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Anglicans Sing, Pray at UN to Stop Global Warming

Episcopal News Service. November 17, 2003 [031117-1]

Margaret Bullitt-Jonas, Priest associate at All Saints Parish in Brookline, Massachusetts

Under threatening skies, nearly three hundred worshipers from diverse faith traditions gathered November 12 outside the United Nations in a service of repentance and renewal to stop global warming. Among them were two Episcopal bishops, ten Episcopal priests, and the Anglican Observer at the United Nations.

The service marked the fifth anniversary of the United States signing the Kyoto Protocol to address global warming. Congress never signed the treaty, which President Bush has rejected as too costly.

"Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions soar out of control," states the "Interfaith Call for Repentance and Renewal" issued by the group. "Unchecked, global warming will bring rising sea levels, storms, drought, disease, agricultural collapse, displacement of peoples, species extinction, and incalculable suffering to our children and grandchildren. The first victims are the poor and powerless among us, along with nature itself.

"People of faith and conscience cannot remain silent while creation is pillaged. We in the United States, whose 4.5% of the world's population contributes 25% of global greenhouse emissions, bear a moral responsibility to heal the earth's wounds and build a sustainable economy."

Asking the world's forgiveness for the United States failure to address climate change, worship leaders pledged to mobilize faith communities to protect the environment.

"Every religious tradition forbids theft, but global warming steals from our own children and grandchildren," said the Rev. Fred Small, co-chair of Religious Witness for the Earth, which organized the service. "As Americans, we repent our nation's recklessness. As people of faith, we ask our political leaders to stop the despoliation of God's creation."

Other speakers included Enele Sopoaga, ambassador to the UN from Tuvalu, a small Pacific island nation facing inundation by rising sea levels caused by global warming; Bishop Roy F. (Bud) Cederholm, Jr., from the Diocese of Massachusetts and Bishop Catherine S. Roskam, from the Diocese of New York; Archdeacon Taimalelagi Fagamalama Tuatagaloa-Matalavea, Anglican Observer at the United Nations, from Samoa; Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg of The Spirituality Institute; and Rev. Rosemary Bray McNatt, representing the Unitarian Universalist Association.

After the service, some participants met with diplomatic missions to the United Nations while others attended workshops on climate activism.

Traveling to the event, some participants literally "walked the talk" of reducing carbon emissions. Four Buddhist monks led a contingent of walkers all the way from Western Massachusetts. Others arrived in fuel-efficient hybrid cars or vans powered by biodiesel made from vegetable oil. On a chartered bus from Littleton, Massachusetts, riders paid an extra five dollars to purchase renewable energy offsetting the carbon dioxide pollution from their trip.