Eco-Justice Connection

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90 Years Rooted in Faith: Journey through Time

By Susannah Tuttle, Eco-Justice Connection Director

As we celebrate 90 years of faithful work for justice and equity this year, we’re sharing stories of 90 Years Rooted in Faith that reflect the heart of the North Carolina Council […]

90 Years Rooted in Faith: Journey through Time

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As we celebrate 90 years of faithful work for justice and equity this year, we’re sharing stories of 90 Years Rooted in Faith that reflect the heart of the North Carolina Council of Churches. Each month, you’ll hear from staff and long-time friends of the Council as they highlight the transformative impacts we’ve had on our community and our vision for the future. Stay tuned for these inspiring reflections throughout the year!

I’ve been part of the North Carolina Council of Churches staff since 2011, where I design programming and advocacy efforts centered around our ‘Call to Care for God’s Creation.’ This work is guided by the principle that addressing the causes and consequences of global climate change is a moral imperative. The Council’s Eco-Justice Connection framework is ‘rooted in faith,’ seeking to connect people of faith and conscience with both the natural ecological world and the human-constructed, financially driven economic system—two realms that currently seem disconnected from the responsibilities God calls us to uphold.

As humans among millions of species, our lives are part of an interdependent web, intricately woven with existence and the experience of the Divine. My faith rests in the belief that all of God’s creation is a dynamic, spiraling force of communication that extends throughout the Universe and beyond. I hold that time is both a profound illusion and, and simultaneously, one of the deepest truths.

Could the people living at the time of Jesus’ birth have ever imagined that Earth and all its species—including humanity—would evolve into the world we know today? The Magi, the wise men who followed celestial signs, may have had some insight into what the future held, even centuries ahead. As scholars deeply versed in astronomy and perhaps early mysticism, they were trained to interpret the stars, believing that celestial events could foreshadow earthly transformations—such as the rise of great figures or the dawn of new eras.

Thoughts and questions like these inspired me to enter seminary in the 20th century and still occupy my mind today, 25 years into the 21st century, marking the first quarter of the third millennium since Anno Domini—”in the year of the Lord.” The socio-political struggles during Jesus’ lifetime resonate with the challenges we face today, highlighting the profound question of where each of us are standing in the wilderness at this moment as we face tyranny and the collapse of democracy across the United States. This question takes on many layers in the context of the global climate emergency, which affects all peoples and transcends any single religion or group.

As the North Carolina Council of Churches reflects on the past 90 years, we are also called to creatively envision what the world will look like 90 years from now, in 2115. While it’s difficult to imagine that far ahead, there are babies being born today who may still be alive then—if we faithfully answer the call to protect the people and places we love. 

This is our mandate—spanning from the past to the present and into the future: to love God and ourselves enough to heal what has been harmed, and to follow the teachings of Jesus, as well as those of the great Magi who came before, who walk among us now, and those yet to be born.

To be a part of the North Carolina Council of Churches is a tremendous blessing. The work we do to educate, inspire, and mobilize our congregational network—and all those they reach—is the vital work of our time. May we honor it and continue to nurture and grow it so that it may endure, in the name of peace, love, and justice for all.

Join us in continuing this legacy of justice and courage.
Click here to donate directly to Susannah Tuttle’s fundraising page!
Your gift supports the Council’s equity and compassion work across North Carolina.

COP 27: Together for Implementation on Loss and Damage

By Susannah Tuttle, Eco-Justice Connection Director

As you have hopefully heard in the news, the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27) is currently taking place in […]

COP 27: Together for Implementation on Loss and Damage

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As you have hopefully heard in the news, the 27th Conference of the Parties of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP 27) is currently taking place in Egypt. The theme for COP 27 is #TogetherForImplementation. Of the many years of global meetings that have taken place since the 2015 Paris Agreement, this “implementation summit” of 2022 is the year nations are expected to demonstrate that they are in a new era of implementation by turning their commitments into action. Walking through the maze of the COP 27 campus you can see the branded theme everywhere from massive banners and big screens to the plant-based paperboard water bottles handed out daily to participants.

