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Rising Up With Richmond County

By chris

“Biomass” may sound like a clean idea, but it actually means cutting down and turning trees into fuel pellets to be burned for energy — creating more carbon pollution than […]

Rising Up With Richmond County

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“Biomass” may sound like a clean idea, but it actually means cutting down and turning trees into fuel pellets to be burned for energy — creating more carbon pollution than coal, accelerating global warming and driving climate chaos.

North Carolina’s former governor opened the floodgates to the wood pellet export industry, which is tearing down our special forests to make wood pellets for export where they are burned in power stations to generate electricity.

Rescind the Enviva Richmond County Wood Pellet Mill Air Permit Now

Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet exporter, already operates three mills in North Carolina. These mills have been the subject of mounting scientific and community evidence documenting that wood pellets are bad for the climate and a dirty and destructive fuel. As with other dirty fuel industries, the wood pellet industry disproportionately impacts our most vulnerable, including low-income and communities of color.

Now Enviva is proposing to build their fourth wood pellet biomass facility in the town of Hamlet in rural Richmond County. 50 acres of forests a day in North and South Carolina would be turned into pellets and then shipped to Europe to burn for electricity. This community is already dealing with pollution and environmental injustice due to other polluting industries and has been ranked 90 out of 100 counties in the State of North Carolina for health outcomes.

The air permit issued to Enviva under the last administration by the NC Department of Environmental Quality contained false information regarding the plant’s location and violated air quality regulations, yet no public hearing was ever held and the citizens in the affected community were not given proper notice or opportunity to comment.

Rise up with Richmond County and say “NO!” to Enviva and the biomass wood pellet industry.

Neither the local citizens, nor the state of North Carolina needs another wood pellet mill. The health and economic impacts would be devastating, and the community doesn’t want it. A victory in Richmond County is a victory for the South, for the forests, and for all the communities in the South who face environmental injustice.

In addition to NC Interfaith Power & Light’s support for clean energy we recognize we must put the protection of our forests and the health, safety and prosperity of our most vulnerable communities at the forefront of North Carolina’s climate agenda.

Click here to sign a letter to Governor Roy Cooper and DEQ Secretary Michael Regan to show we faithfully stand with the citizens of Richmond County to stop this facility from being built.

Now what? Stay engaged and grow the movement

By chris

Trump announced he is pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement. We are living in a time of profound consequence, with the needs of our endangered climate increasing […]

Now what? Stay engaged and grow the movement

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Trump announced he is pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement. We are living in a time of profound consequence, with the needs of our endangered climate increasing and the response to global warming diminishing at the national level.

Our actions now, as climate conscious people of faith, matter more than ever. There are a few things you can do right now to help maximize our collective impact as North Carolina’s statewide multi-faith network committed to addressing climate change as a moral issue:

Engage your interfaith climate conscious citizenship

Consider getting involved in your congregation’s green team or participate in or start a local regional interfaith working group. Imagine if a consequence of the actions that this Administration is making, people of faith rise-up stronger and more organized and committed than ever in the fight to protect our common home. We must grow in numbers and knowledge, as North Carolinians we have a unique leadership role to play on the front lines of climate action in the United States.

Start where you are

Have you had an energy audit of your home or house of worship? Are you learning about incentives for renewable energy and energy efficiency upgrades? Are you maximizing the solar potential of your roof? Check out NCIPL’s emPOWERed: A Comprehensive Energy Program for Congregations. Our abilities to think globally while acting locally will be what makes the difference for our own lives today and the future of all lives tomorrow.

Stand up for civilization, interfaith respect, and justice

By standing up for the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, by working together with neighboring faith communities different from our own, by advocating for green jobs and 100% clean energy we are not only fighting climate change we are working for a better, healthier and safer world for everyone.

Support NCIPL and consider signing up as a recurring monthly giver.

No matter what happens in Washington, DC, with your help the interfaith movement in North Carolina can grow wiser and by our actions we can help heal an ailing world.

God and Creation are counting on us!

Faith in Solar

By chris

Every faith tradition has a mandate within sacred texts to care for creation. Clean, renewable, solar energy is a critical component of creation care in the 21st Century. On April […]

Faith in Solar

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Every faith tradition has a mandate within sacred texts to care for creation. Clean, renewable, solar energy is a critical component of creation care in the 21st Century.

