What do you do when you feel sick? You see a physician and you take measures that will help you to get well. Well, there are signs our climate is sick, and we need to make it well. I believe we have a responsibility, as God’s people and stewards of God’s grace, to care for the earth that has been given to us.
The United Nations climate summit and the People’s Climate March are behind us. The message has been sent by the people, and the leaders of nations, except China and India, have discussed strategies to respond to our need to improve the earth’s climate. We continue to need to be vigilant.
Last month I drove 266 miles one way, from my home in Jonesborough, Tenn., to testify before the Environmental Protection Agency at a hearing in Atlanta on the agency’s proposed rules for reducing carbon emissions at our nation’s power plants. You might wonder why, as a retired pastor of the ELCA from Tennessee, I would feel compelled to make this trip and speak publicly on this issue.
My testimony mentioned some of the symptoms of earth’s sickness: last April, the average CO2 concentrations in the earth’s atmosphere exceeded 400 parts per million on a sustained basis for the first time in 800,000 years. This past May was the hottest year on record. The collapse of a portion of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is not only under way, it is irreversible, causing a continued rise in the earth’s waters.
Many of the testimonies by others reported on the physical impact that the rule will have on people who live near coal-burning power plants. It is these people who are affected most by emissions from those plants. I will never forget a young child I saw during the hearings who had a sign that said, “Please help me be healed from asthma.” All of this reminded me that God, through Christ, calls us to provide justice and equality to all people.
I believe we are moving in the right direction here at home. Tennessee is encouraging the creation of electric automobile plug-in sites along the major highways. As we compare ourselves to other states, we might consider ourselves “ahead of the game.” In my home town, electrical power is distributed by the Tennessee Valley Authority. I commend them for planning to shut down several coal-burning power plants.
As individuals and as a church, we share responsibility for creating carbon emissions. The ELCA synod I belong to, the Southeastern Synod, (which encompasses Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee) has created a “Green Team” to promote energy efficiency within our congregations, with the goal of reducing our own carbon emissions. My wife and I have installed solar panels on our roof, and we have reduced our carbon emissions by 207,000 pounds in 16 months.
We live in coal country. As one might expect, there is much opposition to the goal of carbon emission reduction. However, coal mining jobs have been significantly reduced in the past decades through labor-saving devices. We need to look to our future, just as we did with transportation, from trains to interstate highways and airlines; with tobacco farming, once dominant in our region and now giving way to other crops; and with military installations in our state that closed as times and needs changed. In most of those situations, career changes and adjustment to new economic realities made local and regional communities even stronger.
In our globalized nation, we are expected to focus economically from fiscal quarter to fiscal quarter. The theology I follow looks beyond this economic calculation to future generations. What will we provide for those who come after us – our children and grandchildren? This question motivates me and I believe it motivates most Americans, religious and secular alike. The EPA’s proposed rule will move us to a new, and cleaner, energy future for the benefit of all.
Now that leaders of the world have met and people have expressed their concern, we need to remain vigilant in our hope that God’s earth will be healed in the months and years ahead.
The “Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice” social statement explains the ELCA’s teachings on ecology and the environment, grounded in a biblical vision of God’s intention for the healing and wholeness of creation.
