Faith Climate Action Week

Living the Golden Rule

FaithClimateActionWeek.org April 14-23

We all want to live in a community of mutual respect, where everyone abides by the Golden Rule: treating others the way we want to be treated. We all want to have meaningful work that sustains our families and communities and to live in a clean and healthy environment. We are already transitioning away from fossil fuels to a clean energy economy, and as people of faith and conscience, we can ensure the transition is made with justice. We can have both a healthy economy and a clean environment, and the process for achieving this vision can be fair and not cost worker or community residents their health, environment, jobs, or economic assets. Working for a just transition is a faithful response to the call to care for our neighbor and the interconnected community of all life.

All of our faith traditions call us to care for one another, and our Sacred Earth, our common home. Interfaith Power & Light envisions a stable climate where humans live in right and just relationship, interconnected with a healthy, thriving, natural world. One of our core values is: “Because we embrace justice, we act with inclusion and respect, working in solidarity with vulnerable and marginalized communities.” Environmental, racial, and climate injustice converge to have a particular impact on Black, Indigenous, people of color, and low-wealth communities. The well-being of fossil fuel industry workers and communities most exposed to environmental degradation from the fossil fuel industry are at risk of being overlooked in the transition to renewable energy. Our faiths call us to manage the transition to renewable energy in an equitable way that ensures a healthy environment and thriving workers and communities.

The transition to clean energy is our opportunity to build a new economy and society based on our shared values: caring for one another and our common home. Our global industrial economy is based on the false notion of infinite economic growth on a planet with finite resources. We are taking more from the Earth than the Earth can regenerate through the unsustainable extraction of natural resources. If everyone lied as we do in the United States, we’d need 5 Earths.

The result is the accumulation of the majority of wealth into the hands of just a few, environmental degradation, especially in low-wealth communities, soaring carbon emissions that cause climate change, and the theft of land from native peoples. These actions are not in line with faith-based values of justice. Workers, communities, and the interconnected community of all life suffer harm from the fossil fuel industry, such as health hazards from pollutants, loss of a clean environment, climate change impacts, and loss of biodiversity. Sacrifice zones are communities near polluting industries – often low-income communities or communities of color – whose harm is dismissed as the cost of doing business and making a profit

It IS possible to move away from this harmful way of living to create a life-giving economy and society where the interconnected community of all life can thrive in a safe climate. On February 25, St. Thomas hosted a gathering of 85 community members interested in taking forward steps for a Clean Energy Resolution in Columbus. This is evidence of our faith in action to slow the disruptive impacts of global warming and live the Golden Rule. Creation Keepers members are collaborating with Environment Georgia and Clean Energy Columbus for the solutions that we all need for sustainable living, here in Columbus. Stay tuned! Better yet, get involved and most of all, VOTE!