Ted Glick
We are facing a climate cliff, and we are calling upon religious and spiritual leaders, other believers and all people of good will to join us to address its danger by participating in A Pray-in for the Climate in front of the White House in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, Jan. 15, 2013.
Superstorm Sandy, the drastic droughts in our corn country, record-breaking Arctic ice melt and unheard-of floods in Vermont, let alone disasters in Australia, Russia, Pakistan and Africa, all warn us—the disruption of our planet will not wait for our “normal” political paralysis to end.
We are inspired by the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose 84th birthday we will celebrate on Jan. 15:
“We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now … Over the bleached bones and
jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words:
Too late’.”
If we go over the climate cliff now, our grandchildren will live in misery and suffering.
Fifty years ago, our country faced a crisis of racial inequality in the U.S. that was a basic threat to justice and democracy. Religious communities and others acted, and we made a difference.
Today’s deepest crisis is the danger facing the web of life upon our planet, including the human race—especially the poorest and most vulnerable.
Out of our moral commitment to protect and heal God’s Creation, our religious communities need to be calling for a set of first-step changes that will sow the seeds of greater change, by committing the President and Congress to vigorous action on climate change. And we should pose those demands in such a way that we are addressing not only our government, but also religious communities throughout the country.
For these reasons, Interfaith Moral Action on Climate (IMAC) is planning A Pray-in for the Climate.
IMAC is a collaborative initiative of religious leaders, groups and individuals that came together in 2011 in response to the pressing need for more visible, unified, prophetic action to address the climate crisis. As people of faith and spirituality, we feel compelled by our traditions and collective conscience to take action on this deeply moral challenge.
Jan. 15 is close enough to Inauguration Day (Jan. 21) to make the connection with what the President should be doing in his second term, and far enough away that the action won’t drown in the media swamp.
And, it is the actual birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The action will be carried out in the spirit of his work. We will gather at 11 a.m. at New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, a few blocks from the White House. At Noon, we will walk there in a religious procession and join our voices in a prayerful vigil. We will be praying that President Obama and all of us find the strength and wisdom to lead our country and world away from the climate cliff.
Some participants may feel called to risk arrest by nonviolently disregarding the conventional regulations and assuming positions of prayer in the area near the White House fence.
We expect to be joined by survivors of superstorm Sandy and their religious leaders from communities like the Rockaways and Staten Island in New York City.
What will we be urging that the President do to meet the needs of this critical hour in planetary time?
1. Permanently refuse permits for the Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, because tar-oil is among the most dangerous of the planet-heating forms of carbon.
2. Call a national summit conference on the climate crisis that includes leaders of business, labor, academia, religious communities, governmental officialdom, science and other relevant bodies.
3. Publicly support and advocate for a carbon fee that will generate hundreds of billions of dollars, with provisions to ensure that working families and the poor are not harmed by higher carbon prices; for an end to subsidies to the coal, oil and gas industries; and for substantial subsidies for research, development, and use of renewable, sustainable and jobs-creating clean energy sources.
To our President and Congress we address the prophetic words of Dr. King spoken at another moment of crisis:
“This is a time to break the silence!”
Visit EcoWatch’s CLIMATE CHANGE page for more related news on this topic.
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Tell Congress to Expedite Renewable Energy and Pass a Federal Energy Policy:
“Call a national summit conference on the climate crisis that includes leaders of business, labor, academia, religious communities, governmental officialdom, science and other relevant bodies.”
I like this… time to make ghg, global warming, climate change and ocean acidification the mother of all issue.
Everything must stop in tackling this issue or else….
America cannot operate without energy. Today our most available clean energy source is natural gas. America now has to consume this gas as efficiently as is possible.
The residential market has condensing boilers and high efficiency condensing water heaters. These appliances vent their COOL exhaust through PVC pipe out of the side wall of the building. There are no 300 ft chimneys because this exhaust is CLEAN.
Industry has available to it the technology of Condensing Flue Gas Heat Recovery. This technology is designed to recover the Heat Energy out of these Waste Exhaust gases. The recovered energy can then be used back in the building or facility where it was combusted. Being vented into the atmosphere will be COOL exhaust.
The US DOE states that for every 1 million Btu’s of energy recovered from these waste exhaust gases, and this recovered energy is utilized back in the building or facility, 118 lbs of CO2 will NOT be put into the atmosphere.
They also state that if a 60 watt light bulb if left on for 24 hours it will generate 3.3 lbs of CO2.
How many light bulbs have to be replaced HOURLY to keep up with the CO2 reduction happening hourly in the boiler room.
And then there is the WATER that is being created during this Condensing Flue Gas Heat Recovery process, and this clean-distilled water is very usable.
Have you ever seen Combusted Natural Gas Irrigate the Lawns and Flower Beds?
What natural gas is not wasted today, will be there to be used another day.
Here is the challenge. Can we get America to realize the blessing they have available to them?
Other parts of the world are paying 2x to 5x as much for their natural gas. Can we keep reasonably priced natural gas in America, and have industries come back to “Made in America” and pay a higher wage, and no freight?