wfn.org | TELE-CONFERENCE ON INTERFAITH CLIMATE CHANGE

[Wendy McDowell, NCC Communications,]

81NCC8/17/98

TO: Religion and Environment Reporters
      212-870-2227
RE: TELE-PRESS CONFERENCE ON INTERFAITH CLIMATE
    CHANGE STRATEGY, TUESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1:30 P.M.

I am writing to invite you to talk with national 
religious leaders by telephone tomorrow about a 
major development in their stewardship of God's 
Creation - a  multifaceted climate change campaign 
which includes a joint letter to President Clinton 
and all U.S. Senators asking for prompt action on 
global warming, signed by the heads of 24 mainline 
Protestant, historic Black church and Orthodox 
communions; the announcement of a nine-state 
interfaith campaign; and background on climate 
activities by Catholic, Evangelical and Jewish 
organizations.

To join this "tele-press conference," as we are 
calling it, please call 1-800-481-6768 at 1:30 p.m. 
Eastern time (12:30 p.m. Central, 11:30 a.m. 
Mountain, 10:30 a.m. Pacific) tomorrow, Tuesday, 
August 18, and give the operator the password 
"NCCC."

For background on this important development in 
religious concern for the environment, please see 
the attached story from yesterday's New York Times. 

You will be able to ask questions during the 
conference call. First you will hear brief opening 
statements by:

The Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, General Secretary 
of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the 
USA, the nation's preeminent ecumenical organization 
whose members include 34 mainline Protestant, 
historic Black church and Orthodox communions.  The 
NCCC has long been involved in environmental issues 
through its Eco-Justice Working Group.

Paul Gorman, founder and executive director of the 
National Religious Partnership for the Environment, 
a formal coalition of the U.S. Catholic Conference, 
the Evangelical Environmental Network, the Coalition 
on Environment and Jewish Life, and the NCCC.

Kim Winchell, the Michigan coordinator for the new 
nine-state, interfaith climate change project.  Ms. 
Winchell has been involved in work for the 
environment through the grass-roots Michigan 
Ecumenical Consultation on Christianity and Ecology 
and her local Evangelical Lutheran Church of America 
synod.

I would appreciate it if you would RSVP for the call 
by contacting me at 212-870-2227.  However, it is 
not necessary to reserve a spot and you are free to 
call in even after the call has begun by using the 
above number and password.

Please let me know if you have any other questions, 
or if you must miss the call and would like further 
information or interviews afterward.

Thank you.

Attached: New York Times article, 8/15/98

Religious Groups Mount A Campaign To Support Pact On 
Global Warming

      By JOHN H. CUSHMAN Jr.
      
     WASHINGTON -- The political debate on global 
warming, long dominated by arguments over science 
and economics, is spilling over into pulpits and 
pews as religious organizations speak out about 
morality, faith and the Kyoto Protocol.
     
     Major church groups in the United States are 
mounting an unusually broad and active campaign to 
persuade the Senate to approve the protocol, an 
international agreement to fight climate change that 
was negotiated in Japan last year, leaders of the 
effort say.
     
     Many Protestant, Greek Orthodox and Jewish 
groups, including black churches and some 
evangelicals, have joined the campaign, although 
Roman Catholic bishops are still considering their 
stance on global warming and some of the nation's 
more conservative Christian groups, like the 
Southern Baptist Convention, are not participating.
     
     In a letter to President Clinton and the 
senators, 22 member churches of the National Council 
of Churches pledged to work for approval of the 
Kyoto Protocol, calling it "an important move toward 
protecting God's children and God's creation."
     
     The Kyoto treaty calls on developed countries 
to deeply cut emissions of heat-trapping gases like 
the carbon dioxide that comes from burning fossil 
fuels, with the United States reducing 1990 levels 
by 7 percent over the next 10 to 15 years.
     
     The Rev. Joan Brown Campbell, the council's 
general secretary, said the group wanted the climate 
issue to be "a litmus test for the faith community." 
She said the churches would demand that the United 
States lead the way on fighting global warming 
without requiring actions by the developing world, a 
condition the Senate has already set.
     
