Obama Speaks at Interfaith Climate Forum

Barack Obama addressed an interfaith audience about climate change, according to the AP article excerpted below:
By AMY LORENTZEN DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama said Sunday that his religious beliefs influence his plans for how to protect theenvironment.Speaking before religious leaders and others at what he called an"interfaith forum on climate change," the Illinois senator said God has entrusted humans with the responsibility of caring for the earth, and "weare not acting as good stewards of God's earth when our bottom line puts thesize of our profits before the future of our planet." "It is our responsibility to ensure that this planet remains clean and safeand livable for our children and for all of God's children," he told about200 people gathered at the downtown public library. "But in recent years, science has made it undeniably clear that our generation is not living up tothis responsibility. Global warming is not a someday problem, it is now."Last week, Obama released a plan to combat global warming that calls for an 80 percent reduction in U.S. carbon emissions by 2050.Obama said he would force industries and power companies to clean up theiroperations. He would institute a "cap and trade" approach that would require polluters to buy allowances, essentially putting a price on pollution andcreating an incentive to cut emissions.He said $150 billion from the sale of allowances could help drive thedevelopment of environmentally friendly technologies, including the next generation of biofuels, expansion of a delivery infrastructure andfuel-efficient vehicles."We've heard promises about energy independence from every single presidentsince Richard Nixon, but we are actually more dependent on oil today than ever before," he said.Obama said many of his rivals have talked about the issue but "have taken apass on it in years in Washington."He said he would ask the biggest carbon-emitting nations join the U.S. increating a global energy forum to develop climate protocols. He would alsoshare clean energy technologies with all nations.Obama also challenged individuals to do their part to help the environment, and he called for making government, businesses and homes 50 percent moreenergy efficient by 2030. He said he wants all federal government buildingscarbon neutral by 2025.
Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 22 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.htmEnjoy discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/.

"We Are Trying to Preserve...God's Creation"

The Oakland Tribune reported on the United State's rejection of the EU's climate plan.

The United States rejected the European Union's all-encompassing target on reduction of carbon emissions, President Bush's environmental adviser said Tuesday.
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, said the United States is not against setting goals but prefers to focus them on specific sectors, such as cleaner coal and reducing dependence on gasoline. "The U.S. has different sets of targets," he said.
Germany, which holds the European Union and Group of Eight presidencies, is proposing a so-called "two-degree" target, whereby global temperatures would be allowed to increase no more than 2 degrees Celsius — the equivalent of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit — before being brought back down. Practically, experts have said that means a global reduction in emissions of 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
Connaughton, on a one-week bipartisan trip to Europe with members of the House of Representatives, said the U.S. favors "setting targets in the context of national circumstances."
In Hamburg, Asian countries, including rising global powerhouses China and India, reluctantly agreed Tuesday to back European calls for a new climate change treaty by 2009 to limit greenhouse gases after the Kyoto Protocol expires.
The deal was a step forward for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's push for a climate deal at next week's G-8 summit.
Despite the disagreements, Connaughton said the G-8 meeting, which brings together the leaders of Germany, the U.S., Russia, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan, could still result in a productive conclusion.
"Let the G-8 process run its course," he said. "Give the leaders a chance."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who opposes Bush on climate policy, urged international cooperation in tackling climate change.
Pelosi, on a separate trip to Berlin, hailed Chancellor Angela Merkel's "extraordinary leadership" in fighting climate change and agreed "that these solutions must be multilateral."
"We are trying to preserve the planet, which many in our country, including I, believe is God's creation, and we have a responsibility to preserve it," Pelosi said, speaking alongside the German leader after a meeting at the chancellery.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

A Mighty (Green) Fortress

According to Chips, the student newspaper of Luther College in Iowa, Luther College President Richard Torgerson has joined a new Reformation--he is one of the first College presidents to sign a pledge to become a carbon-neutral institution.

“In the end, of course, it’s important that the president has this commitment,” said [Luther College religion professon Jim] Martin-Schramm. “But the only way this commitment will bear fruit is if more of us, or all of us, also make this commitment — make this a priority and recognize this as a genuine moral challenge that requires investment of time, resources and willingness to change how we do things.”

According to the article, Luther will conduct a comprehensive inventory of its carbon emissions and develop a plan to completely eliminate them. Luther will also work to integrate sustainability into its curriculum.

So far no word on whether the plan will be nailed to a door.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.

Getting With the Plan

According to an AP Report,

An international panel of scientists presented the United Nations with a sweeping, detailed plan on Tuesday to combat climate change – a challenge, it said, “to which civilization must rise.”Failure would produce a turbulent 21st century of weather extremes, spreading drought and disease, expanding oceans and displaced coastal populations, it said.“The increasing numbers of environmental refugees as sea levels rise and storm surges increase will be in the tens of millions,” panel co-chair Rosina Bierbaum, a University of Michigan ecologist, told reporters.
After a two-year study, the 18-member group, representing 11 nations, offered scores of recommendations: from pouring billions more dollars into research and development of cleaner energy sources, to mobilizing U.N. and other agencies to help affected people, to winning political agreement on a global temperature “ceiling.”Their 166-page report, produced at U.N. request and sponsored by the private United Nations Foundation and the Sigma Xi Scientific Research Society, was issued just three weeks after the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), an authoritative U.N. network of 2,000 scientists, made headlines with its latest assessment of climate science.
IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.