An Open Letter to the President
December 16, 2009
President Obama
The White House
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President,
We write to you on behalf of the businesses and millions of Americans we represent to urge you to lead at this historic moment and secure a fair and ambitious plan for global cooperation to combat climate change. In particular, we ask that you reprioritize American policy to phase out the sizable taxpayer subsidies we provide the fossil fuel industry and instead significantly increase the U.S. investment in global efforts to protect tropical forests, provide humanitarian assistance to protect vulnerable communities from climate impacts, and speed the deployment of clean energy technologies. With strong leadership and new proposals in the coming days, the United States can and should secure additional financing commitments from other nations as part of a broader agreement from major emitters to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
A Copenhagen agreement should include a landmark global plan to protect tropical forests from the destruction that causes approximately 15% of the emissions that contribute to global warming. Backed by a broad coalition of businesses and conservation groups, many in Congress have already supported measures to finance global efforts to protect tropical forests in climate legislation. The House-passed American Clean Energy and Security Act includes strong financing for efforts to reduce emissions from global deforestation by 720 million tons annually by 2020 – emission reductions that are above and beyond the emission standards in the bill. Similar provisions are included in the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act that has been approved by the Senate Environment Committee. You have an opportunity to offer this as a supplemental commitment here in Copenhagen and ask other nations to match it.
From Biloxi to Bangladesh, poor families get hit first and worst by the effects of climate change. We must help the poor in poor countries adapt to the impacts of climate change, including increased water scarcity, extreme weather events, increases in diseases, and declining agricultural productivity. Since climate impacts act as “threat multipliers,” such destabilization and the increase of refugees also will lead to security threats. Just as climate legislation in Congress must address impacts of climate on America’s poor, a global agreement should make sure that such impacts do not make it more difficult for the world’s poor to create better lives for themselves. The good news is that the solutions can help them climb out of poverty.
There are several opportunities to generate the necessary financing from innovative sources. At the G-20 and at the meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation nations, you helped lead an effort to phase out the subsidies of fossil fuels globally. These subsidies have been costing American taxpayers $10 billion annually. International transport emissions from aviation and shipping were left out of the Kyoto Protocol. The loophole for these fast growing sectors should be closed through a global sectoral cap, and revenue generated should be directed to these priorities.
A successful Copenhagen outcome will include global targets for both emissions and climate finance. The United States should encourage and support a strong global commitment through 2020 for public finance of forest, adaptation and technology initiatives, backed by specific options for securing this funding. This effort will help advance global cooperation toward a more ambitious and fairer global deal that involves all nations.
We stand ready to support your leadership.
Sincerely,
Maggie Fox
President & CEO, Alliance for Climate Protection
Michael Eckhart
President, American Council On Renewable Energy
Daniel Magraw
President, Center for International Environmental Law
Mindy Lubber,
President, Ceres/BICEP
(Business for Innovative Climate & Energy Policy)
Jeff Anderson
CEO, Clean Economy Network Inc.
Fred Krupp
President, Environmental Defense Fund
The Rev. Mitchell C. Hescox
President/CEO, Evangelical Environmental Network
Benjamin K. Homan
President and Chief Executive Officer, Food for the Hungry, Inc.
Gene Karpinski
President, League of Conservation Voters
Larry Schweiger
President and CEO, National Wildlife Federation
Frances Beinecke
President, Natural Resources Defense Council
Carl Pope
Executive Director, Sierra Club
Stephen Smith
Executive Director, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy
Bill Meadows
President, The Wilderness Society
Kevin Knobloch
President, Union of Concerned Scientists
Jonathan Lash
President, World Resources Institute
Carter Roberts
President, World Wildlife Fund
Gillian Caldwell
Campaign Director, 1 Sky
Our evangelical voice in Copenhagen post #3
December 16, 2009
One in a series of updates from Rev. Jim Ball of EEN from Copenhagen where he is attending the international climage change talks. This one was sent Wednesday, December 16, 2009.
Update from Copenhagen:
Yesterday morning (Tue) those of us with organizations that are a part of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE) were able to facilitate a meeting of religious leaders from India, Honduras, and Ghana with a senior staff person from the US State Department. I worked with Tearfund, a British evangelical relief and development organization, to have Osvaldo Munguia attend. Osvaldo is co-founder and Executive Director of MOPAWI (read more here), a Honduran Christian organization that works with the indigenous peoples in the Mosquito Coast region to achieve sustainable economic progress through conservation practices. Osvaldo told this senior State official about one of their projects that addresses the two parts of the climate change challenge: mitigation and adaptation. (With global warming we must deal both with the causes and the consequences. Mitigation, or pollution reduction, addresses the causes. Adaptation seeks to enhance resilience and reduce vulnerability to the impacts or consequences.)
