“The Power to Change” and the Determination Not To: An informal look at Presbyterian energy policy two years after the General Assembly’s recent resolution – By Chris Iosso

Climate change is not an ideological fight – because everyone is affected.

The cover of the resolution adopted by the 2008 General Assembly features photographs of symptoms of climate change and signs of hope, with a joyful picture of a congregation in Delaware celebrating the installation of solar panels. Another picture has a hard-hatted woman holding up sign saying “Green Jobs” in a rally in front of the capitol. Inside the back cover, along with resources for action, education, and advocacy, there is a picture of a small tree being planted on the Presbyterian Center grounds. Those pictures (the cover and contents are downloadable at http://www.pcusa.org/media/uploads/acswp/pdf/energyreport.pdf or in the link in the book recommendations for this week) do reflect themes from the policy: grow renewable energy industries, change food, housing, and transit related consumption patterns and values, work with Stewardship of Creation enablers and other church advocates, and let the church practice what it preaches. The study section of the report, which provides a rationale for the recommendations, updates the eco-justice norms and energy policy guidelines first developed by the church in 1981, and then assesses the major energy options before the United States in light of global warming, with special attention to the role of fossil fuels. The recommendations are very hard-hitting but were affirmed by most commissioners.

The earth’s future doesn’t play well at the ballot box.

The tree (planted on Earth Day) is still growing, and some churches are getting loans for energy retrofitting, and some green jobs have been produced, but the social and political momentum did not make an energy bill possible this past year, and the late 2008 Copenhagen summit to revise Kyoto hit a fairly hard wall of Chinese resistance (along with other growing nations) to anything like enforceable carbon emission targets. The Oct 19, 2010 New York Times carries an article about school districts in Kansas encouraging energy conservation for financial frugality and other reasons, but “like opposition to abortion or affirmations of religious faith… it (skepticism about global warming) was becoming a cultural marker that helped some Kansans define themselves” (p. A4). Proposition 23 in California, backed heavily by donations from polluting industries, would expressly prevent the transition to green jobs; corporations and funds wanting to invest in that transition also contribute money to oppose the proposition, warning that they will go elsewhere if Prop 23 wins. Thomas Friedman, generally a cheerleader for corporate-led globalization, repeats column after column about how most other developed nations are leaving us technologically in the dust (or smog). Thus, as Al Gore titled his book a decade or so ago, the earth is very much in the balance. It is also on the ballot and not polling too well.

This small contribution is to affirm that the church has a well-crafted and carefully documented analysis of our climate situation with a clear set of policy directions. Who reads these? Does your congregation have an adult forum or discussion/study group? Do you have scientists in your congregation? Can one of your scouts put up a bike rack at the church? And if you have people who you suspect will oppose the policy of the General Assembly—which they certainly have freedom of conscience to do—can they at least support conservation measures like the folks in Kansas?

Speaking as a policy wonk for Jesus…

Ideally, climate change is not an ideological fight. All classes of person are affected—future generations include all our children’s children, and the children of all the species left with us. Fear and self-interest are always the opponents of constructive change. The challenge is how to stand into the cultural wind and with “the grain of the universe,” as an ethicist has recently written. Responsibility, justice, sustainability, sufficiency, participation, solidarity… these are not new values. But they may require new energy to present in the current cultural climate. Perhaps it is my self-interest as a policy wonk for Christ, but I have also been a preacher and I know there’s some good resource in “The Power to Change: U.S. Energy Policy and Global Warming.” Check it out, and speak out!