Curated by the SNEC Environmental Ministry Team
NEW!
2022 Faith Matters Voting Challenge starts now!
Voting is one of the most - if not the most - powerful tools we have as people of faith. Voting takes your caring values into the public square and thereby into other people’s lives. Your vote matters, not just in the big national election years, but in all the local and state elections in between, because politicians pay attention to the priorities of people who vote.
The Environmental Ministries Team has developed resources to mobilize congregations through the 2022 Faith Matters Voting Challenge. We have partnered with the Environmental Voter Project (EVP) to promote the SNEUCC Creation Care Voter Pledge and put love into action for every living creature and for every economically or racially marginalized community that suffers from environmental harm.
For more information and resources, visit www.sneucc.org/faith-matters-voting-challenge While you are there, check out our Green Congregation Challenge, a step-by-step approach that helps houses of worship take small, but consequential, steps towards protecting God’s Creation.
Next Creation Justice Webinar ~ July 6th
The fossil fuel industry is using the war in Ukraine to push for ramping up production in the United States. As a result, communities on the frontlines of the industry face the wartime threat of more pollution and more harm to their health. Featured speakers will include Roishetta Ozane from Healthy Gulf, Lois Bower-Bjornson from the Clean Air Council, and David J.X. González from the University of California-Berkeley. Sign up here.
Rally for Climate and Environmental Justice Monday, July 11, 11 am – 1 pm, at the Boston State House and on-line, hosted by Mass Power Forward and UU Mass Action. The legislative session ends July 31. It’s time to demand climate action now. The conference committee is deliberating this month and aim to have their mash-up bill out soon. Please keep our community safe by bringing and wearing a mask. More information and registration here and see Actions from Your Desk for messaging to share with your state legislators.
Science on the Hill: Climate - Smart Agriculture
July 15 | 12 PM - 1 PM EDT
The sixth annual Science on the Hill event will bring together policy leaders and scientists for a panel discussion on the best available scientific evidence about approaches for reducing climate change through climate-smart agriculture. This event will be webcast on the Science on the Hill: Climate-Smart Agriculture webpage on Friday, July 15, from 12-1pm ET. Closed captioning will be provided.
All Summer! Shave the Peak.
On really hot days when everyone cranks the AC, regional electricity demand activates expensive and dirty power plants that pollute our air and hike up the electricity rates. You can make a difference through Green Energy Consumer Alliance’s “Shave the Peak” program. On hot days, they text or email Shave the Peak participants to conserve energy during certain hours. Learn more at the webinar recording “What is "peak" and why is it so bad for the environment?“ or just sign up for Shave the Peak notices and share with others.
It’s time again to join the global challenge to stay free of single-use plastic for a month and to learn strategies to reduce your, and your faith community’s use of plastic. Sign up at plasticfreejuly.org. There’s also a handy calendar for registered participants with 31 Days of Plastic Free Choices. Click here to download your free copy.
Action Pact 2022: Ready, Resilient, Reinvented is a three-month initiative to spotlight the topic of climate change through the programs of Boston's world-class arts, history, sports, and entertainment organizations. The coordinated effort is composed of longer-term and singular programs and initiatives, including exhibitions, installations, panel discussions, film screenings, lectures, children's programs, workshops, festivals, and more. Check out their many upcoming programs and events.
Listening to the World’s Edge: A Panel on Climate Change, Adaptation, and the Arts, Tuesday, July 26
7 – 8:15 p.m. • Online ($10)
Join the conversation with four individuals who are deeply engaged in climate justice work — through music, visual art, climate research, and education. For more information and to register, click here.
Wednesday, July 27, 12 noon, July Book Club with Eco-America’s Blessed Tomorrow. Join the discussion to reflect on All We Can Save edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson.. Register here (you’ll be asked to create an eco-America sign-in to register.)
