The Threat of Global Warming Statement of Conscience

As I sit at my computer, it is 110 degrees outside at 4 P.M. It’s 88 degrees in our living room. My wife Terri tells me, “Get over it, Bob. It’s summertime.” But today’s newspaper calls the current long-term heatwave unprecedented. I wanted to write a column about a social justice issue, and for the past six years my own social justice concerns tend towards horror over the erosion of our civil liberties. Today, I can’t seem to get global warming off my mind.

Our Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) is often ahead of the curve on social issues. The first of many resolutions on a woman’s reproductive right of choice was passed by the UUA back in 1963. This year, Al Gore’s powerful film on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, has brought to the forefront the concern that humanity’s activities may be leading us to a tipping point where global warming becomes unstoppable and accelerates exponentially.

There is a consensus among scientists that the whole world’s climate is under enormous change due to global warming caused by our use of oil, coal and natural gas. This use releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which traps it with more heat from the sun. World temperatures are reaching record levels, melting polar ice and glaciers and causing sea levels to rise.

Starting in 2004, UU activists were bringing this crisis forward with a proposed Study/Action Issue. The UUA takes positions on matters of social justice by adopting resolutions called Statements of Conscience (SOC) . The SOC goes through a two-year process and is put before three UUA General Assemblies before it is finally adopted. When first introduced at the UUA annual convention, known as General Assembly (GA) , they are known as Study/Action Issues (SAI) .

In 2004 the UUA adopted the Study/Action Issue The Threat of Global Warming. The issue was posed as a question:

What can Unitarian Universalists do to promote individual and collective changes in the way we live and work in order to slow and ultimately reverse global warming?

The question frames the issue, and after three years of congregations reflecting upon, studying and acting upon it, a Statement of Conscience is adopted. In 2004 the Study/ Action Issue for the global warming topic listed several possible questions for study including:

Do we know enough to be confident that the earth’s climate is in fact changing in ways that are likely to severely impact life if it continues? Where is the point at which global warming becomes irreversible?

Why is there so little public concern about what is going on? Is it psychological denial, or failure to communicate the problem in terms that will bring the issue home to ordinary people — or both? What are other faith traditions doing nationally and/or locally to take action on this issue? Are there opportunities for joining forces with them?

The two-year process includes not just questioning and reflecting, but also urging congregations to take actions. In 2004 some of the actions suggested included:

• Lead our communities by individual example, making wise environmental choices even at significant personal cost.

• Adopt socially responsible investing practices that consider environmental impacts.

• Engage other faith communities, environmental groups and community organizations to advocate for government programs and policies that reduce reliance upon fossil fuels.

Following the GA in which the SAI is adopted, a study guide is issued on the topic. At the 2005 GA, a workshop was held. As with all SAI s , amendments are proposed, vetted in committee and voted on. On June 24 this year at GA in St. Louis , the delegates passed a final Statement of Conscience on global warming. The statement sets a number of Advocacy

Goals, including:

• Full compliance with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with the understanding that because human activity is affecting global climate change, it follows that the great our population the great the impact;

• Ratification of and compliance with the Kyoto Protocol;

• Policies and practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase forestation and other forms of carbon dioxide sequestration; and

• Provide information on legislative advocacy opportunities to members of the congregation.

The statement concludes by stating why action is so imperative:

Given our human capacity to reflect and act upon our own lives as well as the condition of the world, we accept with humility and determination our responsibility to remedy and mitigate global warming/climate change through innovation, cooperation, and self-discipline. We undertake this work for the preservation of life on Earth.

The full final Statement of Conscience on global warming can be found on the UUA website at http://www.uua.org/csw/SOC Final06_GW.pdf

~Bob

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