Global Warming:
An Interfaith Call for Repentance and Renewal
Walk and Witness at the United Nations, November 12, 2003
On November 12, 1998, the United States and
83 other nations signed the Kyoto Protocol to address the dangers of global warming.
Congress never ratified it. The Bush administration has rejected it outright.
Meanwhile, greenhouse gas emissions soar out of control.
Unchecked, global warming will bring rising sea levels, storms, drought, disease,
agricultural collapse, displacement of peoples, species extinction, and incalculable
suffering to our children and grandchildren. The first victims are the poor and
powerless among us, along with nature itself.
People of faith and conscience cannot remain silent while creation is pillaged.
We in the United States, whose 4.5% of the world’s population contributes
25% of global greenhouse emissions, bear a moral responsibility to heal the earth’s
wounds and build a sustainable economy.
Five years later, on November 12, 2003, we invite
you to the United Nations for an interfaith service of repentance and renewal.
We will bear witness to the tragedy of global warming.
We will ask the world for forgiveness.
We will call upon the United States to rejoin the community of nations
in seeking solutions.
We will visit diplomatic missions of nations most affected.
And we will rededicate ourselves to faithful stewardship of the earth.
We ask for your prayers and your support.
Charter Signatories
Rev. Dr. Andrea Ayvazian, Dean of Religious Life,
Mt. Holyoke College,
Co-chair, Religious Witness for the Earth
Rev. Sally G. Bingham, Director, Regeneration Project and
Interfaith Power and Light
Sr. Maura Browne, SND, Coordinator, International Office of
Justice and Peace
for the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur
Rt. Rev. Roy F. (Bud) Cederholm, Jr.
Bishop Suffragan, Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts
Rt. Rev. Steven Charleston, President and Dean
of Episcopal Divinity School, former Bishop of Alaska
Rev. Dr. William Sloan Coffin, United Church of Christ
Rabbi Fred Schlerlinder Dobb, Adat Shalom Reconstructionist
Congregation,
Bethesda, Maryland, Co-Chair, Religious Witness for the Earth
Dr. Robert W. Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of
Churches USA
Professor Roger Gottlieb, Professor of Philosophy,
Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Editor, This Sacred Earth
Venerable Gyoweigh Kato, Nipponzan Myohoji, New England Peace
Pagoda
Sr. Chris Loughlin, OP, Director, Crystal Spring Earth Center
Sr. Miriam Therese MacGillis, OP, Genesis Farm,
A Learning Center for Re-Inhabiting the Earth
Dr. Ingrid Mattson, Vice-President, Islamic Society of North
America
Carolyn McDade, songwriter and musician
Bill McKibben, author, Enough, The End of Nature
Rev. William G. Sinkford, President,
Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations
Rev. Fred Small, First Church Unitarian, Littleton, Massachusetts,
Co-Chair, Religious Witness for the Earth
Rev. John H. Thomas, General Minister and President,
United Church of Christ
Rabbi Arthur Waskow, Director, The Shalom Center, Philadelphia
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg, The Spirituality Institute
Cora Weiss, President, Hague Appeal for Peace, United Nations
Organizations and affiliations listed for identification purposes
only.
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