Preaching Climate Justice: A Conversation with Jim Antal and Margaret Bullitt-Jonas
Thursday, September 15
10 - 11:15 a.m. (Eastern) • Online (free)
Join us for another lively presentation by two religious leaders who are committed to encouraging climate preaching that is both pastoral and prophetic. There will be ample time for questions and conversation, as well as suggestions for how to preach on some of the texts assigned for upcoming Sundays in Creation Season. This event is open at no charge to all preachers, lay and ordained. For more information and to register, click here. Participants are encouraged to read Bullitt-Jonas’ article, “Preaching When Life Depends on It: Climate Crisis and Gospel Hope” (Anglican Theological Review, Spring 2021) and Antal’s chapter, “Prophetic Preaching: Freeing the Pulpit from Fear,” in his book, Climate Church, Climate World.
From Sunday, October 2 through Sunday, October 9, Greenfaith invites people of faith to plan actions as part of Faiths 4 Climate Justice. Together we can lift up our moral values of reverence, justice, and compassion, and call upon our leaders to safeguard our future. The ten demands are listed here. Think about creating a prayer vigil or a procession, perhaps in front of a bank that funds fossil fuels. For inspiration, watch the wrap-up video for Greenfaith’s recent event, Sacred People, Sacred Earth. More info here,
The Baptist Joint Committee asks us to Add your name to a letter to Congress to protect sacred land! The San Carlos Apache Tribe wants to protect Chí’chil Biłdagoteel — loosely translated in English as “Oak Flat.” But, if the federal government gives Oak Flat to a mining operation, the area will be permanently destroyed. Read this letter and add your name in support of the Save Oak Flat Act (H.R. 1884/S. 915). BJC will deliver it to Congress for Indigenous Peoples Day this year. Once you sign the letter, invite your friends, family, and faith community to join you!
Join Interfaith Power and Light’s 2022 Faith Climate Justice Voter Campaign to reach out to people of faith and conscience, to make sure they are registered and ready to vote, and to mobilize them to vote their values of caring for our common home and loving our neighbors.
You can also download IPL’s Faithful Voter Reflection Guide to use at the kitchen table, in a house of worship, at a community forum, or at an event with political candidates. The guide discusses many of the defining moral issues of our time that are on the ballot: faltering democratic institutions, too much wealth in the hands of a few, damage to the climate, cruel immigration policies that tear families apart, mass incarceration that devastates communities of color, and threats to global public health and security. Download the guide here.
Voter Suppression, Climate Justice and the Polluter-Industrial Complex: How the Corporate Assault on American Democracy and Climate are Connected
Over the last 10 years, we have seen an attack on American democracy for the benefit of the fossil fuel industry and its corporate allies. Read the new report from the Global Center for Climate Justice showing the connections between polluters and voter suppression. Read the report here.
Solar for Houses of Worship!
On April 7, MassIPL hosted a webinar that featured three houses of worship currently in the process of evaluating and installing solar. The speakers described the challenges and how they are working through them. An "open forum" followed, which addressed a wide range of questions, including how to deal with historic commissions and how to finance with funds from congregants. You can view the entire Solar Open Forum webinar here. The YouTube page lists the questions that were addressed, along with the timing of when they were discussed, so you can jump right to the topic that most interests you.
Has your faith community considered solar? MassIPL can help guide you through the process! Email MassIPL with your solar inquiry: solar@massipl.org.
FEDERAL LEGISLATION UPDATE: It's time to reach out across state lines!
The window for significant climate legislation is closing quickly. Madison Mayhew, IPL’s Federal Policy Advocate in Washington, DC, confirms bipartisan discussions and negotiations on the Reconciliation package are continuing, with Senators Manchin and Schumer in dialogue. Additionally, Senate Finance Committee Staff are now involved with negotiations and working out any conflicts with the House Ways and Means Committee. There is a strong sense that an announcement of a framework for the bill is growing closer. Now is the time to keep pushing Senators to get the bill over the finish line! If we miss this opportunity, it may be years before national climate measures are enacted should the November elections result in fewer climate-friendly legislators.
Who do you know in Virginia, Arizona, Alaska, and Maine? These are particularly important states right now. Please reach out. Ask them to urge their Senators to take climate action now! National IPL has crafted this sample email you can share with others to help them contact their members of Congress: Tell Your Senators Climate Can’t Wait!
