by Clara Summers
When you have a group of 10,000 people (within a larger
group of 400,000), how do you speak in one voice? What do you sing?
At the People’s Climate March in NYC a few weekends ago, we
sang “We are marching in the Light of God.” I was surprised at how many people
knew this song, but I guess it makes sense: the words are easy to learn and
remember, the tune is accessible, and after all, the 10,000 singing were the
Interfaith contingent, so many of us were familiar with the hymn. We went on to
sing “We’ve got the whole world in OUR hands,” and after several hours of
barely-contained excitement, we finally started marching.
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| The Interfaith contingent at the People's Climate March |
I was at the People’s Climate March in my capacity as the
Baltimore Program Associate for Interfaith Power & Light, an organization
that does climate change education and advocacy among faith communities. Even
though I’ve only spent just over a month on the job, I’ve already been able to
carry out this mission on a variety of levels: through participation in the
People’s Climate March (to which we bused 180 people from the greater D.C.
metropolitan area), to testifying at a hearing on nitrogen oxide emissions from
coal fired power plants, to organizing almost fifty Baltimore homeowners to
install solar panels. Working with Interfaith Power & Light is incredibly
rewarding and empowering, and even if there are quieter days when I’m doing
data entry or taking conference calls, I know that I am working for something
far greater than myself, and that keeps me motivated.
What is this “far greater” thing I’m working for, though,
and why is it relevant to me as a person of faith? I will spare you all the
scientific details about climate science—those are available in plentiful
numbers anywhere you care to look—and instead address how climate change has
impacted my life and faith personally.
I spent two years of my childhood in Indonesia. My mother, a
conservation biologist, moved us there for her job, and proceeded to take me
and my brother on trips to natural areas all around the country. I experienced a
variety of natural wonders, such as seeing tarsiers jumping through the
rainforest, watching baby sea turtles erupting out of the sand like lava from a
volcano, and being chased by Komodo dragons. During these trips we always made
time to go snorkeling, and soon coral reefs became a fact of life for me. I
knew they were threatened, but only on an intellectual level; I figured they’d
always be there.
Seven years later I returned to some of those same spots
where I had snorkeled before, and was confronted by the reality of
environmental degradation as a result of climate change. In less than a decade,
many of the coral reefs that I had found so breathtaking and eerie had become
coral graveyards, thanks in large part to ocean acidification.[1]
The underwater landscape of my childhood was disappearing.
Two years later, I did a research program in Australia
focused on ecology. This was literally a dream come true, because if you know
anything about me, you know that I love koalas. I was truly blessed: I found an
expert on koalas who agreed to advise, fund, and provide two assistants for my
project, and was set loose on a national park in central Queensland where koala
research had been done before. My job was to do a vegetation assessment during
the day and spotlight for koalas and other arboreal marsupials at night. It was
the height of the koala breeding season, so the timing was perfect.
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| Why am I marching? The ribbon will tell you. |
Or so it should have been. We spent four days searching for
koalas at that site, and the most we got out of that time koala-wise was a
week-old urine stain. That same time the year before, six koalas had been
detected over a period of two days. I returned to my office to write a report
on why there were no koalas. Ultimately, that year had simply continued the
trend of koala decline, which had been attributed to severe drought. Drought
also played a role in my study, but koala decline at the site was further
exacerbated by a bushfire that had decimated much of the area. It would be bad
science to say that the drought and bushfire were only due to climate change,
but it would also be bad science to say that their intensity was not
exacerbated by climate change.[2]
While I feel a growing sadness at the biodiversity we have
lost in my own lifetime, climate change’s effect on me has been much less
damaging than it has been to others. When we think of climate change and our
energy usage, we need to broaden the scope to include the victims of Hurricane
Sandy, flooding in Pakistan, and extreme heat waves in California. We need to
think of those who live closest to coal fired power plants (which more often
than not are racial minorities), where asthma rates skyrocket, and those whose
water becomes undrinkable due to fracking. We need to think about communities
affected by mountaintop removal in Appalachia, where whole landscapes are blown
to smithereens (and where my own family cemetery has been disrupted by the
blasts). We need to think about the fact that farmers in central Sulawesi can
no longer grow cashews, because torrential rain prevents the trees from
fruiting. We need to think about the fact that farmers in the Sahel could lose
up to 50% of their agricultural output by 2020. We need to think about…we need
to think about…we need to think about…
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| We need to think about... |
The issue is overwhelming, and it is easy to throw up our
hands and say that nothing we do can make a difference; that the battle is
already lost. But as a person of faith, I cannot take the easy route of despair.
I am compelled to do the challenging thing and address my own energy usage just
as I lobby for change at the state, national, and international levels. To
some, the idea that we need to take personal responsibility for our
contribution to climate change may seem radical. To me, that has never been a
reason not to do the right thing; Jesus, after all, was all about being
radical. He called us to leave everything we know and follow God, and chided
those who focused on following rules instead of loving their neighbors and
acting for justice.
People of faith have a duty to stewardship of Creation, no
matter how hard that duty might be. No one ever said that religion was going to
be easy. As people of faith, we must acknowledge that wider, systemic change needs
to happen to combat climate change, but we also need to take action in our own individual
lives and not be complacent. The Good News of Jesus Christ, as my dad always said, is that we as
Christians are always given grace to overcome difficulties, no matter how
overwhelming they may seem.
There are many actions that we can take to address climate
change and our energy usage: turn off your lights and unplug your appliances
when you’re not using them. Walk, bike, or take public transportation whenever
possible. Buy locally-grown food and use energy-efficient light bulbs. If
you’re a homeowner or pay a utility bill, look into switching to solar or wind energy (it’s cheaper
than you think!). Minimize your use of plastic and reduce waste. Join your
local IPL affiliate (find it here).
And throughout all of these efforts, whenever you get discouraged, know that
you are “marching in the Light of God,” and that “He’s got the whole world in
His hands.”
I want to take a moment to acknowledge Episcopal Service
Corps Maryland and all who are involved in making it a success. I’m so happy to
be a Gilead this year and to have the opportunity to work on issues I care
about! Thank you for making it possible.
[1]
A brief lesson on how climate change affects coral reefs: rising concentrations
of carbon change the pH quality of ocean water, which leads to ocean
acidification. This creates a toxic environment for corals, which are very
sensitive to acidity and temperature. The final result is coral bleaching: the
tiny, colorful polyps that make up a larger coral wither and die, leaving a
skeleton that looks like pockmarked, bleached rock. Without corals, many of the
more eye-catching and interesting reef-dwellers either die or are forced to
move to a healthy reef, and snorkelers like me are left with only a memory of
what once was.
[2]
Want more details on climate change impacts on Australia? Read this article.