This effort replaces slash and burn agricultural practices – which destroys rainforest and depletes the soils within a few years, forcing poor farmers to repeat the cycle – with what is called an “alley cropping” approach using the Inga tree. Alley cropping involves planting crops between rows of trees (in this instance corn and beans). The Inga tree, native to Central America, is utilized for several reasons. First, it replenishes the soil’s productive capacity because it helps to fix both nitrogen and phosphorus back into the soil. Second, it grows quickly, creating a canopy in two years whose shade helps to kill weeds. Third, the trees can be carefully pruned year after year, with the larger branches used for firewood and the smaller ones left with the leaves to create mulch that retains moisture and feeds the crops.
Other representatives at the meeting described the impacts that were happening in India and Africa.
This was an excellent opportunity to lift up these voices on the front lines of climate change, and to highlight positive responses to this challenge.
Rev. Jim Ball
from Copenhagen
What about those Christmas Trees?
December 16, 2009
If they Worship the one true God than use them. Here’s a good piece from Andrea Thompson.
Our evangelical voice in Copenhagen
December 13, 2009
One in a series of updates from Rev. Jim Ball of EEN from Copenhagen where he is attending the international climage change talks. This one was sent Saturday Dec. 12, 2009.
“Greetings from Copenhagen! Upwards of 30,000 could be here this week for the international climate change talks. Yesterday (Fri Dec 11) was my first full day here and I’ve already had a chance to briefly touch base with senior staff of Senators, and will be doing more of that in the coming days. I also met colleagues from World Vision Australia, including the CEO, Tim Costello, who today interviewed me for their video blog.
Many here are still talking about a very moving speech from the senior delegate from Tuvalu, a small-island state in the Pacific. For them, what is accomplished in the climate talks will determine their survival. It’s that simple.
Another thing creating buzz here is the back-and-forth between China and the US, the world’s two largest emitters who together comprise over 40% of the world’s global warming pollution. Both countries must lead and stop playing the blame game. Today’s NYTimes editorial, while again acknowledging the need for US leadership, rightly highlighted the need for leadership from China.”
Rev. Jim Ball
from Copenhagen
[watch for our December e-newsletter which carries more information on what we are hearing from our brothers and sisters in Tuvalu.]
Thoughtful piece on climate science
December 12, 2009
Be sure to read Michael Gerson piece in the Washington Post today. It’s worth a read.
Creation Care and Urbana ‘09
December 11, 2009
By Lauren Marshall
Check out this article by Ed Brown on creation care as missions:
The site also offers suggestions for planning a creation care-focused schedule at Urbana ‘09.
Note: Urbana is a missions convention sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship that is held every three years. This year’s convention will be in St. Louis, Missouri from Monday, December 28 to Thursday, December 31. To register go to:
http://www.urbana09.org/register.urbana09.cfm
If we lose the ship (part 2 of 2)
December 8, 2009
By Ed Brown
[This is Part 2 of thoughts coming from my recent visit to the Philippines. Part 1 is here.]
Manila Breakout
I’ve been working in the field of environmental stewardship for almost 10 years, and have been presenting the Our Father’s World seminar material in various forms for close to three. We’ve been in half a dozen states and will be adding several more in the coming year. The normal subtitle to the seminar is “Why Christians Should Care about the Environmental Crisis”. It has always seemed to me that this is straight forward enough, given that that is what we’re talking about. No one who has been to the seminar can or does question the reality: There is a crisis, it’s real and it’s happening now.
However, we have encountered several instances where our hosts have asked that we “tone down” the title just a bit. It appears that using the word “Crisis” makes people uncomfortable. Change the subtitle to “Why Christians Should Care about God’s Creation”, for example. It reminds me of a conversation with a close relative several years ago: “Ed, you are doing great work. I guess I agree with you. But you need to be careful not to sound to alarmist. You don’t want to scare people…”
Which brings me back to Mr. Smith and our parable of the ship that is taking on water. (Previous post) There are a number of ways the people in the meeting might react to his announcement: Can you tell us how bad it is? How much time do we have? What can we do to help you, and to prepare the passengers for whatever might happen? One or two might react with hysteria or panic – but I’d like to think that’s not too likely. These are leaders who have jobs that need to be done and who are responsible for many others on the ship.
Something I would not expect is that the people around the table would accuse Smith of being an alarmist. He clearly knows what he’s talking about, and look: His shoes and his pants are soaked up to his knees. If Smith says we’ve got a leak, and that this means we have a crisis on our hands, chances are pretty good that we do indeed have a crisis. Rather than waste time arguing about it, we need to decide what to do.