Sign the Petition: Tell Attorney General Garland to End Opposition to Youth Climate Justice
In 2015, 21 young Americans filed a landmark constitutional climate lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, against the U.S. government. These 21 young people are seeking a judicial declaration that the U.S. fossil fuel energy system is unconstitutional and violates their fundamental right to a safe climate. A victory in their case would mean that all current and future U.S. climate and energy policy - whether executive or legislative in nature, and regardless of political majority or party - would need to adhere to the court’s declaratory judgment, protecting the rights of our nation’s children to a safe climate. For more information and to sign, visit here.
Join Community Action Works to ask our Senators to support the PFAS Action Act. Toxic chemicals called PFAS have contaminated waterways across the country, endangering up to 110 million Americans. The PFAS Action Act would require the EPA to limit dumping of PFAS into our waterways and place a moratorium on new PFAS chemicals. Edit and sign the letter here.
Christians and Climate Change with Bill McKibben
Available anytime • Online ($10)
In this new online course offered by ChurchNext, Bill McKibben shows us that we still have time to take climate action -- but not as much time as we once had, and not as completely as we once might have been able to manage. For more information and to register, click here.
Green your electricity with locally generated, renewable energy
If we make the right renewable energy choices, we can shift the New England electric grid away from fossil fuels. Customers of National Grid or Eversource in MA/RI can sign up with Green Energy Consumers Alliance. In any case, ditch your clothes dryer and hang laundry on a line!
NEW!
2022 Faith Matters Voting Challenge starts now!Voting is one of the most - if not the most - powerful tools we have as people of faith. Voting takes your caring values into the public square and thereby into other people’s lives. Your vote matters, not just in the big national election years, but in all the local and state elections in between, because politicians pay attention to the priorities of people who vote.
The Environmental Ministries Team has developed resources to mobilize congregations through the 2022 Faith Matters Voting Challenge. We have partnered with the Environmental Voter Project (EVP) to promote the SNEUCC Creation Care Voter Pledge and put love into action for every living creature and for every economically or racially marginalized community that suffers from environmental harm.
For more information and resources, visit www.sneucc.org/faith-matters-voting-challenge While you are there, check out our Green Congregation Challenge, a step-by-step approach that helps houses of worship take small, but consequential, steps towards protecting God’s Creation.
Next Creation Justice Webinar ~ July 6th
The fossil fuel industry is using the war in Ukraine to push for ramping up production in the United States. As a result, communities on the frontlines of the industry face the wartime threat of more pollution and more harm to their health. Featured speakers will include Roishetta Ozane from Healthy Gulf, Lois Bower-Bjornson from the Clean Air Council, and David J.X. González from the University of California-Berkeley. Sign up here.
Rally for Climate and Environmental Justice Monday, July 11, 11 am – 1 pm, at the Boston State House and on-line, hosted by Mass Power Forward and UU Mass Action. The legislative session ends July 31. It’s time to demand climate action now. The conference committee is deliberating this month and aim to have their mash-up bill out soon. Please keep our community safe by bringing and wearing a mask. More information and registration here and see Actions from Your Desk for messaging to share with your state legislators.
Science on the Hill: Climate - Smart Agriculture
July 15 | 12 PM - 1 PM EDT
The sixth annual Science on the Hill event will bring together policy leaders and scientists for a panel discussion on the best available scientific evidence about approaches for reducing climate change through climate-smart agriculture. This event will be webcast on the Science on the Hill: Climate-Smart Agriculture webpage on Friday, July 15, from 12-1pm ET. Closed captioning will be provided.
All Summer! Shave the Peak.
On really hot days when everyone cranks the AC, regional electricity demand activates expensive and dirty power plants that pollute our air and hike up the electricity rates. You can make a difference through Green Energy Consumer Alliance’s “Shave the Peak” program. On hot days, they text or email Shave the Peak participants to conserve energy during certain hours. Learn more at the webinar recording “What is "peak" and why is it so bad for the environment?“ or just sign up for Shave the Peak notices and share with others.