On April 26 NC WARN’s Faith in Solar effort, endorsed by the North Carolina NAACP, the Ministers’ Conference of Winston-Salem and Vicinity, and 150 individual faith leaders, wrote to Duke Energy CEO Lynn Good. The letter calls for Duke Energy to partner with them to help slow climate change by facilitating the installation of solar power systems on houses of worship around the state. The alliance, led by Rev. Dr. Rodney S. Sadler, Jr. of Charlotte, asked for a meeting to discuss ideas it has developed for a new program that would help faith organizations overcome obstacles to going solar, such as the upfront cost.

A part of the letter reads:

“In this time of enormous challenges, we feel that this partnership is urgently needed. Earth Care and stewardship are an integral part of our purpose, and climate scientists’ increasingly dire warnings require that we contribute as much as possible, as quickly as possible, to help solve the climate crisis.” Rev. Sadler noted today: “God has given us an ample supply of energy from the sun. Shouldn’t houses of faith take the lead in using it?”

In response to the letter, Duke Energy  is working to set up a meeting with the group and Susannah Tuttle will participate in the meeting as a representative of the NC Council of Churches and director of NC Interfaith Power and Light.

As an alliance member, Rabbi Jen Feldman of Kehillah Synagogue in Chapel Hill, which put solar panels on its roof in 2015, said “We were fortunate to be able to install solar. We are happy to be doing our part to promote a clean energy future. But we realize not everyone has this opportunity now, and we would like to see all North Carolina houses of worship have the option to install solar, making a contribution to the climate solution and saving money to help fund the other important work they do.”

Mitigating further climate change through development and dissemination of renewable energy is part of our faithful response to preserve and protect the beauty and goodness of the Sacred Earth upon which we are all interdependent.

The People’s Climate March

By chris

Multi-faith pilgrims on a moral high road unifed to honor God’s creation at the Peoples Climate March on the National Mall, April 29.  The event drew 200,000 people from every […]

The People’s Climate March

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Multi-faith pilgrims on a moral high road unifed to honor God’s creation at the Peoples Climate March on the National Mall, April 29.  The event drew 200,000 people from every state with broad support from over 400 sister marches in the U.S. and around the world.

Interfaith Power & Light was represented by over 40 state affiliate groups including over 100 North Carolinians marching with NCIPL as part of the “Keepers of Faith” contingent expressing our deep concern from our moral, ethical and spiritual perspectives about the devastation of God’s planet and people, particularly the poor and most vulnerable.

“The current Congress and the administration have taken regressive, destructive positions on climate change, denying basic climate science, proposing policies that will harm human health, eliminate green jobs, and increase greenhouse gas emissions,” said Rev. Fletcher Harper, national coordinator of the PCM faith contingent and executive director of GreenFaith, a global interfaith coalition for the environment.  “This is exactly the wrong direction, and it is sinful.”

“Over the last seven years, I have spoken to thousands of people in local congregations,” said Joelle Novey, director of Interfaith Power and Light of DC, Maryland and Northern Virginia and coordinator of local faith organizing for the March.  “In every one of those congregations, good folks understand that burning fossil fuels is pouring heat-trapping climate pollution into our skies, causing our earth to warm, harming our neighbors and all Creation — and that we are called to respond.”

Community organizer and pastor Rev. Leo Woodberry made the trip from Florence, South Carolina with 100 community and church members from Kingdom Living Temple, and the local high school choir.  “We came to Washington, DC, because as people of color and faith, we have a moral obligation to advocate for those who will be most harmed by the Administration’s proposed budget cuts.”

“Climate justice is one of the great ethical, social, and humanitarian challenges of our time and so our faith impels us to act,” says Patrick Carolan, Executive Director of the Franciscan Action Network, which has led organizing of the Catholic community for the March.  “To allow so many to suffer, to stand by and to watch as the planet that has sustained us for so long struggles to survive, is inarguably immoral.”

The mass demonstration encircled the White House grounds for a silent sit-in as we all beat our hands to our chests as a unified heartbeat followed by a collective breaking into a wave of sound as thousands of people chanted “the seas are rising, and so are we!”

