The City and Borough of Juneau is now considering the Juneau Community Energy Plan. Our community must now decide how aggressively to work to reduce our greenhouse gas footprint and whether to hire a staff member to implement actions. Essentially, as a community we are going to show how seriously we take the threat of global climate change.
We, the members of Alaska Interfaith Power and Light, urge the city to take prompt and decisive action in this struggle. As people of faith: Catholics, Protestants, Mormons, Jews, Sikhs, Unitarians and Buddhists, we of Interfaith Power and Light are convinced that global warming is at its center a spiritual and religious issue. And like all spiritual matters, the real struggle is not against an external enemy who threatens us, but with ourselves.
Make no mistake: global warming is a religious issue. Climate change is a moral evil on many levels. It stems from overconsumption and is perpetuated by a heedless desire to continue a status quo we know is destructive. It’s a profound injustice, since its initial effects are falling hardest on the poorer members of human society who have done the least to cause it. It is also an injustice to generations newly arrived or yet-to-be born, as there is little harm greater than leaving our descendants a ravaged and exhausted environment. Finally, global warming’s ability to cause mass extinctions of the millions of creatures that share the earth with us reveals a sacrilegious contempt for the creation we were entrusted with.
Some may say that this is simply God’s will. We profoundly disagree. God did not give stewardship of the earth to humankind so that we could greedily destroy it. In Judeo-Christian tradition, the story of Noah’s Ark is instructive. When God decides to sweep away a selfish and corrupt society, he instructs Noah to save every single animal, those that are useful and those that are not; even the slithering snakes and vermin. All of it has value in God’s eyes. Equally telling is that although God could have easily saved them himself, he makes it Noah’s responsibility. God calls Noah to shake off his stupor and take action to save his human family and the myriad other creatures. The impending catastrophe of climate change is not God’s will: it is God’s call for us to come together to protect the home we have been granted.
The enormity of the problem has caused many to lapse into indifference and despair. We invite all people of faith and all congregations to shake off their hopelessness and take action by words and deeds that advocate for our threatened environment. We ask this on behalf of our children, the poor who are in the path of climate change, and the marvelous creatures we are blessed to share this earth with.
We can begin by doing our utmost here in Juneau. Please Google Juneau Community Energy Plan to read the summary, and then voice your support for it to our leaders. Our window for action is shrinking quickly. Please join us now in advocating for climate action.
• Charles Rohrbacher is the Deacon of Cathedral of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary and co-chair of Alaska Interfaith Power and Light. Stuart Cohen of Congregation Sukkat Shalom is also a co-chair of Alaska Interfaith Power and Light.
