Creation)" in Seattle provided to all conference attendees 2 publications:
 

• Handbook for Creation Awareness and Care in Your Congregation  .This is a substantial publication in 3 sections plus appendix, comprising 103 pages total, each being 8 ½" x 11".
• Simpler Living, Compassionate Life (A Christian Perspective) (Denver, Co: Living the Good News, a Division of the Morehouse Group, 1999), 296pp.  This is an anthology of excellent readings that was edited and compiled by Michael Schut.  It was published "in cooperation with Earth Ministry."

List of display booths (4 pp.) provides names of responsible persons, also phone numbers, and both snail mail and email addresses.

"Web Resources!" on 1 page lists major websites from government, environmental groups, and churches

Union of Concerned Scientists or via e-mail.

Interfaith Coffee Program's "Equal Exchange: Fairly Traded Gourmet Coffee" at: 251 Revere St., Canton, MA 02021; Fax: 781-830-0282.

• links to similar sites in other Dioceses of the Episcopal Church, in the Anglican Communion, and in other Christian churches
• news of environmental stewardship events
• information from churches within the Diocese of Minnesota on how they are doing their stewardship of God's creation.
• other environment-related information  which is relevant to God's creation and Jesus Christ.

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