The general view of COP 27 is to build on previous successes and pave the way for future ambition to effectively tackle the global challenge of climate change. We recall that the main aim of the Paris Agreement is to keep the global average temperature rise this century as close as possible to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Every minute that we delay implementation of real action we see that number rise and so we know we must move beyond the “talk” of negotiations into the commitments of climate finance in very real and equitable terms. That said, the discussions around the creation of a loss and damage (L&D) financial facility are of highest importance at COP 27.

Last week, Bobby Watson wrote a Texas Impact blog on L&D  highlighting some of the overall tensions around the issue. This week, along with many others from American Civil Society, I attended a meeting with Senator Schumer’s staff to discuss how they might help us move this critical issue forward. We discussed our concerns that although US climate envoy, John Kerry, has said his country was “totally supportive” of moves to address loss and damage and is “100% ready” to discuss the issue in detail, the U.S. State Department has not yet agreed to support the creation of a L&D financial facility. Directly after the meeting with Schumer’s team a group of us headed over to the Climate Justice Pavillion to hear more about the demands for the L&D finance facility from a panel moderated by Manish Bapna, President and CEO of Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

Because we are well aware of the political challenges of allocating funds via U.S. Congress for climate action, we should be willing to listen to those in the negotiation space representing our country and hear their hesitations to make promises to developing countries that they do not feel confident they can deliver in the form of finances.  However, this is no excuse to be an obstacle by blocking the rest of the world’s ability to move forward in creating this L&D financial facility which is so desperately needed. 

Today, in support of the letter House Democrats sent to President Biden, a press release was distributed globally titled: US & Global Activists call on the United States to Stop Blocking a Loss & Damage Fund which includes quotes from our colleagues that we are working with in Sharm El-Sheikh, amplifying the call for a L&D financial facility. 

It is becoming more clear by the day that if the implementation launch of a loss and damage facility at COP 27 does not take place this will be a huge loss for humanitarian empathy. This is exactly where I turn to my faith and prayerful hope that it will happen in time, it just has to.

PRAYER: 
During these last days in Egypt, may the U.S. delegation let go of all inhibiting and paralyzing fear to be guided by the moral compass of compassion in the name of justice for all God’s children. We are all in this #TogetherForImplementation!

The Importance of Community and Climate Week NYC

By Ren Martin, Eco-Justice Connection Program Coordinator

Once a year, environmental leaders from around the United States and around the world come together to meet in New York City. On my first big solo trip as an […]

The Importance of Community and Climate Week NYC

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Once a year, environmental leaders from around the United States and around the world come together to meet in New York City. On my first big solo trip as an organizer, I too was blessed with the opportunity to attend, representing the North Carolina Council of Churches. My main aspiration was to connect with other environmental justice advocates and learn about the work others are doing in their own communities.

Being there in the space of organizers, I felt energized to continue on in the work of advocacy, mobilized to use my own voice to speak to the masses, and uplifted in my understanding of Eco-Justice and in my confidence that the role that we play is critical. However, another idea was also reinforced: we cannot do this work alone, for our job is only part of a much larger picture.

At the end of the day, all it really comes down to is people. People coming together to form communities, which can create collaborations, which can create coalitions. Energizing that movement is what keeps us together and growing strong, and that is where I personally would like to come into play. 

Through my art, my words, and my actions, I feel called to breathe life into the people around me, especially those whose lives have been disproportionately affected, targeted, and overwhelmed by systematic oppression. People who oftentimes look like me. 

In NYC, I had the great fortune of going to the Black Climate Leadership Summit, where I was able to engage in a space that was not only informing, but inviting, and invigorating in itself. It reminded me that we need to create spaces where Black passion can grow, flow, and be unapologetically free.

I was also reminded that environmental justice was born from the idea that we should all be free to live a life free of toxins and pollutants. That people of color shouldn’t have to suffer injustices at the hands of those with wealth and power (which often go hand in hand). 

