EJC Voices

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We need a climate revival!

After another year of record-breaking climate disasters, environmental injustices are degrading our communities, God’s Creation, and democracy. This year, we’re changing the script. Let’s move from degradation to resilience, from brokenness to restoration, from death to revival!

Join us virtually on January 20, 2022 to launch a year of “Resilient Creation & Restored Communities: Voting for Climate Justice in 2022”!

Featured Speakers Include:

• Karenna Gore, founder and executive director of the Center for Earth Ethics at Union Theological Seminary in New York
• Dr. Randy Woodley, Distinguished Professor of Faith & Culture, Portland Seminary. Cherokee descendant. Public theologian and co-sustainer at Eloheh Indigenous Center for Earth Justice and Eloheh Farm
• Rev. Emmanuel Duncan, Senior Pastor of Gethsemane Baptist Church in Greenville and the Co-Chair of the Greenville Interfaith Justice Ministry
• Rev. Lennox Yearwood, President & CEO of Hip Hop Caucus, minister, and community activist
• Rev. Adam Taylor, president of Sojourners and author of A More Perfect Union: A New Vision for Building the Beloved Community

At this event, we will LEARN what’s at stake for our communities and climate in 2022, COMMIT to a year of engagement for resilience and restoration, and PRAY for a revival of climate justice.

Register Here!

Event hosted by the Southeast Faith Leaders Network (SFLN) with the support of the U.S. Climate Action Network.

SFLN Anchor Organizations include:

Creation Justice Ministries
Georgia Interfaith Power & Light
South Carolina Interfaith Power & Light
Alabama Interfaith Power & Light / The People’s Justice Council
North Carolina Interfaith Power & Light / North Carolina Council of Churches

2021 EPA Oil and Natural Gas Listening Sessions
EPA-HQ-OAR-2021-0295

Hello, my name is Susannah Tuttle. I am Director of the NC Interfaith Power & Light and serve as the Director of the Eco-Justice Connection at the NC Council of Churches. 

I am grateful for the opportunity to share my strong support for EPA’s proposed methane rules and urge EPA to strengthen the rules to maximize the benefits for public health and the environment. 

In 2004 I received my Masters in Divinity after studying at the Graduate Theological Union with a focus on ecological ethics. As a faith leader I have spent my entire career working to address the causes and consequences of global warming as a moral imperative. 

There is no doubt that Methane pollution is a profound threat to our health and our climate. The oil and gas industry is the largest source of methane pollution in the United States. Addressing this pollution, in the form of leaks from new and existing operations, is the low hanging fruit of climate solutions. 

People of faith see climate change as the greatest ethical and moral concern of our time. Not only do frontline communities, communities of color, the young and old suffer the most from climate change, they are affected most from methane pollution which is linked to our warming climate. We must work for strong methane rules. We must act now for life.

As people of faith and conscience, with a shared commitment for stewardship of our common home, Interfaith Power & Light’s congregational network supports strong and effective methane pollution safeguards. Using currently available technology, the U.S. can do its part to meet a global imperative, achieving a 65% reduction of methane from oil and gas by 2025 and more by the end of the decade.  As the largest historic emitter of climate warming pollution, the U.S. must do its fair share and dramatically reduce its methane pollution.

As you have already heard from so many experts across this country, EPA must strengthen the monitoring requirement. EPA should  require regular monitoring at smaller, high polluting wells. Hundreds of thousands of wells across the country generate just a trickle of usable product but are large and disproportionate emitters of methane. EPA has recognized in the proposal that a “low production” exemption is not appropriate. However, under EPA’s current proposal operators that calculate lower potential emissions could still escape regular leak monitoring. This is a big problem since operators wouldn’t be required to factor in super-emitters or equipment failures.

I echo all those who have already stated how flaring is another wasteful and avoidable practice that is rampant in the oil and gas production sector. When companies rush to extract oil, some forgo investments necessary to capture and sell gas and instead burn it as a waste product, emitting a host of climate and health-harming pollutants. Flares also commonly malfunction and spew methane directly into the atmosphere. Therefore EPA must move to end routine flaring.

All of these additions must be included before the proposal is finalized to ensure EPA is fully protecting our health and addressing the climate crisis.

