Earth Day
Reading and sermon preached by Reverend Carolyn Patierno
April 22, 2007

From Meltdown by Bill McKibben
An essay published in the 2/20/07 issue of The Christian Century

We need a movement to combat climate change, we need it fast, and we need it to involve as many churches as possible. … How’s that for a blunt and artless beginning?  But that’s the point.  The time is so short, and the task so large, that eloquence seems almost frivolous. 

The bottom line:  we have much less time to act than we thought, and that action has to be dramatic.  James Hansen is the country’s foremost climatologist, a man who will doubtless win the Nobel Prize for his decades as a NASA researcher running the most powerful computer model of the climate, and he said last year that we have a decade to reverse the flow of carbon into the atmosphere or else we will live – his words – on a “totally different planet.”  There’s enough theology in that phrase for a month of sermons, but let me concentrate on the politics.  It means that the changes we make in our homes and churches as individuals and congregations, vital as they are, can’t deliver the speed or magnitude of change that will slow climate change.  It means that we need to change light bulbs – but we also need to change laws.  It means that Washington, after two decades of very successful bipartisan effort to do nothing, needs to spin on a dime. 

We don’t lack for science or engineering, nor indeed for economic mechanisms to make a transition more efficient, or policy proposals to guide our work.  What we lack is simply political will.

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Each year, on Earth Day, we celebrate the Earth.  However, the future of our home is so imperiled that if we gather only to celebrate we would be akin to Nero fiddling while Rome burned.  We’re in a different place now – one that demands our full attention.

Last week the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued a grim report that warns that if steps aren’t taken to reduce man-made emissions, a third of the world’s plant and animal species could become extinct by the end of the century.  Rising seas could threaten some of the world’s busiest seaports, including Boston and New York.  On April 11th The Day published an editorial that stated that “The government must follow through with an aggressive clean-energy campaign that engages the public.  The American public has demonstrated in the past its willingness to make sacrifices for important causes, and with the right leadership, it can and must do so again.”
Soon on the heels of the IPCC report, the American Enterprise Institute announced that it’s offering a $10,000 prize to scientists and economists who call attention to potential weaknesses.  In response to the American Enterprise’s efforts, the editors of The Chronicle of Higher Education said that they eagerly await a “reward for papers that discredit the spherical-earth theories that have been circulating for the past millennium or so.” (As reported in The Christian Century April 3, 2007)

So much for consensus.  There will likely be none.  But there are certainly enough people, institutions, and governments who have been convinced of the urgency of the situation.  And so those people - meaning you and me – and those institutions – meaning All Souls, for one – must
work to change our government’s perspective.  Bill McKibben says,

It means that the changes we make in our homes and churches as individuals and congregations, vital as they are, can’t deliver the speed or magnitude of change that will slow climate change.  It means that we need to change light bulbs – but we also need to change laws.  It means that Washington, after two decades of very successful bipartisan effort to do nothing, needs to spin on a dime. 

That dime spinning may well come if we make a commitment – as individuals and as a congregation – to participate in the democratic process we so value. 

Let’s talk about faith communities and politics. 

Bill McKibben has been thinking and writing about the climate change since 1989.  The man is serious.  He is the one who got going the Step it Up campaign that took place in over 1000 communities throughout the country – one right here in New London and more visibly – another in Old Lyme at the Old Lyme Congregational Church.  You may have seen news coverage of the church’s participation.  Quite simply, the campaign was launched in order to nudge Congress to do something quickly, something concrete to decrease carbon emissions.  All the communities were asked to display and then take photographs of banners that said, “Step it up, Congress:  cut carbon by 80% by 2050.  Your move!” 

Now, there are some church folks who feel uncomfortable with the intersection of politics with congregational life.  I understand and respect that tension and I hope that you do, too.  It is tender balance.   And yet … and yet … more and more faith communities of all stripes are getting on this particular band wagon.  In writing about the Step it Up rallies        McKibben indicated that they would be taking place in town parks, League of Women Voters meetings, City Hall plazas.  And on church steps.  “Why church steps?” he asks.  “Because, to put it crudely, politicians pay attention to people on church steps.” 