Which brings me to my recent trip to the Philippines. I presented the Our Father’s World seminar in Manila two weeks ago, the first time this material has been used in an overseas setting. As it happened, I arrived less than a month after the city had been inundated by Typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng. According to some estimates, more than 80% of the city was flooded, including middle class neighborhoods that have never flooded before.
The President of ISACC, the organization sponsoring my visit, had to ride out the storm on her top floor, wondering the whole time whether that was high enough to allow her to survive. [Her moving account of the experience is available here.] Hundreds of people lost their lives. Opinion is unanimous that the massive damage was due to environmental degradation including deforestation, lake siltation, and the removal of wetlands as well as the unusual intensity of the storm which may or may not be tied to global climate change.
With this background, I wondered whether it was a good time for a seminar, though the event had been planned almost a year earlier. However, my hosts were insistent: “We need this message now more than ever,” they said, and the poster they designed expressed their feelings. “After Ondoy and Pepeng, Hear the call to Care for Creation.”
The difference between this audience and the many I’ve stood in front of throughout the US was dramatic. Presenting environmental seminars in evangelical churches in the US is an uphill battle. American participants tend to feel that a five-hour seminar is long, and attendance is always a struggle. By contrast, the Filipinos expanded the format to two full days (about 16 hours total) and some 75 people attended. It is of passing interest that although foreigners (read missionaries) were included in the targeted publicity list, the audience was 95% Filipino.
They listened eagerly, and asked intelligent questions. This material includes theological teaching that is deep and profound in its implications for our understanding of the gospel. I was impressed by how quickly and completely these brothers and sisters grasped not only the essence of what I was teaching but its far reaching implications for the church. The climate change segment was of great interest, and there were no arguments about the reality of global warming, no cautions about alarmism.
We had time for an hour long breakout session to discuss ways to respond to the call to care for creation under a three part Tagalog slogan: Pagsisihan! (Repent!) Pagyamanin! (Restore!) Paghandaan! (Prepare!). The reports that came back from these groups were substantial and comprehensive, leaving me with confidence that this seminar was only the start of what many of us hope will be a significant movement toward creation care among the evangelical community in the Philippines.
Why such a difference between this group and most of those I’ve presented to in the US?
The answer is simple. Their feet were wet. They didn’t have to be persuaded that the environmental crisis is real, and they were listening as if this crisis was happening to them – because it is.
For us In the US, the environmental crisis feels like the HIV/Aids crisis in Africa. It is something sad, but it’s happening to someone else.
Except that it isn’t.
[Want to bring the Our Father’s World seminar to your church? Find details on how to contact us here! Bookings are now being made for the Fall of 2010 and Winter/Spring 2011.]
Ed Brown is Director of Care of Creation, an organization dedicated to ‘mobilizing the church to respond to the environmental crisis.’ Read more at careofcreation.net and Ed’s blog at ourfathersworld.org.
If we lose the ship? (part 1 of 2)
December 7, 2009
by Ed Brown
My recent experience of presenting the Our Father’s World seminar material in Manila, Philippines, triggered the following thoughts…
There is a story – a parable, really – that I use at the end of my Our Father’s World seminar presentations. It goes something like this:
Let’s pretend that we’re on a refugee ship of some kind. We’re part of a Christian ministry, and we’re taking a ship load of refugees to a new land, where they can start their lives over again. The ship is crowded, and we have a lot of work to do to care for the passengers and to keep things running smoothly during the three week voyage.
We have organized ourselves in to work-teams: Food service, sanitation, medical, children, and so on. And to we are in the habit of holding a meeting every morning in the Captain’s conference room to coordinate activities and to minimize confusion. These meetings are usually pretty routine (Sanitation: “We have two bathrooms out of order today, so please let people know…”; Medical: “Vaccination of under-5’s this afternoon on Deck B…”) but one day we have a new person in the circle.
The Captain introduces him: “This is Mr. Smith, our ship’s engineer. He has something that you will all need to listen to.” And Mr. Smith makes his announcement: “We started to take on water during the night. As of now, we do not know what is causing the leak, but we do know that it is bad enough that if we can’t get it fixed, we will not make it to port.”
Remember – I’m telling this story to a live seminar audience. I usually stop at this point and say something like this: “Okay, let’s hit the pause button. How does Mr. Smith’s announcement change the conversation around the table?”
The answer that is expected is this: It changes nothing, but it changes everything. All of the normal activities of the work-teams have to go on. People still need to eat. Bathrooms still need to be cleaned and repaired. Sick people need to be cared for. But there is now a bigger, overriding concern – the ship is in danger of sinking. If the leak isn’t found and fixed, nothing else will matter.
