EJC Voices

It has been two years since I began working with the North Carolina Council of Churches, and I can genuinely say that all of the passion and support I have received has strengthened my commitment to the social justice movement. As my time working at the Council comes to a close this year, I would like to reflect on the achievements we have made together.

From lobbying on Capitol Hill to marching in the streets of NYC, the two and a half years I’ve dedicated to working at the Council’s Eco-Justice Connection (EJC) initiative have been extraordinary. I still vividly remember the first event I attended, during the blistering summer heat, it was a gathering organized by a coalition of community leaders who would shape a new Carbon Plan for North Carolina’s sustainable future. While rallying outside the Wake County Courthouse, hearing the personal experiences of frontline leaders, something within me fundamentally shifted. I felt encouraged to live my truth and advocate for the collective vision presented before me: community building must be at the forefront of a just climate transition. Newly inspired, I surprised myself by giving testimony for the first time.

One year later, in June 2023, I was invited to Washington, D.C., to protest the Mountain Valley Pipeline. With a year of experience under my belt, I lobbied on the Hill alongside frontline fighters and lifelong friends. The next day, I stood outside the White House, putting my body on the front lines as we demanded no new pipelines. I realized this message couldn’t stop with just speaking with officials. Later that October, I volunteered as a marshal, marching alongside thousands of young people determined to end the era of fossil fuels. Just as I was invited to DC by those who valued youth voices, I sought to return the favor tenfold. EJC sponsored over 50 students to attend that historic event, and their faces made the front page of the New York Times.

This year has led to even more opportunities for growth and collaboration:

1. I joined a prestigious cohort of youth climate faith leaders at Duke University in January.
2. Utilizing my connections with other youth organizers, we spearheaded the establishment of the Youth Climate Policy Council, raising $40,000 for collective youth advocacy and travel funds.
3. I spoke as an instructor, facilitator, and participant at a week-long Climate Reparations Camp with over twenty BIPOC young adults, who created long-term community organizing tactics.
4. With the key leadership of EJC staff, we launched a communications and climate finance campaign. Due to our combined efforts, I was able to organize a NYC Climate Week event with our national partners.
5. EJC led listening sessions with coastal community members to enhance environmental literacy and action. I built connections with those most impacted by the climate crisis in one-on-one interviews that the federal government will utilize to improve its outreach.

As 2025 approaches, one question remains: what’s next? I will be leaving my role as the Eco-Justice Connection Program Coordinator to focus on my passion for youth engagement, public speaking, and graphic design. Although I will be moving away from North Carolina, I hope to continue nurturing the connections I have built both within the state and beyond. This is a critical time in history as we teeter on the edge of ecological collapse. The climate justice movement must advance in the battle against ecological degradation and extractive ideology. By acting locally and strengthening our global connections, we can reclaim the power that has long been held by corporations rather than by the impacted communities our leaders are meant to serve. The Eco-Justice Connection (EJC) embodies this justice-centered mindset by emphasizing the importance of partnerships. Only by working together can we achieve our goals.

Pope Francis once said we must “build bridges, not walls.” At EJC, we’ve focused on becoming that bridge. It is time we invest in our future. From overwhelming heat waves encasing our communities to the intense hurricanes and floods affecting our coastlines, EJC addresses the real impacts of the climate crisis and creates a call to action for our politicians to face the challenges posed by this global issue.

However, this vision cannot be accomplished alone. If you wish to support EJC’s mission, I strongly encourage you to donate. Every contribution makes a difference. Without the help of individual donors, I would not have been able to focus so much of my time and energy on youth organizing, international solidarity, and phasing out fossil fuels.

These past few years have been incredibly significant in my journey as an environmental justice activist and organizer. As I transition to a new phase in my life, I have faith that EJC will continue to build bridges and create positive impacts for the Earth and its people for years to come.

I deeply believe that caring for the environment is not just a moral duty but a spiritual one. God entrusted us with the stewardship of creation, and it is imperative that we understand that the climate crisis is not a distant threat; it is a present reality that not only disproportionately affects the poor and marginalized—the very people that our faith calls us to love and serve—but also communities that have ways and means—for truly no one is exempt from the fury of extreme weather.  From a theological perspective, the Earth is a sacred gift, and its degradation is a violation of our divine calling to care for what God has created.

