Environmental Leadership Program: ELP News: Fall 2001: Climate Change Perspectives

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newsletter Fall 2001

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Focus on: Climate Change by James Gustave Speth
Organizational Information
Fellowship Class Lists
Climate Change Perspectives by Brad Guy, Jonna Higgins-Freese, Michelle Knapik, Paul Sabin, Donnan Steele
Fellow Profiles: Janice Varela, Dan Gruner, Jacob Park
ELP Retreat Highlights: August 2001 and Vallecitos
Activity Fund Updates
ELP Newsmakers

Climate Change Perspectives

JONNA HIGGINS-FREESE, ELP Fellow 2000-2002, is the environmental outreach coordinator for Prairiewoods: Franciscan Spirituality Center in Hiawatha, Iowa, where she manages programs for churches and other community groups on issues connecting spirituality and ecology. Jonna is also president of the Iowa Renewable Energy Association which promotes the use of renewable energy and energy efficient technologies through education, demonstration, and public policy. .

What would Jesus Drive?

The questions always gets a laugh, along with some joking answers. "He'd walk," people say, "Or ride a mule." My job is to use the question as a window to the present, to get religious people to think about what it means to be a Christian today in a world where human beings - mostly affluent white Christians - are changing the global climate.

Every major faith group in the United States has a national-level statement outlining members' responsibility to care for creation, be good stewards of the land, and practice justice. Yet few congregations take those commitments seriously in their daily lives and operations. My job is to educate Iowa churches about their responsibilities to care for creation. Climate change is one of our emphasis areas, in cooperation with an 18-state initiative coordinated by the National Council of Churches of Christ.

Our strategy is to educate people of faith about climate change and provide them with specific ways to reduce their carbon dioxide emissions by decreasing energy use at church and at home. We also use the educational work to build a basis of grassroots support for policy advocacy at the state and national level.

In October, I facilitated a typical workshop at a Methodist church in Janesville, Iowa, a rural farming and bedroom community in northeast Iowa. I arrived early, and the pastor offered to give me a tour of the church while we waited. She proudly showed me the stained glass windows and arching woodwork of the sanctuary, as well as the 7 day programmable thermostats that were installed with the new gas furnaces last year. "We can set it back to 65 or so in the winter now," she explained. "If we set it back more than that, we just can't get it warmed up again for church, and also we have some pretty delicate equipment here, like the organ." I admired the thermostat and the 75 W halogen lights they installed in the ceiling fixtures in place of the old 100 W incandescents. I hadn't technically been asked to do an energy audit, but our hope is that congregations will take practical steps like this as a result of our presentations, so I wanted to praise and encourage these efforts - as well as point out ways to be even more effective.

A California wind facility.
Photo: Iowa Renewable Energy Association

"You all are doing a great job," I told her, as though I was just expanding on what she's said. "I bet that's already saving the church a lot of money. I'll leave you some information about the organ, too - we have research from the National Organ Builders Association showing that you can turn the temperature back to 55 degrees F without harming the organ, as long as it's played at the temperature at which it was tuned. And have you heard about compact fluorescent light bulbs? The 20 watt ones produce as much light as the old 100 watt incandescents. And the youth can sell them as a fundraiser."

When the presentation began, I asked each of the participants to share one thing they love about God's creation, so that we could start our discussion from a place of gratitude for God's gifts. One woman said she loves the "pools of gold" underneath the maple trees in the fall; a man, in the reticent Iowa tradition, said, "well, I live on a farm, so you just can't miss the creation everywhere."

Gratitude for the beauty of creation is an important place to start; the challenge is to move forward from there to confront our own complicity in its destruction. For example, a 12 minute video produced by the National Council of Churches, called "God's Creation and Global Warming" outlines the science of climate change and calls Christians to take action. One interviewee is from a small Pacific Island that's seen more frequent and intense storms in recent years, and would be totally obliterated by the projected rise in sea level. Along with footage of aid being sent to such countries, a Christian spokesperson says, "We as Christians are familiar with acts of mercy, with sending food and medical supplies. But we must also be committed to acts of justice - to preventing such things from occurring in the first place." The narrator points out that the U.S., with only 4% of the world's population, is responsible for 25% of the greenhouse gas emissions.

The idea that we as Americans are disproportionately responsible for the greenhouse effect is often hard for people to accept. Yet this is precisely why a religious perspective provides one important avenue for addressing environmental issues like climate change. Religions, when they are working well, offer resources to break through denial, confront our guilt, and acknowledge the ways our actions have caused suffering. At the same time, they can provide a compelling vision for a more just and sustainable future.

So what would Jesus drive? We try to suggest that there are many answers - Jesus would walk and bike. Jesus would go to planning meetings to ask that cities be designed so walking and biking are safe. Jesus and the disciples would ride the bus. They'd drive hybrid gas-electric and fuel cell cars. So would Moses. So would Buddha. So would Gandhi.

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