{"id":3270,"date":"2021-08-25T16:26:01","date_gmt":"2021-08-25T20:26:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.presbyterianmission.org\/food-faith\/?p=3270"},"modified":"2021-08-25T16:32:11","modified_gmt":"2021-08-25T20:32:11","slug":"presbyterians-and-utmost-leadership-in-earths-climate-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/centernet.pcusa.org\/food-faith\/utmost-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Presbyterians and Utmost Leadership in Earth\u2019s Climate Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Photo credit: Chris Leboutillier and thanks to Unsplash<\/p><\/div>\n

By James R. Turner, guest writer from Presbyterians for Earth Care<\/em><\/p>\n

Humanity has only another decade left to achieve a decisive shift in our energy regime, so that we do not leave our children an Earth that is ravaged by climate heating. In \u201cInvesting in a Green Future: A Vision for a Renewed Creation<\/em>\u201d the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy called for witness pertaining to \u201cfossil fuels\u201d and \u201cfracking\u201d and support of \u201cpolicies and regulations that rigorously reduce air pollution\u201d.[1]<\/a>\u00a0 Consistent with that call, the Heartland Presbytery\u2019s Earthkeepers committee believes that members of the PCUSA should be urged to speak out, as Presbyterians, to protect our climate from the harms to Earth and human society caused by natural gas<\/strong> \u2013 a topic treated below.<\/p>\n

Why Advocate As Presbyterians About Energy Policy In The Public Arena?\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong><\/h3>\n

We must not overlook anything that we as Presbyterians can possibly do to avoid climate catastrophe.\u00a0 Let us think big about our potential role, as a faith community, in nurturing a readiness for the necessary economic and social changes. A majority of America\u2019s population supports improving our energy systems to protect our climate.[2]<\/a>\u00a0 Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether, for example, enough consumers will step away from their advertiser-induced devotion to the carbon-spewing internal combustion engine, despite the clear economic and carbon-reducing advantages of electric propulsion for our cars, trucks, and mass transportation.<\/p>\n

Consider a crude model of how technological change gets adopted.\u00a0 Scientists and engineers develop a fundamentally different technology that better meets emerging needs.\u00a0 Businesses develop processes that can put that new technology into use.\u00a0 But will it then be adopted by consumers, other businesses, and governments at sufficient scale so that it displaces the older technology that is clung to by entrenched interests?\u00a0 The new technology might be adopted only if it is endorsed by a set of values, and if their advocates can sufficiently bring them to bear on the consumer behavior.<\/p>\n

Presbyterian institutions are competently communicating Earth-care values within our religious community.\u00a0 And with those values in mind, individual Presbyterians have been individually communicating (in our \u201ccitizen\u201d hats) to politicians that we want energy-policy change.\u00a0 And some individual Presbyterians install solar panels or other technologies and we discuss that with our neighbors, which helps that technology to spread.\u00a0 (Perhaps the neighbors could think we are motivated only by immediate considerations like cost reduction.)\u00a0 But is that individualized communication, as citizens and consumers, causing adoption of new technology at sufficient speed?<\/p>\n

It seems likely that the potential adopters of new technologies, and potential supporters of governmental nurture for the technologies, will adopt and support them more quickly if they see that it\u2019s not just individuals who favor them.\u00a0 Might some be more deeply influenced if they see that a faith community, motivated by communitarian values, is speaking for the new technologies?\u00a0 If so, then we should explicitly say that we are speaking as Presbyterians when we speak in support of a needed technology.\u00a0 And we should call for our Presbyterian communities and institutions to be vocal in support of the new technologies, and thereby sanctify them.<\/p>\n

If we as Presbyterians are to assert ourselves on behalf of needed technologies, we must do it credibly.\u00a0 It is vital that we immerse ourselves sufficiently in informative articles so that our communications as Presbyterians will flow from a well-informed lay understanding of issues raised by each emerging technology.\u00a0 Ideally, we should not be passive recipients of technology decisions handed down by top-level business and government leaders.\u00a0 Rather, we should be so well informed that we can have a credible voice as Presbyterians in social dialogue as those decisions take shape.<\/p>\n

And, if a majority of Americans recognize the wisdom of modifying our energy systems to protect the climate, does it not reflect well on the Presbyterian Church as a definer of Christianity, if we identify ourselves as Presbyterians when we speak for the climate?\u00a0 In his book \u201cJust Faith\u201d, Guthrie Graves-Fitzsimmons says:<\/p>\n

We need to use words.\u00a0 Christianity isn\u2019t going to get untangled from conservativism without us proactively litigating the case in the public square.\u00a0 We need to be thinkers and pray-ers and word users.\u00a0 We are called not just to act for social justice, but to contest the hijacking of Christianity.\u00a0 The Hebrew prophets didn\u2019t just let their actions speak for themselves.\u00a0\u00a0 [Isaiah 10].[3]<\/a><\/p>\n

Therefore, identifying ourselves as Presbyterians as we speak for reforming energy can help to make the general public aware that Christian values are different than what they hear from fundamentalists Christians who are politically linked to the Republican defenders of fossil fuels.[4]<\/a>\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Heartland Presbytery recently provided a vivid example of speaking out on a social issue, when it issued a statement calling for the police chief of Kansas City, Missouri, to resign, because of the department\u2019s failure to work adequately with the County Prosecutor and with the city\u2019s African-American community.[5]<\/a>\u00a0 Such statements on behalf of social justice enhance Presbyterians\u2019 credibility for speaking to intersectional concerns such as environmental justice.\u00a0 Presbyterians for Earth Care might feel a corresponding duty to nurture and assert our denomination\u2019s credibility to speak about the environmental aspect of intersectional problems.<\/p>\n

Preparing Ourselves to Advocate Against Natural Gas<\/strong><\/h3>\n

As the economics and reliability of wind and solar energy have improved, it has become less acceptable for our state and federal government to support production and use of natural gas.\u00a0 Gas wells and distribution lines leak too much methane[6]<\/a> \u2013 the gas that is most effective at trapping heat in our atmosphere[7]<\/a>.\u00a0 Also, the fracking process uses too much water and pollutes our surface and underground water.[8]<\/a>\u00a0 And there is growing awareness that indoor exhaust from natural gas is harming our health.[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

In order that those harms be reduced, there are various fronts upon which we should challenge the role of natural gas in our energy regime (and each of these can affect the size of demand for natural gas within the United States and abroad, so all of them are relevant to the \u2018balancing\u2019 that Secretary of Energy Granholm should do in deciding on approving particular exports of natural gas — as discussed below):<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 <\/strong>Support shifts to renewables and battery storage as electric grids are updated<\/strong>: this can reduce the use of coal and gas for electricity production.[10]<\/a>\u00a0 We should understand the electricity technology well enough that we can present citizen-level viewpoints at local or national levels about choices presented for infrastructure build-up.[11]<\/a> For example, opportunities may occur for submitting statements to state commissions that regulate our utilities.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Support<\/strong> more thrifty use of energy in America\u2019s buildings:<\/strong> here are two topics that need attention:<\/p>\n