People of faith are coming together in more and more impactful ways to help create the future that we want with clean air, clean water, clean energy, and with greater equity for all our children and the children of all species.
An opportunity is rising now that will culminate in September.
Faith traditions are issuing declarations and launching campaigns. To mention only a few examples, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life created a “Jewish Environment and Energy Imperative” declaration. Rabbis from the Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Reform and Renewal movements and other communal leaders set the goal of significantly lowering greenhouse-gas emissions, advocating for energy independence and security, and reducing the Jewish community’s energy consumption 14% by September 2014. Many Christian denominations have their own declarations. The Buddhists have theirs, as do the Muslims.
Organizations such as Interfaith Power & Light, United Religions Initiative, the World Council of Churches, and Our Voices are striving to raise the faith voice on climate change globally. And groups like NCIPL and Green Faith are working to record and broadcast the faith voice of North Carolina on this issue.
An event is coming up that may indeed mark the most significant faith-based effort to date: bringing all faith voices together in unison and in power regarding the climate talks. The People’s Climate March is being organized in New York City September 20 – 21, two days before the United Nation’s Climate Summit.
Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, stated in her talk on “Building the Will to Action“, that she believes there still is hope to reach meaningful agreement for climate action if the moral call for action is loud enough.
We need to put the moral call to action on the table at the climate talks by demonstrating it in numbers and in strength.
There are many ways to participate. Thousands will physically take part in the march in New York City. Thousands more will be holding observances in their own community. GreenFaith offers resources and ideas: click here to check them out.
Look at the event in September as one incredible global concert. And preparing for it and synchronizing with it locally is like many choirs coming together. Let us practice raising our global faith voice together to make a beautiful and profoundly needed sound.
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