It’s time again to join the global challenge to stay free of single-use plastic for a month and to learn strategies to reduce your, and your faith community’s use of plastic. Sign up at plasticfreejuly.org. There’s also a handy calendar for registered participants with 31 Days of Plastic Free Choices. Click here to download your free copy.
Action Pact 2022: Ready, Resilient, Reinvented is a three-month initiative to spotlight the topic of climate change through the programs of Boston's world-class arts, history, sports, and entertainment organizations. The coordinated effort is composed of longer-term and singular programs and initiatives, including exhibitions, installations, panel discussions, film screenings, lectures, children's programs, workshops, festivals, and more. Check out their many upcoming programs and events.
Listening to the World’s Edge: A Panel on Climate Change, Adaptation, and the Arts, Tuesday, July 26
7 – 8:15 p.m. • Online ($10)
Join the conversation with four individuals who are deeply engaged in climate justice work — through music, visual art, climate research, and education. For more information and to register, click here.
Wednesday, July 27, 12 noon, July Book Club with Eco-America’s Blessed Tomorrow. Join the discussion to reflect on All We Can Save edited by Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and Dr. Katharine Wilkinson.. Register here (you’ll be asked to create an eco-America sign-in to register.)
Preaching Climate Justice: A Conversation with Jim Antal and Margaret Bullitt-Jonas
Thursday, September 15
10 - 11:15 a.m. (Eastern) • Online (free)
Join us for another lively presentation by two religious leaders who are committed to encouraging climate preaching that is both pastoral and prophetic. There will be ample time for questions and conversation, as well as suggestions for how to preach on some of the texts assigned for upcoming Sundays in Creation Season. This event is open at no charge to all preachers, lay and ordained. For more information and to register, click here. Participants are encouraged to read Bullitt-Jonas’ article, “Preaching When Life Depends on It: Climate Crisis and Gospel Hope” (Anglican Theological Review, Spring 2021) and Antal’s chapter, “Prophetic Preaching: Freeing the Pulpit from Fear,” in his book, Climate Church, Climate World.
| SEASON OF CREATION (September 1- October 4) Celebrated by more than two billion Christians around the world, Creation Season begins with the World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation on September 1,and concludes with the Feast Day of St. Francis of Assisi, on October 4. This year, consider exploring the theme of the 2022 Season of Creation: “Listen to the Voice of Creation.” Its logo is the burning bush, which symbolizes both the devastating fires of climate crisis and the divine fire of the Holy Spirit. The fire that called to Moses affirmed that God heard the cries of all who suffered and would be with us as we followed in faith to our deliverance from injustice. Check Seasonofcreation.org to find downloadable resources for organizing events, leading liturgy, advocacy campaigns/asks, and more. |
From Sunday, October 2 through Sunday, October 9, Greenfaith invites people of faith to plan actions as part of Faiths 4 Climate Justice. Together we can lift up our moral values of reverence, justice, and compassion, and call upon our leaders to safeguard our future. The ten demands are listed here. Think about creating a prayer vigil or a procession, perhaps in front of a bank that funds fossil fuels. For inspiration, watch the wrap-up video for Greenfaith’s recent event, Sacred People, Sacred Earth. More info here,
The Baptist Joint Committee asks us to Add your name to a letter to Congress to protect sacred land! The San Carlos Apache Tribe wants to protect Chí’chil Biłdagoteel — loosely translated in English as “Oak Flat.” But, if the federal government gives Oak Flat to a mining operation, the area will be permanently destroyed. Read this letter and add your name in support of the Save Oak Flat Act (H.R. 1884/S. 915). BJC will deliver it to Congress for Indigenous Peoples Day this year. Once you sign the letter, invite your friends, family, and faith community to join you!
Join Interfaith Power and Light’s 2022 Faith Climate Justice Voter Campaign to reach out to people of faith and conscience, to make sure they are registered and ready to vote, and to mobilize them to vote their values of caring for our common home and loving our neighbors.
