wfn.org | Re: NCC SPURS INTERFAITH GLOBAL WARMING STRATEGY

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

NCC Spurs Interfaith Global Warming Strategy
National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: Wendy S. McDowell, NCC, 212-870-2227
Internet:  news@ncccusa.org

82NCC8/18/98           FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC SPURS FOUR-PRONGED, INTERFAITH GLOBAL WARMING STRATEGY
Plan Includes Letters to President and Senators, Midwest 
Interfaith Conference

 NEW YORK, August 18 ---- The National Council of 
Churches (NCC) is coordinating a multifaceted, interfaith 
strategy on global warming "to provide a new level of 
determination and concrete plans to see the Kyoto Protocol 
submitted by the President and ratified by the Senate," 
according to the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, NCC General 
Secretary.

 "We are continuing our decade-long efforts to undergird 
the scientific consensus about global warming with a religious 
and moral consensus.  We are initiating specific measures to 
encourage national debate about the international Kyoto 
treaty," Dr. Campbell said.  The NCC is working closely with 
Roman Catholics, evangelicals and Jewish bodies, all of which 
are undertaking study and making outreach efforts on the issue 
of global warming and the Kyoto treaty in particular.

"Our first strategy is a letter to President Clinton 
urging him to persuade the American people that the Kyoto 
Protocol to the Climate Convention is in our national interest 
and will serve our global well-being," Dr. Campbell explained. 
"We are also reaching out to U.S. senators - all of whom count 
as constituent members of the NCC communions.  Twenty-four 
heads of communion signed these letters, which is a very 
strong response and shows that this issue is broadly supported 
by our churches, including the Orthodox and historic Black 
communions."

 "Archbishop Spyridon, Primate of the Greek Orthodox 
Church in America, put it best in his own letter to the 
President in which he said `the Kyoto Protocol calls us to be 
grateful to God by being responsible to the environment'," Dr. 
Campbell said.

 The Kyoto treaty calls on developed countries to cut 
emissions of heat-trapping gases that come from burning fossil 
fuels.  The U.S. would be required to reduce 1990 levels by 7 
percent over the next 10 to 15 years.

"Although the rich of the world - the industrialized 
nations - are primarily responsible for the increase of 
greenhouse gases, it will be the poor in the developing world, 
and in the industrialized nations, who will be the first 
affected by heat waves, storms, floods, and disease," Dr. 
Campbell said.

"In the church, we are structurally tied to people of 
faith in developing countries," she said.  "To everyone else 
in this debate, they may be outside parties.  To us, they are 
extended family.  When they tell us our actions have an 
adverse impact on them, we need to listen.  The U.S. 
government needs to understand that the faith community will 
be advocates for the legitimate needs of developing 
countries."

 The four-pronged strategy is the latest evidence that 
the religious community is becoming increasingly aware and 
involved in environmental issues as a number of key 
international events are heating up in the next year.  The 
next U.N. Climate Change Treaty Conference will be held in 
Buenos Aires in early November, 1998 and the Kyoto Protocol is 
in the process of being ratified by governments.

-more-
82NCC8/18/98
GLOBAL WARMING STRATEGY, Page 2

"We were told by Vice President Gore that when he 
arrived in Kyoto, he saw more postcards from the faith 
community than from environmental organizations," Dr. Campbell 
said.  "This activity is not being generated at the national 
level.  It is as much a local groundswell as it is a national 
campaign.  National religious leadership is responding to the 
concern from people in the pews across the country who believe 
this is something on which we should be working."

In addition to the letters, the other parts of the NCC's 
strategy are:
  A strategy packet sent to 540 environmental justice 
coordinators in NCC communions throughout the 
country.  The packet includes an op-ed article by Dr. 
Campbell entitled "Global Climate Change: A Religious 
Issue" and a public service announcement by Maya 
Angelou on global warming.  The network of faith-
based environmental justice coordinators is being 
urged to place the op-ed in their local newspapers 
and to place the PSA on local TV stations.  
Congregational materials about climate change are in 
the packet, including a five-session Bible Study and 
church bulletin insert, which the coordinators will 
work on distributing in their local churches.  The 
coordinators also are encouraged to organize a visit 
of church leaders and members to their U.S. senators 
to encourage them to act on the issue.
  A nine-state effort employing coordinators to 
organize statewide interfaith efforts. Participants 
include the communions of the NCC, Roman Catholics, 
Jews and evangelical Christians.  The targeted states 
include: Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Ohio, Indiana, 
Illinois, Nebraska, Michigan, North Dakota and South 
Dakota.  These industrial and agricultural states 
have been chosen because there is significant concern 
from industries there likely to be impacted by the 
Kyoto Protocol.
  A Midwest Interfaith Climate Change conference, to be 
held October 25-26 in Columbus, Ohio for 
environmental leaders from NCC communions, 
evangelical Christian, Jewish and Catholic 
congregations.  The conference will provide current 
information and strategies about global warming and 
will prepare for the Midwest Interfaith Global 
Warming Campaign, to continue beyond the conference.  
It will also prepare religious environmental leaders 
to bring the message about global warming to their 
U.S. senators.

 Dr. Campbell said part of the NCC's effort focuses on 
states in the Midwest because "they are important states for 
the religious community, but also states where industries have 
not behaved in a way that indicates they believe global 
warming is a real issue.  We are concentrating on states with 
legitimate needs to be protected and whose senators will be 
pivotal in the global warming debate.  We are going where the 
problems are and where the votes are."

  "Climate change is already evident.  Studies show that 
during this century there has been an increase in worldwide 
precipitation, a decrease in polar ice caps, and a rise in sea 
level," Dr. Campbell said.  "The first five months of 1998 
were the warmest ever."

"Climate change will affect the health and safety of all 
living things," Dr. Campbell said.  "Heat waves will happen 
more often and diseases that thrive in warmer climates - 
malaria, encephalitis, cholera, dengue and yellow fevers - are 
apt to spread."

 "Polls have shown that most American people believe that 
global warming is a reality and that the U.S. government 
should do something about it," Dr. Campbell said.  "We are 
responding to that sentiment."

-end-
 -0-