We are pointed in the right direction, but we are running out of time to tackle the climate crisis, and we cannot miss out on this opportunity to protect public health and the environment. These proposed safeguards must be strengthened before they are finalized to ensure EPA is using the full force of the Clean Air Act to and truly meet this moment.

Finally I urge EPA to finalize this rulemaking as quickly as possible, climate change is an emergency and our planet cannot afford further delay. 

On behalf of my family, our communities, and the congregational networks I serve… I thank you for this opportunity to provide comments and I send prayers of peace & blessings to you all.

Susannah Tuttle, M.Div
NC Interfaith Power & Light
NC Council of Churches
November 30, 2021

Link to EPA process: https://www.epa.gov/controlling-air-pollution-oil-and-natural-gas-industry/epa-proposes-new-source-performance

NC Interfaith Power & Light and NC Council of Churches are signatories.
Read Letter Here

More Than 350 Groups Condemn Corporate Net-Zero Pledges as a Dangerous, Unjust Distraction

WASHINGTON 10/27/21 — 354 groups released a statement today calling “net-zero” emission pledges by corporations and governments a dangerous distraction from real climate action. This comes as the House Oversight and Reform Committee holds a hearing to ”examine the role of the fossil fuel industry in spreading climate disinformation and heating the planet.” 

CEOs and presidents from Exxon Mobil, BP America, Chevron, Shell Oil, the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. Chamber of Commerce will be testifying. Shell and BP have announced “ambitions” to be net-zero by 2050 and Chevron has announced a similar “aspiration.”

The hearing comes just days before COP 26, the United Nations’ climate negotiations taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, which many have dubbed the “net-zero” COP.

In their letterto government policymakers — including those from Biden Administration, Congress, and state and local governments — the groups describe these net-zero pledges as ineffective, unjust greenwashing drastically out of touch with the worsening climate crisis.

“Net zero targets are just the latest deception by polluting corporations, the U.S., and other governments to extricate themselves from undertaking the radical greenhouse gas emission reductions that science and justice require,” said Karen Orenstein, Director of the Climate & Energy Justice Program at Friends of the Earth U.S. ”But neither the atmosphere nor the people facing fires, floods, and other climate impacts are fooled. We call on the Biden Administration and Congress to commit to absolute reductions – full stop – and to say no to the corrupted concept of net-zero.”

“Pledges to meet net-zero emissions targets are really just carbon offsets and carbon capture technologies in disguise,” said Tom Goldtooth, Executive Director of the Indigenous Environmental Network. “Polluters and governments continue to spin new terms to confuse and distract from the fact that they intend to continue polluting Indigenous Peoples and Mother Earth. We do not have time for the net-zero false solution targets.”

“Net zero pledges by corporate agribusiness are another false solution to the climate crisis and an empty attempt to hijack meaningful debate and accountability on reducing pollution at the point of emission,” said Jordan Treakle, National Program Coordinator for the National Family Farm Coalition. “Polluting corporations have extracted wealth from rural and marginalized communities for decades; it’s well-past time for our public institutions and political leaders to respond to the needs of the People and drastically cut emissions from these corporate entities by 2030 through absolute reductions, while facilitating a Just Transition that prioritizes the resilience of frontline communities, workers, and independent food producers.”

“Net-zero is the language of the fossil fuel industry and provides for the continuing extraction and burning of fossil fuels,” said Joe Uehlein, President of Labor Network for Sustainability. “Net-zero supplements equally dangerous carbon capture technologies that have the same goal. Over 300 scientists just wrote to President Biden urging that we get off fossil fuels right now. Net-zero is not the way to accomplish that task.”

“Mississippi, the state with the highest percentage African-American population and one of the poorest states in the nation, is home to a $7.5 billion failed carbon capture sequestration plant,” said Kathy Egland, Co-Founder of Education, Economics, Environmental, Climate and Health Organization (EEECHO). “This risky experimental debacle is located in a poor, mostly Black town and would have posed an unbearable financial burden to ratepayers. Now Mississippi’s poor, Black communities are facing deadly exposures from the proliferation of toxic wood pellet manufacturing plants for ‘bioenergy.’ The idea of ‘net-zero’ emissions encourages the growth of these false solutions. We must end these human rights injustices and invest in a viable, just energy transition that will safeguard people and the planet.”

Background: What Corporations and Governments Mean by “Net-Zero”