You can also download IPL’s Faithful Voter Reflection Guide to use at the kitchen table, in a house of worship, at a community forum, or at an event with political candidates. The guide discusses many of the defining moral issues of our time that are on the ballot: faltering democratic institutions, too much wealth in the hands of a few, damage to the climate, cruel immigration policies that tear families apart, mass incarceration that devastates communities of color, and threats to global public health and security. Download the guide here.
Voter Suppression, Climate Justice and the Polluter-Industrial Complex: How the Corporate Assault on American Democracy and Climate are Connected
Over the last 10 years, we have seen an attack on American democracy for the benefit of the fossil fuel industry and its corporate allies. Read the new report from the Global Center for Climate Justice showing the connections between polluters and voter suppression. Read the report here.
Solar for Houses of Worship!
On April 7, MassIPL hosted a webinar that featured three houses of worship currently in the process of evaluating and installing solar. The speakers described the challenges and how they are working through them. An "open forum" followed, which addressed a wide range of questions, including how to deal with historic commissions and how to finance with funds from congregants. You can view the entire Solar Open Forum webinar here. The YouTube page lists the questions that were addressed, along with the timing of when they were discussed, so you can jump right to the topic that most interests you.
Has your faith community considered solar? MassIPL can help guide you through the process! Email MassIPL with your solar inquiry: solar@massipl.org.
FEDERAL LEGISLATION UPDATE: It's time to reach out across state lines!
The window for significant climate legislation is closing quickly. Madison Mayhew, IPL’s Federal Policy Advocate in Washington, DC, confirms bipartisan discussions and negotiations on the Reconciliation package are continuing, with Senators Manchin and Schumer in dialogue. Additionally, Senate Finance Committee Staff are now involved with negotiations and working out any conflicts with the House Ways and Means Committee. There is a strong sense that an announcement of a framework for the bill is growing closer. Now is the time to keep pushing Senators to get the bill over the finish line! If we miss this opportunity, it may be years before national climate measures are enacted should the November elections result in fewer climate-friendly legislators.
Who do you know in Virginia, Arizona, Alaska, and Maine? These are particularly important states right now. Please reach out. Ask them to urge their Senators to take climate action now! National IPL has crafted this sample email you can share with others to help them contact their members of Congress: Tell Your Senators Climate Can’t Wait!
Sign the Petition: Tell Attorney General Garland to End Opposition to Youth Climate Justice
In 2015, 21 young Americans filed a landmark constitutional climate lawsuit, Juliana v. United States, against the U.S. government. These 21 young people are seeking a judicial declaration that the U.S. fossil fuel energy system is unconstitutional and violates their fundamental right to a safe climate. A victory in their case would mean that all current and future U.S. climate and energy policy - whether executive or legislative in nature, and regardless of political majority or party - would need to adhere to the court’s declaratory judgment, protecting the rights of our nation’s children to a safe climate. For more information and to sign, visit here.
Join Community Action Works to ask our Senators to support the PFAS Action Act. Toxic chemicals called PFAS have contaminated waterways across the country, endangering up to 110 million Americans. The PFAS Action Act would require the EPA to limit dumping of PFAS into our waterways and place a moratorium on new PFAS chemicals. Edit and sign the letter here.
Christians and Climate Change with Bill McKibben
Available anytime • Online ($10)
In this new online course offered by ChurchNext, Bill McKibben shows us that we still have time to take climate action -- but not as much time as we once had, and not as completely as we once might have been able to manage. For more information and to register, click here.
Green your electricity with locally generated, renewable energy
If we make the right renewable energy choices, we can shift the New England electric grid away from fossil fuels. Customers of National Grid or Eversource in MA/RI can sign up with Green Energy Consumers Alliance. In any case, ditch your clothes dryer and hang laundry on a line!
Author
Vicky A. Guest
The Rev. Victoria Alford Guest is co-chair of the SNEUCC Environmental Ministries Team and former pastor of the First Congregational Church in Natick, MA.