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Can Faith Slow Climate Change?

Scientific American |

In Brief...

Give us all a reverence for the Earth as your own creation, that we may use its resources rightly in the service of others and to your honor and glory.. The prayer was recited regularly by a young Sally Bingham growing up in San Francisco.. Only years later, as an ordained Episcopal Church priest, did Bingham realize something was amiss with the childhood supplication.. Bingham founded what today is Interfaith Power and Light, a national campaign promoting "a religious response to global warming" that works with 10,000 congregations in 38 states.. "If you are called to love your neighbor, you don't pollute your neighbor's air," Bingham said.. "As evangelicals become more vocal on climate change, they have the potential to alter the position of the Republican party," said Green, director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics for Religious Studies at the University of Akron and senior fellow at Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.. "All of these [religious] voices have had considerable impact on climate change because they have been able to mobilize many of their followers to favor regulation or other efforts to ameliorate climate change," said Green.. Bingham lobbied Congress for this year's failed climate bill and encourages religious leaders to talk about climate change "as a matter of faith, not as a matter of Republican or Democrat," she said.. "Because we are deeply rooted in theology that says we are the stewards of creation, we need to be the people who lead this movement," Bingham said.. Part of the success of religious climate action is made possible by reframing the climate issue in religious, value-based terms rather than political or scientific, Bingham explained. "If we can take a values-based message to our legislators," Bingham said, "we have a better shot of getting climate legislation than an environmental community or, quite frankly, even a scientist. In sermons and Sunday school, Groverland also asks his congregation to address climate change in their personal lives by driving less, saving water and using energy-efficient light bulbs.. In last year's 350 Day of Climate Action in Boulder, Groverland and much of the Unity Church congregation rode their bikes to the nearby Valmont coal plant to rally for clean energy..

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