Instead of living in a toxic environment that makes thriving impossible, we are called to create a system of our own that will be conducive towards growth, change, and transformation. This is what Climate Week NYC was for me. A space where I was able to step away from the normal pace of life and focus on what matters. To be able to connect and create a sense of community. THAT is environmental justice. Not forgetting that we can never be free until ALL the people are free. 

While we have a long way to go on our journey towards creating the climate future we want to see, for the first time in a while, I was able to feel a powerful presence wash over me—to get a glimpse of the light.

The Earth is our home

It ebbs and flows
Through the seas and the trees, 
the Earth actually breathes.
The mycelium network of mushrooms 
Connects our forests to one other
They provide for each other
Like the cells in our veins
They carry nutrients & warnings of the pain
We have afflicted onto our common home.
We are not only hurting a single tree or bird,
We’re destroying a network of love
The screams left unheard.

Let our faith guide us towards a new path
Lest we face climate devastation & Gaia’s wrath.
When we care for creation, we care for ourselves
If our body is our temple
The Earth is our village, our protective shell
From the ocean of the unknown 
This is where we were raised and where we have
grown up for generations.

All of our nations
were started started around a river, an ocean, a lake.
A fertile crescent of hope 
Where we could eat, rest, and wake
That’s what we have to lose and what’s at stake
This beautiful world the Lord has created and makes.

We lost the garden of Eden in a single day
But we are losing inches of the Earth in new ways,
every month, every year, every decade 
By 2050 it is projected there may be no more coral reefs
By 2050 there could be no relief for island
nations that could’ve been protected, 
because so many of them will already be affected and underwater.

Think of your daughters, your sons, your
children who have grown up in a world that
could’ve been powered by wind & sun
But is instead run on hatred, greed, and fossil fuels
The rich and powerful sit behind closed doors
Delegating death sentences for the poor,
for minorities, people of color
At the end of the day all we have is each other.
Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr both wanted us to love thy neighbors
To unite with our sisters, siblings, & brothers
Let us rise up! Bring hope and faith to the world
to know that nature cannot be ignored
That the people cannot be ignored
That those most impacted by climate 
DESERVE. TO. LIVE.
and not only to survive, but thrive!

Let us live in a world where the voices of Black
and brown communities no longer hide
Where indigenous peoples are not pushed out,
but can live and lead with pride.

We all deserve to breath clean air
Let us come together in prayer… 

Dear lord, I understand now 
We cannot care for creation without action
Without knowing, acknowledging, and feeling
compassion for the history we share
Some of us have had our past, present, and
futures irreparably broken
But there are still things we can do to try
and repair our relationship with one another
To LOVE thy sister, sibling, and brother.
Lord, give us the strength to carry on
The wisdom to hear the Earth’s quiet songs
The power to confront and right so many wrongs
And the compassion to be there with those
whose homes, friends, and families are gone.

Oh lord, may you provide living waters
In a world where rivers & lakes are drying out as oceans rise.
Where island nations are being wiped out by rising tides.

At the end of the day, 
After you have thought, after you pray
Remember there’s still actions and words left to say.
Through connecting our communities like the fungi and trees, 
Let us all stay together in unity!
Let us not stray from our goals
But reenforce our roles
Where we can take collective action 
To enrich the Earth and our souls.
Amen.

Op-Ed: When it comes to climate change, farmworkers reap what we sow

By chris

Op-Ed written by Michelle Peedin, NCIPL Youth Leaders Coordinator, published in the Winston-Salem Journal. Click here to access the article on their site. With the crispness of the fall season […]

Op-Ed: When it comes to climate change, farmworkers reap what we sow

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Op-Ed written by Michelle Peedin, NCIPL Youth Leaders Coordinator, published in the Winston-Salem Journal. Click here to access the article on their site.

