Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - Faith

Reverend Kimberly Morrow Author

06/08/2016 Added

354 Plays

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Seminar on Climate Change for the Climate Change Seminar for Elected Officials of the Nebraska Legislature Faith

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[00:00:00.284]I said after that introduction,
[00:00:01.885]I could start with all kinds of interesting ways.
[00:00:04.015]I could start with a blessing.
[00:00:05.609]I can start with a prayer,
[00:00:07.359]a round of someone's favorite hymn,
[00:00:09.901]but I'm not gonna do any of those things. (laughs)
[00:00:13.826]Thank you for having me.
[00:00:14.722]We're gonna switch gears a little bit now
[00:00:17.265]talking about faith communities and climate change.
[00:00:20.071]To introduce myself, I wear several different hats.
[00:00:25.000]I came to Nebraska six years ago as a minister.
[00:00:28.547]I was hired at First Plymouth Church,
[00:00:30.567]which is a large UCC, United Church of Christ congregation
[00:00:33.984]here in Lincoln,
[00:00:35.803]and I started the Sustainable Living Ministry there.
[00:00:38.137]I started looking at questions of how to integrate
[00:00:40.717]environmental sustainability with local communities,
[00:00:43.814]in that sense, the very local community of a congregation.
[00:00:47.620]I had learned about climate change some years before
[00:00:51.150]and was very concerned about what it meant
[00:00:53.992]for human communities,
[00:00:55.512]and how it was going to affect human beings
[00:00:58.119]in vulnerable populations,
[00:00:59.852]and actually any kind of human being around the world.
[00:01:06.979]I felt a natural combination with my ministry
[00:01:09.699]and this sort of place I had put myself in professionally
[00:01:13.829]as someone who had made a kind of vow in my organization
[00:01:18.263]to care for human beings, and care for human community,
[00:01:22.066]and when I understood the grave threat of climate change,
[00:01:25.036]I wanted to be a minister
[00:01:27.275]who was working on climate change in some way.
[00:01:30.530]I didn't know what form that was going to take at the time,
[00:01:32.953]but I felt drawn to work on this problem
[00:01:35.702]because I perceived it to be the biggest problem
[00:01:38.877]that human community will have in my life time.
[00:01:42.588]As the years have progressed,
[00:01:43.970]I've found lots of interesting ways to work on this issue
[00:01:46.468]from the faith angle,
[00:01:48.817]starting, as I said, at Faith Plymouth Church.
[00:01:50.398]Later I became the director
[00:01:51.837]of Nebraska Interfaith Power and Light,
[00:01:53.737]which is a non-profit
[00:01:55.047]whose mission is to facilitate the faith community's
[00:01:57.368]response to climate change.
[00:01:59.205]I did that for three years,
[00:02:01.342]and then about one year ago I started working
[00:02:03.298]with Dr. John Wilhite here at the university,
[00:02:05.425]and I helped to facilitate the series of round tables
[00:02:08.412]that you heard so much about today.
[00:02:10.773]Since my boss decided to retire,
[00:02:13.260]which was not very cool,
[00:02:14.697]I had to find another physician.
[00:02:16.982]Actually, just yesterday I started as a senior associate
[00:02:19.839]at Verdis Group,
[00:02:21.149]which is a sustainability consulting company.
[00:02:25.015]Those are all my hats.
[00:02:28.982]You may or may not be aware,
[00:02:29.815]but there is a growing religious environmental movement
[00:02:32.193]around the country and around the world.
[00:02:35.099]Probably you all heard about the release
[00:02:37.044]of Pope Francis's encyclical which was last June.
[00:02:40.963]It's called Laudato Si': On Care for Our Common Home.
[00:02:45.421]I imagine several people in this room are Catholic.
[00:02:49.205]Nebraska has a very large percentage of Roman Catholics
[00:02:52.038]in this state, also Lutherans.
[00:02:54.055]Those are the two highest denominations in our state.
[00:02:56.530]Perhaps some of you have read this,
[00:02:59.139]but even if you're not Roman Catholic,
[00:03:00.653]I would encourage you to read it.
[00:03:02.205]It's really an incredible document.
[00:03:04.162]It's easily accessible.
[00:03:05.355]You can buy this on Amazon for not very much money,
[00:03:07.839]and it's easy to read,
[00:03:09.501]and very compelling with how he lays out the issues
[00:03:13.640]in moral terms.
[00:03:15.554]It used to be that it was kind of odd
[00:03:17.814]for faith-based people to be talking about climate change,