I have spent almost 30 years trying to understand how I can be most impactful as an environmental justice activist and in my role as director of NC Interfaith Power & Light I have offered 100+ presentations on why people of faith should be at the forefront of developing and implementing solutions to address the climate crisis. Yet it was only just before the pandemic that I learned the term “global equitable climate finance” and was inspired that where the Bible directs that those who have been blessed with abundance must share with those in need, this principle directly applies to the global climate crisis. 

For the past 5 years, I have been learning the concept of a climate finance “fair share.” This principle emphasizes that each country should contribute to global climate goals based on factors like:

• Historical Responsibility: The amount of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases a country has emitted historically.
• Economic Capacity: The wealth and economic development of a country, which affects its ability to mitigate climate change.
• Equity: The need to ensure that developing countries, which have contributed less to the problem, are not expected to bear the same burden as wealthier countries.

Once we, as people of faith recognize the primary pillars of fair shares we must ask how this is regulated, and how do we ensure that countries that have caused the most harm will finance the reparations, mitigations, and adaptation solutions necessary to address this planetary crisis at scale? 

The Paris Agreement, adopted in 2015 at the United Nations climate negotiations was designed to answer these questions for governments, but as the years have passed it is clear that the countries that have caused the most harm are not willing to pay for the loss and damages or make the investments necessary to protect the most vulnerable, who are suffering first and worst around the world.

Therefore, NC Interfaith Power & Light—along with a coalition of 65+ climate action groups and frontline community leaders—has endorsed the US Fair Share Nationally Determined Contribution (“Fair Shares NDC”) laying out the updated measures the United States must commit to enacting to do its “fair share” of the global effort to limit global temperature rise to 1.5°C, based on its role and responsibility as the world’s wealthiest country and largest historical carbon polluter.

The Fair Shares NDC served as a rallying call for climate justice policy during the 2024 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) at the 29th Global Conference of Parties (COP29).

Regardless of who holds political office, we must continue to educate, inspire, and mobilize people of faith and conscience to engage in the programmatic work on international climate finance, which aims to phase out fossil fuels and hold the U.S. accountable for historical emissions.

Together, we can ensure that God’s creation is not only protected but also restored, so that all people—especially the most vulnerable—can thrive. Our faith compels us to act with urgency and love for our neighbors, both near and far. Climate finance is not charity—it is justice.

To become part of the Global Fair Share Movement sign up here.

Watch 6min. Explainer Video: https://usfairshare.org/video/

The following sermon was delivered by Susannah Tuttle, Eco-Justice Connection Director, on Earth Day Sunday at Binkley Baptist Church. Click here to listen.

Everywhere we look in our culture, you will find plastic. It surrounds our food, it makes up our technology and it is a standard element in our household items. Unfortunately, it is also overflowing from our landfills, floating in our waters, and polluting our soil. More and more, you can even find it in our own bodies and those of other living creatures. There have even been traces of plastic found in breast milk. Despite the fact that we have learned the harms of plastics, we are steadily increasing our production of the material and integrating it into more and more items. 

Plastic is everywhere!  

One place where you will not find plastic, however, is in the Bible. 

How strange to think that something so ubiquitous to our world as plastic would be completely alien to our fore-parents in faith. At last summer’s Pastoral Care for Climate at the Duke University Marine Lab, Dr. Ellen Davis said that “we in the present-day Western world have more distance from the world of the Bible than any other culture in history.”

That’s not just in terms of time but also in terms of technology, attitudes, and disconnection from the non-human world around us.  

Justice for creation requires a rethinking of our relationship to plastics. 

Is it enough that we recycle and find alternatives to single-use items to reduce the amount of plastic that ends up in landfills? 

How do we account for the fact that plastics are often produced in historically oppressed communities so that their very production harms the health of Black, Brown, and poor White communities? 

Do we even have the means to remove enough plastic from our rivers, lakes and the ocean to preserve the bioregions made vulnerable by plastic waste?

If the Bible doesn’t speak of plastic, how should we people of faith do so?  

How do we address plastic’s impact on our health and the health of the living things around us from a theological perspective?

I want to share with you a poll titled:

Poll: People Want Action on Plastics for Health and Wildlife
New poll results show overwhelming public support for government action to address the plastic crisis, including a strong global plastics treaty.

Beginning April 23, for two weeks in Ottawa, Canada, 190 nations are preparing to meet for the next round of negotiations on an international treaty to address the global plastic crisis. 