Oh dear … does that make you nervous?   I know.  I know.  It should.  I realize within this one sermon lies another one:  1) why religious communities, this one, should get very politicized on this issue and 2) the uneasy relationship between politics and religious life. Let me just say right now that I hear you.  I share your concern and you have my assurance that I’ll take the matter up in another sermon coming this fall. 

But today I’m suggesting that we consider McKibben’s strategy in light of our Unitarian Universalist commitment to the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.  What is the religious response to the matter of environmental justice?  Why should we be at the forefront of this movement?

I’ll share the reasons given by McKibben and then I’ll share my own ideas.

Why should church people be at the forefront of the movement, asks the activist.

1. If you care about social justice, he reasons, this is the biggest battle we’ve every faced.
2. If you care about … creation, then get to work.
3. If you care about the future – about 10,000 generations et unborn – then this is your cause. 
4. If you care about the selfish individualism that has come to define too much of our culture, then this is the chance to act.  … This movement … will force us to answer deep questions about what [the] good life is.  Eighty percent less fossil fuel use means a different America by mid-century – perhaps one where people depend more on their neighbors than they do now.  The church – which can still posit some goal for human life other than accumulation – must be involved in the search for what comes next. 

To all of these I would add the following:

1)  In general, UUs are deeply committed to justice work that involves people of all faiths.  We love an interfaith Habitat for Humanity build.  When it’s working well, we get very excited about faith-based organizing in which we join hands with others on behalf of fair taxes, affordable housing, universal health care, and immigration rights – such is the work being done with United Action of which we are a part.  We’re proud that we’re hosting the Daytime Drop-In Center while working in partnership with other faith communities in the neighborhood and the city that are doing their own part to alleviate the suffering of homelessness.    And as a wide range of faith traditions are getting involved with reversing the affects of and stopping climate change, we will be in good and proud company.   It’s actually something a wide range of faith traditions agree on.

1. We’ve bought the right light bulbs, we recycle faithfully, and many of us have tried to decrease our imprint on the Earth in a whole host of ways.  But it’s not enough.  Indeed, we need our leaders to change on a dime.  And it is more likely that they will if they hear from their constituents – you and me.  And it is more likely that they will if we organize around this issue in ways that are creative, interesting – and powerful. 

I think that we are all those things – creative, interesting and powerful, that is.  But I think that we are more than those, even.  We share, yes, a religious commitment and imperative articulated in the 7th of our principles to behave in manner that reflects our solidarity with the natural world.  In fact, our institutional organization that supports environmental work is called the Seventh Principle Project. 

How might we take on this commitment?  Actually, and as you know, we’ve already begun.  Last week, the beneficiary of this month’s Good Neighbor Offering was the Nature Conservancy.  All Souls has made many efforts to ensure the preservation of the Earth.  But what I’m suggesting today is that we need – as individuals and as a congregation – to attempt to move our leaders so that they hear that we are concerned.  As citizens of this country, as citizens of the world, as people of faith – we are concerned.  

I recently joined a study group with our friends at St. Francis House.  We are indeed studying the life of St. Francis and are reading a biography written by a South American liberation theologian.  Not surprisingly, the emerging portrait of the saint is not the one we so often see:  a man standing beside a birdbath conversing with our feathered friends.  Lovely and poetic as that image is, St. Francis was as much a tough cookie as he was a poet.  You start an entirely new religious movement; devote yourself to the poor; cast off all your possessions and ask that others do the same and we’d have to assume that on some level, this man was as steely as he was gentle and kind.  

We must call up that same brand of resolve.   Our world, the Earth we share with our brothers and sisters everywhere, is depending on such resolve. 

And so, I am doing it.  I’m encouraging you to call your representatives this week and tell them that because you believe in the interdependent web of all existence that you insist that s/he “Step it up:  cut carbon by 80% by 2050.”   Tell them that in light of the UN’s IPCC report there is traction. 

And then after you do that, what else can you do?  This sermon’s written manuscript will include the website addresses of several religious organizations that are focusing on environmental issues.  Each offers practical suggestions for what you may do.

You can join All Souls own Green Sanctuary Project in which we are working toward becoming a certified Green Sanctuary. 

The point is there’s plenty to do.  Today as we celebrate the Earth, we also need to step up our commitment. Take a step or two in the week to come.  Our Mother Earth, Brother Sun, Sister Moon lie in wait for your support and love.

Blessed be.  Amen.

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