[00:03:20.775]but it has been growing exponentially, really,
[00:03:23.609]in recent years.
[00:03:24.506]Every major religious denomination usually has an arm
[00:03:28.660]that is working on environmental sustainability,
[00:03:32.068]working on climate change from various degrees.
[00:03:35.512]Some people are tightening their carbon footprint
[00:03:39.587]of their buildings,
[00:03:40.981]and tightening up the way
[00:03:42.112]their congregations use their buildings.
[00:03:44.467]Others are working on advocacy issues,
[00:03:47.711]divesting from fossil fuels,
[00:03:49.818]all kinds of other issues.
[00:03:52.286]Every major religious group is working on this issue,
[00:03:56.076]and they have growing power.
[00:03:59.817]There's a quote.
[00:04:00.716]I didn't bring it with me, but there's a quote
[00:04:02.101]that I often use in my presentations from Gus Speth,
[00:04:04.593]who's a scientist,
[00:04:05.884]who's the founder of the Natural Resources Defense Council,
[00:04:08.376]and he was giving a speech to religious leaders
[00:04:10.619]a couple of years ago.
[00:04:11.769]He said that he used to think
[00:04:13.514]that the top environmental problems facing the world
[00:04:15.593]were climate change, environmental degradation,
[00:04:19.143]and the loss of habitat for species.
[00:04:25.290]Then he realized over time that he was wrong,
[00:04:28.403]and that the top problems facing the world
[00:04:30.579]were greed, selfishness, and apathy.
[00:04:33.222]"For that," he said,
[00:04:34.429]"We need a spiritual and cultural transformation."
[00:04:37.314]He said, "We scientists don't know how to do that."
[00:04:40.357]He said to these religious leaders, "We need your help."
[00:04:43.981]That's kind of a charge, I think,
[00:04:45.490]that a lot of religious leaders have had,
[00:04:47.432]that they see their work as being people
[00:04:49.775]who can take this dialogue
[00:04:52.011]out of the very charged political realm,
[00:04:54.891]and bring it into the moral realm
[00:04:57.656]because you have questions about the earth,
[00:05:01.286]about the natural world that sustains us
[00:05:03.863]are ultimately questions of morality.
[00:05:09.700]They're human questions, really.
[00:05:11.079]They're human questions about life.
[00:05:12.839]They should not be political footballs.
[00:05:17.887]That's the advantage that the faith community has
[00:05:20.654]to build bridges.
[00:05:22.933]That's what the work
[00:05:23.864]that Nebraska Interfaith Power and Light has done
[00:05:25.957]is to really try to build bridges
[00:05:27.264]between groups that might be seen
[00:05:30.513]as liberals or conservatives,
[00:05:32.343]to break down those barriers,
[00:05:33.732]to encourage conversations
[00:05:35.081]among all different kinds of people,
[00:05:36.828]and to really make space for those conversations
[00:05:39.635]that might not happen otherwise.
[00:05:41.686]The work that we do
[00:05:43.507]is we give a lot of talks in congregations in Nebraska.
[00:05:47.409]We hold an annual conference.
[00:05:48.684]We just had that in April at Sheridan Lutheran Church.
[00:05:53.678]Our topic this year was on farming and faith,
[00:05:56.222]holistic responses to climate change.
[00:05:58.465]Our keynote speaker was Doug Dittman
[00:06:00.317]who's a farmer at Branched Oak Farms.
[00:06:02.412]He gave a really wonderful talk
[00:06:04.551]about respecting the health of ecosystems
[00:06:08.085]including how humans live within ecosystems.
[00:06:10.871]That's just an example of some of the work that we do.
[00:06:14.152]Why is climate change a moral issue?
[00:06:17.269]It is a moral issue because one,
[00:06:20.370]we all share a common origin.
[00:06:22.948]All creatures in the biotic community
[00:06:26.438]share a common origin in that we all,
[00:06:28.828]we could look at that biblically
[00:06:30.490]in how life came to be on the earth in the very beginning,
[00:06:35.162]and also just in the sense of sharing life itself.
[00:06:39.649]Also, as Pope Francis says over and over again
[00:06:41.707]in his encyclical,
[00:06:43.073]all of life in interconnected,
[00:06:45.419]and we have a responsibility for protecting the life
[00:06:48.571]that sustains us.
[00:06:50.661]Climate change will affect
[00:06:52.868]the most vulnerable people of the world first
[00:06:55.284]and most dramatically.
[00:06:58.503]Again, it's a very important teaching
[00:07:00.004]in Catholic moral philosophy.
[00:07:01.452]We have a responsibility
[00:07:02.538]to the people who are most vulnerable among us.
[00:07:06.589]In terms of what the faith community means
