On March 24, the Episcopal Church sponsored a Webcast, “The Climate Change Crisis,” featuring a keynote by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and panels of experts on topics related to climate change in the context of faith.
Jefferts Schori said that climate change was a moral imperative akin to that of the civil rights movement. She said it was already a threat to the livelihoods and survival of people in the developing world.
“It is in that sense much like the civil rights movement in this country where we are attending to the rights of all people and the rights of the earth to continue to be a flourishing place,” Jefferts Schori said in an interview with the Guardian. “It is certainly a moral issue in terms of the impacts on the poorest and most vulnerable around the world already.”
In addition to the presiding bishop's keynote address, the Webcast included two panel discussions, one on regional impacts of climate change and another on reclaiming climate change as a moral issue.
Panelists included: The Rt. Rev. Marc Andrus, Bishop of the Diocese of California; Princess Daazhraii Johnson, former executive director of the Gwich'in Steering Committee, one of the oldest indigenous nonprofit groups in Alaska focused on protection of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge; Dr. Lucy Jones, a seismologist who serves as science advisor for risk reduction in the Natural Hazards Mission of the U.S. Geological Survey and is a visiting research associate at the Seismological Laboratory of Caltech; and Mary D. Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board and responsible for implementing California's greenhouse gas emissions legislation as well as setting air pollution standards for motor vehicles, fuels and consumer products.
The Webcast is available on demand here and has an accompanying facilitator’s guide for use in educational forums.
The Webcast also kicked off "30 Days of Action," an invitation for individuals to address climate change for 30 days, culminating on Earth Day, April 22. The "30 Days of Action" effort provides daily e-mails that share opportunities to learn, advocate, act, proclaim, eat, play and pray in ways that care for creation. Sign up for the e-mails here.