With the crispness of the fall season normally comes the bounty of the harvests, as grocery stores and farmers markets throughout the state overflow with all the varied agriculture that North Carolina has to offer. North Carolinians depend on the western apple orchards and eastern sweet potatoes to prepare staple dishes for the holidays. However, as is increasingly common, these harvests are feeling the effects of climate change — and so are those working in the fields. Here in North Carolina, and across the country, there are few more vulnerable than farmworkers, a population that is working hard to gain rights but will only face more challenges because of climate change.

From increasingly frequent and severe heatwaves to lower crop yields to higher risk of mosquito-borne diseases, climate change is already affecting the health of farmworkers and impacting their ability to economically sustain themselves. After a string of weather-related disasters created one of the worst years for agriculture in decades, fa

rm owners are facing extraordinary uncertainty this year as climate change-fueled extreme weather ravages otherwise productive land. Increasingly, climate change is resulting in greater instability for farmworkers, with harsher working conditions and dwindling yields resulting in fewer working hours and more risk. For farmworkers, if you don’t work, you don’t get paid.

For those who labor in our North Carolina fields, a population that is overwhelmingly Latinx immigrants, that uncertainty extends beyond their paychecks and into their physical and mental health. As a fellow with Student Action with Farmworkers, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving the lives of farmworkers and their families, I witnessed the unimaginable conditions farmworkers endure on a daily basis while working and living in the fields. I saw farmworkers returning to cramped living quarters with no air conditioning after having worked 12-hour days in 100+ degree temperatures. With rising temperatures affecting agricultural industries around the country, outdoor laborers face a far greater risk of heatstroke, dehydration and kidney failure as a result of their environment. In an industry that is rife with abusive labor practices, these conditions all add up to make an already difficult workplace all the more precarious.

As a first-generation child of an immigrant mother, I’ve seen firsthand how these climate-fueled health disparities are affecting both documented and undocumented communities throughout North Carolina. Migrant farmworkers, in addition to many other Latinx and undocumented communities, stay in homes that are often susceptible to flooding. I remember reading heartbreaking stories of Latinx families who lost everything after Hurricane Florence. Extreme weather events, like Florence, are made more severe by climate change and have a disproportionate effect on those who work outdoors.

In addition to climate justice issues such as hurricane impacts, environmental justice issues such as water and air quality are prevalent in many local communities, too. Nationwide, insufficient access to health care among Latinx populations is one reason why children in these communities are 40% more likely to die as a result of an asthma attack compared to white children. Couple this with the fact that an estimated 39% of Latinx families live within 30 miles of a polluting power plant, and we begin to see the unique ways in which a failure to act on climate change is a particularly dire failure for communities of color.

Addressing the root cause of these injustices is going to require much more than just talking about it – we must commit to transitioning to a 100% clean energy economy. With Hurricane Florence alone costing North Carolinians nearly $17 billion, it’s clear that nothing short of bold action will suffice.

Unfortunately, our senators, Thom Tillis and Richard Burr, recently sided with big polluters over the health and wellbeing of our state by voting to support the Trump administration’s so-called “Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) rule,” which would extend the lives of dirty coal plants and do absolutely nothing to curb the carbon pollution behind climate change. While farmworkers and Latinx communities are bearing the brunt of climate change’s devastating impacts, our senators have shown themselves to be more interested in lining industries’ pockets than in taking action on climate and helping transition North Carolina to a 100% clean energy economy.

For the sake of vulnerable laborers, hardworking Latinx immigrants, and all North Carolinians, we must act on climate. It’s time our senators do the same. Join me as we call on our elected officials to take action now.

Join NCIPL in Striking for the Climate

By chris

On September 20, three days before the UN Climate Summit in NYC, NC Interfaith Power and Light is joining young climate leaders and adult allies striking all across the US […]

Join NCIPL in Striking for the Climate

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On September 20, three days before the UN Climate Summit in NYC, NC Interfaith Power and Light is joining young climate leaders and adult allies striking all across the US and world to demand transformative action addressing the climate crisis. Below is a compilation of resources for students, parents, and faith communities.