[00:07:09.676]or what the faith community has said
[00:07:13.050]for climate change in Nebraska,
[00:07:15.058]I just made a list of some of the things,
[00:07:18.094]some of the issues that I'm concerned about,
[00:07:20.244]that we're concerned about.
[00:07:21.527]Primarily, it's concern for people.
[00:07:23.752]We are concern for livestock,
[00:07:25.702]and for species and ecosystems,
[00:07:27.761]but I think faith communities and ministries
[00:07:31.763]are generally, primarily concerned with people.
[00:07:35.674]You've heard a lot of presentations today
[00:07:37.431]about statistics, and graphs,
[00:07:39.414]and high-temperature stress days,
[00:07:41.169]and droughts, and floods, and all of that,
[00:07:43.266]but what we are looking at is drilling that down
[00:07:46.193]to a human level.
[00:07:47.374]How will those temperature changes affect the elderly?
[00:07:51.660]How will they affect agriculture workers?
[00:07:54.407]How will they affect people
[00:07:55.954]who can't afford air conditioning,
[00:07:57.780]or who cannot afford fluctuations
[00:07:59.836]in their monthly electric bill?
[00:08:01.462]Those are the realities of climate change.
[00:08:04.159]How will heat and drought affect farmers, of course?
[00:08:07.249]How will it affect their economic output,
[00:08:09.057]but how will it affect them personally also?
[00:08:12.117]There's an interfaith group of churches in Nebraska
[00:08:16.218]that run a farm crisis hotline,
[00:08:18.525]and they get an astonishing number of phone calls
[00:08:22.146]from farmers all across the county.
[00:08:24.140]I just recently reviewed the statistics on it.
[00:08:27.535]When there are economic hardships in the state of Nebraska,
[00:08:30.475]the calls to that crisis line spike.
[00:08:33.278]What also spikes is issues like substance abuse
[00:08:36.414]on the part of farmers, anyone, affected by economic loss,
[00:08:39.893]substance abuse, domestic violence,
[00:08:43.953]emotional trauma, all of those things.
[00:08:46.371]Those are human effects that can be started
[00:08:50.915]by this trickle-down affect of climate change effects.
[00:08:54.314]Another question is how will flooding
[00:08:56.201]affect Lincoln residents?
[00:08:58.223]For example, many of us were affected
[00:08:59.723]by the floods just this month, and also last month.
[00:09:03.018]Those have real economic consequences
[00:09:05.457]to many, many residents.
[00:09:07.815]Of course, how will changes int eh growing conditions
[00:09:09.799]affect the Nebraska economy?
[00:09:11.569]That affects all of us.
[00:09:16.017]Those are some of the issues
[00:09:17.057]that the faith community is concerned about,
[00:09:19.054]and I would like to close with a quote from Pope Francis.
[00:09:24.077]Pope Francis, in the encyclical said,
[00:09:26.586]"It is no longer enough then,
[00:09:28.111]"simply to state that we should be concerned
[00:09:30.267]"for future generations.
[00:09:32.008]"We need to see that what is at stake is our own dignity.
[00:09:36.042]"Leaving an inhabitable planet to future generations
[00:09:39.035]"is first and foremost up to us.
[00:09:42.394]"The issue is one which dramatically affects us
[00:09:44.735]"for it has to do with the ultimate meaning
[00:09:46.993]"of our earthly sojourn."
[00:09:50.283]I have brochures here that describe the work
[00:09:53.836]of Nebraska Interfaith Power and Light if you're interested,
[00:09:55.958]and I also have a discussion guide.
[00:09:58.245]This is created by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops.
[00:10:01.239]It's a discussion guide that goes along with the encyclical.
[00:10:04.466]I have extra copies here if you'd like to take one.
[00:10:07.723]I'm happy to take any questions.
[00:10:09.762]Thanks.
[00:10:11.734]Any questions for Kim?
[00:10:14.334]What we tried to do today
[00:10:16.388]is to include a lot of different perspectives,
[00:10:19.624]and Kim has been working not only from a scientific
[00:10:24.656]with Don and the university,
[00:10:26.974]but also from the faith-based community.
[00:10:29.825]It really has been an important part,
[00:10:31.910]she has been an important part
[00:10:33.974]of elevating climate change
[00:10:36.002]in the minds of Nebraskans.
[00:10:38.342]Thank you very much. I appreciate that.
[00:10:40.284]My pleasure.
[00:10:41.280]And good luck on your new job.
[00:10:42.479]Thank you. (laughs)

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Nebraska Legislature - Special Committee - Climate Change Seminar - Faith

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