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11/12/03 -- New York City --- Under threatening
skies, nearly three hundred worshipers joined clergy from diverse faith traditions
this afternoon in a service of “repentance and renewal” at the United
Nations to stop global warming. Asking the world’s forgiveness for the United
States’ failure to address climate change, worship leaders pledged to mobilize
faith communities to protect the environment.
The service marked the fifth anniversary of the United States’ signing
the Kyoto Protocol to address global warming. Congress never signed the treaty,
which President Bush has rejected as too costly.
“Every religious tradition forbids theft, but global warming steals from
our own children and grandchildren,” said Rev. Fred Small, Co-chair of Religious
Witness for the Earth, which organized the service. “As Americans, we repent
our nation’s recklessness. As people of faith, we ask our political leaders
to stop the despoliation of God’s creation.”
Other speakers included Enele Sopoaga, ambassador to the UN from Tuvalu, a
small Pacific island nation facing inundation by rising sea levels caused by global
warming; Bishop Bud Cederholm, Jr., of the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts;
Rabbi Sheila Peltz Weinberg of The Spirituality Institute; and Rev. Rosemary Bray
McNatt, representing the Unitarian Universalist Association.
Anne “Andy” Burt, a Quaker from Edgecomb, Maine, drove nearly seven
hours in a biodiesel-fueled van to attend the service. “I have three little
grandchildren, and I don’t want them to live under the tyranny of a degrading
planet,” Burt explained. “Climate change is a curse upon creation,
but it’s a blessing if it calls us to heal our relationship with the earth
and with each other.”
Worshipers gathered in the morning at the Community Church of New York and
then walked about 20 blocks to Dag Hammarskjold Plaza across from the United Nations.
After the service, some joined small groups to meet with over a dozen diplomatic
missions to the United Nations while others attended a workshop led by Ross Gelbspan,
a Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist turned climate activist.
Traveling to the event, some participants literally “walked the talk”
of reducing carbon emissions. Four Buddhist monks led a contingent of walkers
all the way from Western Massachusetts last week. Others arrived from neighboring
states in fuel-efficient hybrid cars or vans powered by biodiesel made from vegetable
oil. On a chartered bus from Littleton, Massachusetts, riders paid an extra five
dollars to purchase renewable energy offsetting the carbon dioxide pollution from
their trip.
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