“FOR THE LOVE OF…” VIDEOS

NCIPL’s Youth Leaders Initiative has put together a short video sharing our “For the love of…” reasons for striking on Sep 20! We invite you to share your own video and tag us! Don’t forget to use hashtags to include everyone in the conversation! This is what youth climate leaders of faith look like:

CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO ON FACEBOOK

#ForTheLoveOf #ClimateStrike #FaithsForTheFuture  #FaithsForFuture #StrikeWithUs
#GlobalClimateStrike #ActOnClimate #NCIPL

FIND AND/OR ORGANIZE A STRIKE NEAR YOU
strikewithus.org

Make sure to click on the title and register for your event if a link is provided.
To receive updates in preparation for the Raleigh, NC event: Register Here

SIGN THIS LETTER & LET YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS KNOW YOU SUPPORT THE STRIKES
strikewithus.org/faith

PROMOTE THE STRIKE

Click here to access the social media “For the love of” promotional graphics

Click here to access the Faith Climate Strike Resources

Click here to access the US Climate Strike Social Media Toolkit

DOWNLOAD A PRINTABLE BULLETIN INSERT FOR THIS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 15

Printable Bulletin Insert for Climate Strike

To print half sheets:

  1. Click the download arrow.
  2. Beside format, select “All Types”
  3. Click on the download pop-up at the bottom left of the screen
  4. Click File > Print
  5. In the print pop-up, beside “copies per page”, select 2

RESOURCES FOR STUDENT AND ALLY ORGANIZING
Click the link to access step by step guides for students and adults and ways to get started!
globalclimatestrike.net/resources/

FAITH LEADERS ORGANIZING TOOLKIT
A user-friendly check list and resources that any faith leader can use to organize their faith community.
Click here to access the toolkit

PLEDGE TO CALL YOUR SENATOR/REPRESENTATIVE ON SEPTEMBER 20

Senator Tillis: (202) 224 – 6342
Senator Burr: (202) 224 – 3154
Look up your congress members and state representatives here: www.ncleg.gov/RnR/Representation

Consider using this script as a guideline for your conversation:

Hello. My name is _________ and I live in __________, North Carolina. Today, millions of youth and their allies are striking to demand bold legislative action on climate change. I want  _________ to know that I support our youth and join them in calling for climate action. This summer, there were 3,611 emergency department visits due to heat-related illnesses in North Carolina. Just this month, Hurricane Dorian ravaged Ocracoke Island.  Both of these events were greatly intensified by climate change. As a person of faith, I know that climate change is a moral issue impacting people and places in my community. I ask that  _________ courageously and immediately join the bi-partisan climate conversation. There is no time to waste. Thank you.

This is a moral movement that demands action from people of faith and conscience.

We all have a voice. How will you use yours?

 

NC Interfaith Power and Light is co-hosting the event in Raleigh, NC at Halifax Mall from 12:30-2:30pm.

If you have any questions or comments about any of the above resources or how to get involved, feel free to email our Program Coordinator, Sarah Ogletree, at programs@ncipl.org. If you are or know a youth climate leader of faith who would be interested in joining our network, email out Youth Leader Coordinator, Michelle Peedin, at michelle@ncipl.org.

The Pope and Ecology: Shouts from the Highest Steeple

By reuben

This post is from our friend Dave Grace, a dual degree masters candidate with Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Divinity School and creator of the Youth Faith Conservation Network, which will […]

The Pope and Ecology: Shouts from the Highest Steeple

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Dave Grace School of the Environment Duke UniversityThis post is from our friend Dave Grace, a dual degree masters candidate with Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment and Divinity School and creator of the Youth Faith Conservation Network, which will be leading a biodiesel bus tour of Raleigh faith communities April 25th. This blog was originally posted at the Nicolas School’s website.

The excitement is building: for the first time in history, the Pope is issuing an encyclical on the environment… but wait, why is this important?

Pope_Francis

Two details:

1. The Pope presides over the largest religious body with a single human head: Catholicism. He is influential.

2. The encyclical is the second most important document the Pope can issue and is the first of its kind to address environmental issues. The letter is a significant event.