This is obviously a parable: The ship represents the church, or a church. The work teams represent all of the many different kinds of ministries that churches participate in, from soup kitchens to prison ministry to youth programming. And the leak in the ship represents the environmental crisis.
The point of the parable (in case you haven’t got it yet) is really quite simple: Creation care is different from every other ministry a church (your church) might be involved in, because when the environment is destroyed, other ministries diminish.
Hurricane damage in Haiti
Case in point: Haiti. Most of Haiti’s problems, and they are many, arise from an environment that has been damaged beyond the point of recovery. Population growth has led to massive deforestation, agricultural decline, incredible poverty, relocation from rural areas to the city, and political unrest and general violence. Haiti used to be a common destination for summer ministry teams from the US. Not so much anymore – it’s too dangerous. ‘Normal ministry’ has had to be suspended because the environment has been destroyed. If we lose the ship, nothing else matters.
That is how I usually tell this story, and how the talk usually ends. However, it occurred to me recently that it is possible to imagine another response to Mr. Smith’s report of a leak in the ship. And that is the subject of our next post. Stay tuned.
Ed Brown is Director of Care of Creation, an organization dedicated to ‘mobilizing the church to respond to the environmental crisis.’ Read more at careofcreation.net and Ed’s blog at ourfathersworld.org.
Close to the Heart of Christ
November 3, 2009
By Rev. Mitch Hescox
20“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. John 17:20-21 (NIV)
I love to dream. My most passionate dream is the fulfillment of Jesus’ great prayer for His Church –that we might all be one. This Scripture has been at the heart of my faith for several years, because it’s profoundly relationally. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are tied together not through some doctrine, dogma, or theology but through the very essence of who God is: LOVE.
(16And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. 1 John 4:16 (NIV))
Scripture tells us once a long time ago God, humanity, and all creation lived in pure and right relationship. God walked with His children. His children cared for His creation and in turn, creation provided the necessaries. Humanity and all creation were whole –spiritually, physically, and emotionally. Then we decided against relationship and wanted power, control, self-sufficiency. We believed and questioned God’s essential goodness, we questioned did God really say that and we have been living in sin ever since. Jesus came to redeem and restore wholeness, a complete total relationship with God, and each other. The prayer of Christ is a foreshadowing of that ultimate reconciliation of all things that the unity of the body would proceed the freedom that all of creation will experience, liberation from bondage and decay –that they might all be one again. Jesus is still praying.
Dream with me and believe in a creation that may be whole because of what Jesus has already completed. Dream with me that through Christ the world may be a better place. Dream with me that we may deny ourselves. Dream with me that we can let go and let God. Dream of what can be. Then allow your dreams to transform into reality by the Holy Spirit. I know that all things are possible through Jesus Christ, even dreams that we might all be one.
Deep Green Evangelism
October 16, 2009
by Rev. Mitch Hescox
Something we’re missing. Riding in a cab after two consecutive days of coast-to-coast flying with six hours of presentations and meetings tossed between, I started a conversation with my young driver. We chatted over the area, weather, coffee (which I was in desperate need), local jobs, and the economy. “People around here take the environment seriously, we’re sort of an outdoors kinda’ people,” shared Michael. “I went to the local book-store a while back and found something called the Green Bible.” My younger brother died not too long ago, and I’m trying to figure things out,” Michael continued. “I gotten through the Genesis part, but so far I have more questions than answers.” As Michael paused and looked over with a glancing gaze with maybe you think I’m crazy expression, I admit to a little chuckle. “Michael, in my briefcase is my Green Bible. “ Michael, I spent the last 20 years being a pastor and now help churches and our government understand how important it is to care for God’s creation,” I replied to a very surprised taxi-driver. Michael shared a little more of his live, his hurt, his confession. How a friends were turning to God and others away from God. “I spend some time in church as a kid, but I don’t have much use for church,” Michael stated. “Let’s start with your questions and try to build a relationship with God before we worry about the church,” I replied.
We spent the next 20 minutes discussing Scripture, his questions and his feelings. As we arrived at my destination, I simply asked Michael if I could pray for him. After laying hands on my new friend and praying, I offered him my card and asked him to email his questions so our conversation might continue. However, the story isn’t over. The next day on my return trip with some colleagues. Our now woman cab driver wanted to know if anyone had travelled alone by taxi the day before. I confessed! She immediately shared how her son Michael had come home yesterday waving my card and telling his mom about our conversation. Only the Lord knows the outcome of this serendipitous moment, but without the Green Bible inspired by Dr. Cal DeWitt a connection would have never happened.
Creation care and our stewardship for the earth are not only a Biblical mandate, but also perhaps the greatest 21st century evangelism gift. Are we awake enough to make the connection?
____
Rev. Mitch Hescox, President/C.E.O. – EEN