     And in an unusual grass-roots campaign, an 
interfaith coalition, the National Religious 
Partnership for the Environment, plans to have 
clergy and lay lobbyists focus on senators from nine 
states that stretch from Appalachia across the 
Midwest.
     
     The targeted states include West Virginia and 
Michigan, where the coal and auto industries are 
powerful opponents of the treaty. Some of the 
region's senators, such as Republicans Richard Lugar 
of Indiana and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, are 
considered especially influential in the climate 
debate.
     
     The campaign on climate issues reflects a 
determination among churches in the past decade to 
involve the faithful more directly in such matters 
as the disproportionate effects of pollution on poor 
people or the need to save endangered species.
     
     In October, the churches will bring together 
about 100 people in Columbus, Ohio, to coordinate 
the advocacy work in congregations across the 
region, organizers say.
     
     "This is two parts ground swell and one part 
mobilization," said Paul Gorman, the executive 
director of the religious partnership. "This is 
really about the future of religious life itself."
     
     Kim Winchell of Freeland, Mich., a medical lab 
technician who coordinates about 32 Lutheran 
congregations in the state on environmental issues, 
said, "I plan to network, network, network and pray 
a lot."
     
     Susan Harlow of Indianapolis, a seminarian who 
works with youth groups through the Church of 
Christ, said she was called to environmental causes 
during a course in prophetic ministry, which she 
defined as "speaking the hard truth, speaking out on 
issues that people would rather not deal with."

     The Rev. Christopher Bender of the Assumption 
Greek Orthodox Church in Morgantown, W.Va., said his 
efforts on climate change "really have a long way to 
go."
     
     "Given the fact that we live in West Virginia, 
the first step is just to get the subject on the 
table," Bender said. "Perhaps over the course of 
time we can also change hearts and minds."
     
     When Pope John Paul II delivered his message, 
"The Ecological Crisis" in 1989, he said that 
industrial nations cannot demand that the third 
world set restrictive environmental standards 
without doing so first themselves.
     
     Like other religious leaders, Catholic 
officials said they viewed global warming as a moral 
issue with profound importance for the world's poor, 
who stand to suffer most from disruptions to the 
climate.
     
     But they said it would take time for American 
bishops to consider where they stand on the treaty's 
specifics. Two committees are considering the issue.
     
     John Carr, secretary of the department of 
social development at the U.S. Catholic Conference, 
said that the bishops "understand there is a lot at 
stake here, and want to think our way through this."
     
     At times, the convergence of religion and 
environmentalism has cast secular environmentalists 
and believers in unfamiliar roles.
     
     At a conference last year in Santa Barbara, 
Calif., it was hard to say which was more notable: 
the pronouncement by Ecumenical Patriarch 
Bartholomew, the Eastern Orthodox Christian leader, 
that polluting was a sin, or the public apology by 
Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra 
Club, for the rejection of religion by his 
generation of environmentalists.
     
     Some participants said they expected resistance 
to the injection of morality into the climate 
debate.
     
     "I don't believe that there is a consensus in 
the country that it is a moral issue," said Mark 
Jacobs, director of the Coalition on the Environment 
and Jewish Life. The coalition, which brings 
together 26 national Jewish organizations spanning 
the spectrum from Reform to Orthodox, is 
participating in the campaign. "Many people don't 
believe we have an obligation to curtail our 
lifestyle to protect future generations," Jacobs 
said.
     
     The discussion in religious circles on global 
warming can be just as complex as the parallel 
debates in economic and scientific circles.
     
     "There is considerable debate in the scientific 
community on the whole issue of global warming, 
enough to learn that working scientists are not 
monolithic on the question," said William Merrell, a 
spokesman for the Southern Baptist Convention. "The 
convention itself has not taken a position, and in 
view of the unsettled science, it seems unlikely 
that we will take such a position."
     
     The National Association of Evangelicals also 
has largely stayed away from environmental issues, 
although it is planning a conference to discuss them 
next March.
     
Copyright 1998 The New York Times Company

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