The People’s Climate March was a momentous event that we hope will serve to further inspire those of us already involved and be an example to others that this movement is here, passionate, and diverse. And finally, thanks to YOU, NCIPL’s amazing supporters, for motivating us to be a part of this March and supporting all the work we do here in NC; we couldn’t do it without you!

Earth Day, Science March, Creation Care

By chris

This year on Earth Day, thousands will gather in Washington, D.C., and in cities across the country to march for science and protect the deeply held value for truth and […]

Earth Day, Science March, Creation Care

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This year on Earth Day, thousands will gather in Washington, D.C., and in cities across the country to march for science and protect the deeply held value for truth and facts. They are marching to defend the vital role science plays in our communities and our world. They are marching because science is not partisan; it is not liberal or conservative. And they are marching to demonstrate that our nation values the scientists and the scientific agencies working to make our world safer, cleaner and healthier.

Why should a science march matter to people of faith?

To care for creation and to serve the most vulnerable among us are mandates shared by all major religions.  The accelerating climate crisis and the consequences of global warming are the most urgent and dangerous symptoms of a failure by people of faith to fulfill this universal mandate.

The word conscience is defined as “the faculty by which distinctions are made between right and wrong; ethical judgment or sensibility.” It is in this single word that we can find the meeting point of science and religion, and the purpose in our future.

The climate crisis threatening our very existence is fostering an emerging dialog between science and religion. A crucial piece is the emerging awareness of our dependence on the environment and the fact that we are not only called to care for God’s creation, we are part of it.

In the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the 20th Century French Jesuit paleontologist:

The day will come, when after harnessing Space, the wind, the tides, and gravitation, we will harness for God the energies of Love.  And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered Fire.

As people of faith we cannot continue to rely on our intellectual understandings of the most critical issues of our time.  It is time to act.  We must realize our role in the interdependent web of creation.  We must walk in leadership towards sustainability.  Through the lens of faith, hope trumps despair.

May the re-discovery of fire be the chalice we light to re-connect.


Susannah Tuttle, M.Div
Director, NC Interfaith Power & Light

NC Interfaith Power & Light (NCIPL) works with faith communities to promote the Creation Care practices of carbon mitigation, energy efficiency, and clean renewable energy opportunities as a moral imperative. NCIPL is a program of the North Carolina Council of Churches. This role provides access to the Council’s membership of over 6,200 congregations. The North Carolina Council of Churches is comprised of 25 distinct judicatories from 17 denominations with 1.5 million congregants across the state.

 

Two Successful Days of Advocating with Compassion

By chris

During this era of dissatisfaction with our federal government, it is important now more than ever for people of faith to engage with our own state government. With so many […]

Two Successful Days of Advocating with Compassion

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During this era of dissatisfaction with our federal government, it is important now more than ever for people of faith to engage with our own state government. With so many incredibly urgent issues being discussed in State Legislature, we at NC Interfaith Power & Light wanted to create a space for our network of devoted stewards of the earth to feel empowered by meeting with their legislators. That was the intention of NC Interfaith Power & Lights’s 3rd Annual “Faith Voices for Clean Energy” Advocacy Day.

In fact, we held two days at the NC General Assembly this Spring. The first, held March 21st, was focused on education and outreach to any and all individuals who found themselves in the legislative building that day, some of whom were there to support the NAACP. We were both ecstatic and invigorated at the amount of meetings that were held that day between members of our network and their individual representatives. It was our most successful year to date. The second day, held April 6th, provided specific bills that had been introduced into committees since our first visit to the legislative building.

It can be exciting for some people who easily develop relationships with their elected officials who too often are only names on a voting ballot. For others it can be an intimidating situation, meeting with your representatives for the first time. We were humbled by the last family who joined us for advocacy on April 6th. The woman with the kind smile had never met with her legislators before. Accompanied by her two sons, she gathered all the resources we provided and cautiously sought out the offices of her Senate and House members. Although her representatives were not personally in their offices when she visited, she was able to drop-off “leave behind” educational materials. We hope that she and other first-timers feel empowered through our gentle support and guidance this past Spring and in the years to come.