However, influence + significant event has an uncertain outcome.

My Twitter companions @CatholicEcology @CatholicClimate and @CathClimateMvmt are certainly counting down the days till its issue and are responding to Pope Francis’ prayer intention for this month, intending “that people may learn to respect creation and care for it as a gift of God” which supports the push to recognize April as Care for Creation Month (here).

The speculation is that the encyclical will be issued this summer.

This Wednesday (April 8th) some of my intellectual elders, Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grimm, who convene Yale University’s Joint-Degree in (and an associated forum of) Religion and Ecology will be holding a panel to explore the relevance of this encyclical.

Watch their overview of the importance of this encyclical here where John Grimm calls the encyclical a “game changer” and points toward its effect on behavior change.

This panel is titled:
“Pope Francis and the Environment: Why His New Climate Encyclical Matters”

In the overview video here, Mary Evelyn Tucker suggests that this encyclical will impact scientists and policy makers as well as people of faith. As one who is currently pursuing degrees in Duke’s Divinity School and Nicholas School of the Environment, and who has been influenced by the work of Mary Evelyn Tucker and John Grimm, I certainly appreciate the Pope’s focus on ecology/environment/climate and agree that a ethical/moral vision must run parallel to scientific understanding. Indeed, I believe science should be both informed and guided by such a vision.

It turns out that science has always been a product of a time and place and certain people’s interactions therein. This finding has nulled the absolute objectivity of science and the scientist. In many ways this finding has already permeated throughout the university system. However, I attest that the ramifications of fully appreciating the integration of subjective and objective viewpoints within historically-flavored, institutionally-structured worldviews is complex. Further, the epistemological consequences of this finding are inconvenient for a disciplined world.

This finding has led the university to a sluggish need to acknowledge, and be conversant with, what has previously been happily located within the domains of other disciplines. This is a huge endeavor given, for instance, the present gulf between humanities and science classrooms. While this gulf may have been bridged conceptually in many academic settings, it is more difficult to bridge this gap and build collaborations in practice.

The inconvenience and uncertainty in collaborative and interdisciplinary practice is manifest in our environmental predicament which continually proves to be all but environmental. This gulf has been associated with an institutionally-embedded immaterial/material split that creates artificially separate spheres relegated to religion and science respectively. This general problem has been treated in different ways– historical, philosophical, etc. The split is characterized as a problem in that religion is rendered impotent and science amoral. Or generally in that thought has lost its referent in action and action has voided thought. However, without delving into the literature, it is apparent that religious leaders are often ill-equipped to communicate science or garner action and scientists are often ill-equipped to communicate values or to understand the social and cultural ramifications of their work.

Ecology is making amends. Theology is making amends.

Into this gulf, the Pope’s encyclical will be delivered.

francis-garden

And this is timely work given the framing of international policy with the upcoming UN Climate Change Conference.

The Pontifical Pundit should indeed now step into the bully pulpit to sound an alarm on the pressing sustainability issues we face and perhaps by doing so we can more fully come to terms with the interrelation of social, economic, ecological issues.

Perhaps systemic oppressions and other structural dysfunctions will come to the fore over the minutia we often concern ourselves with. Perhaps we can begin to feel vulnerable enough to admit the limits of our knowledge and knowledge itself for addressing a problem which is as fully human as we are or fail to be.

A promising update comes from a March 30, 2015 international meeting of 17 Anglican Bishops who issued a declaratory report, titled “The World Is Our Host: A Call to Urgent Action for Climate Justice.” Interfaith Power and Light recaps what I see as the promising aspect here, being a call to specific action as informed by their faith and larger ethical commitments:

“The Declaration commits the bishops to specific first actions including: energy conservation measures in church buildings; more renewable energy; nurturing biodiversity on church land; supporting sustainability in water, food, agriculture and land use reviewing churches’ investment practices including a call for divestment; and closer ecumenical and interfaith co-operation” (read more here).

I will certainly be listening to what the Pope has to say. Will there be a response in Paris?