In anticipation, a new national poll that the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) released on April 15th, 2024, shows that the public overwhelmingly supports a strong treaty that will reduce the production of plastic, eliminate the most toxic forms of plastic and toxic chemical additives, and increase public transparency on the production and use of chemicals in plastic. 

The poll shows the widespread concern of Americans across the political spectrum about the impacts of plastic pollution on drinking water quality, health, oceans, and wildlife. The poll’s results are good news for policymakers who are serious about addressing the plastics crisis, including via a strong global treaty. Some concerns are basic to just about everyone, with ensuring that there’s enough clean drinking water for themselves and their families being at the top of the list. Given that microplastics and the toxic chemicals they carry pose a very real and immediate threat to the purity of drinking water (a recent investigation found microplastics in 94 percent of U.S. tap water samples) and to people’s health, it’s no wonder that people want to see all levels of government address the problem.

NRDC’s poll results demonstrate that the public wants to see the United States take a leadership role in addressing the plastics crisis, including as part of the negotiations for the global plastics treaty. 

The question is: Will that leadership materialize in time for the upcoming round of negotiations in the next two weeks? 

To date, the U.S. Department of State has largely taken weak and unhelpful positions, serving more as a brake on achieving a meaningful treaty than ensuring that we get one. 

The chemical and plastics industries have continued to throw up objections to any treaty provisions that would have a meaningful impact on plastic production, decrease the toxicity of plastics, or increase transparency, while offering approaches—such as “voluntary” reporting on the toxic chemicals in plastic for example—that they know will lead to no real change. 

So what else is new? The issue isn’t whether the United States has the authority to support a strong treaty; it is whether the political will exists to ignore the chemical industry and their supporters, inside and outside of government, and instead listen to the public and prioritize their interests in clean water and a healthy environment. 

The theme of this year’s Earth Day—and the whole month of April—is the plastic pollution crisis. Now would be the ideal time for the administration, Congress, and state legislators to tune in to the public’s concerns and act on their behalf, by recognizing that we can’t recycle our way out of this crisis, rejecting the chemical industry’s so-called “chemical recycling” as the greenwashing of plastic incineration, and instead adopting production limits on plastic, banning most single-use plastics, and getting toxic chemicals out of plastic.

We Shall Not Want?  

Psalm 23: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures; he leads me beside still waters (verses 1-2) 

Plastic, in both its production and its disposal, disrupts the pastoral image that the psalmist invokes. Still waters and green pastures are replaced with toxic chemicals and oil fields. Places like “Cancer Alley” in Louisiana could easily be considered the valley of the shadow of death. 

The well-known 23rd Psalm paints a picture of a world where those who trust in God are cared for, protected, and guided along life’s journey. The opening suggests a person who has, because of this relationship with God, found contentment. Note that much of the author’s contentment has some connection to the natural world: green pastures, still waters, a head anointed with oil, an overflowing cup, a well-stocked table.  

Perhaps what is lost in our plastic world is the recognition that the places that restore our soul are the places left untouched by human hands. 

Perhaps the invitation here is to recognize that creation gives us all that we need if only we are attentive to its gifts. 

Prayers of Gratitude

We know there is much to be thankful for, even in our plastic crisis. We acknowledge that plastic is a useful resource when used appropriately, as in many life-saving medical applications. We can also give thanks for the many people leading the way in tackling the misuse of plastic and uniting to take action to be good stewards of your Earth. 

Thank you, God, for organizations that fight tirelessly for the betterment of us all. Organizations that honor Indigenous voices and wisdom as they do the crucial work of making connections between these dangerous impacts on the human, plant and animal health and the fossil-fuel driven production of plastics in the region.

Thank you, God, for the thousands of people worldwide who take part in plastic-free efforts, reducing their own reliance on single-use plastic and encouraging others to understand the damage plastics are doing to creation and our global neighbors.

Thank you, God, for the new global plastics treaty negotiations that are taking place during 2023 and 2024 and the opportunity to tackle our plastic crisis as a global community.

Thank you, God, for people of faith for whom love of creation and care for God’s world is a core piece of their identity and who are using their creative gifts to reduce reliance on plastics and encourage others to bravely go against the flow of society standards.

We give thanks for all the voices working and praying for the day that will bring real change.  

Amen. 

Written words derived from Creation Justice Ministries Plastic Jesus toolkit.