Presidential Candidates, Climate Change and Faith

This item comes from the national IPL Blog:

The League of Conservation Voters has pointed out a serious problem of priorities in the presidential debates thus far, to wit: out of 3201 questions asked of the candidates, only 8 have dealt with global warming.Interfaith Power and Light is doing something about that.In conjunction with Faith in Public Life and religious leaders from across the ideological spectrum, on April 13, the Rev. Canon Sally Bingham will be asking Sen. Hillary Clinton and/or Sen. Barack Obama a question on global warming! And she won't be the only one. In fact, the Compassion Forum is focused on just five important issues to folks of faith: domestic and international poverty, global AIDS, climate change, genocide in Darfur, and human rights and torture. Thus, climate change should get some due attention, and it is significant that this badly needed priority is happening in the faith context. Sen. John McCain has been invited, but not accepted yet."CNN will serve as the exclusive broadcaster of a presidential candidate forum on faith, values and other current issues at Messiah College near Harrisburg, Penn., on Sunday, April 13, at 8 p.m. (ET) CNN Election Center anchor Campbell Brown and Newsweek editor and Newsweek.com election anchor Jon Meacham will moderate what is being billed as The Compassion Forum, which will take place nine days before the Pennsylvania primary."Newsweek has an interesting article up arguing that no matter which candidate wins in November, environmental policy will be different:
The environment, which typically ranks somewhere around "regulatory reform" among voters' concerns, has emerged as a leading issue in this election cycle; last year more than three voters in 10 said they would take a candidate's green credentials into account, according to pollster John Zogby, up from just 11 percent in 2005. "It was clear starting all the way back in Iowa and New Hampshire that this campaign would be much more about the environment," says Dave Willett, a spokesman for the Sierra Club. "The questions weren't 'Do you think global warming is happening?' but 'How are you going to deal with it, what's your approach?'"

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 26 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.Check out the National IPL Blog.

Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

Texas United Methodists Go Green

Thanks to our Texas IPL affiliate for tipping us off to this story in the Dallas Morning News, which quotes both Sally Bingham of the national office and Bee Moorhead of the Texas IPL (see also below):

In an apparently unprecedented move for a large religious group, United Methodist churches of North Texas have joined forces to buy "green" electricity generated by windmills in the western part of the state.
The contract negotiated by the North Texas Conference of the United Methodist Church takes effect on New Year's Day and covers 180 churches.
Environmentalists say they're unaware of another conference, diocese, synod or any other body of churches that has used its economic clout to spur nonpolluting electricity production.
"We've got to give credit to the [North Texas] Methodists. They go to the head of the class," said the Rev. Sally Bingham, founder and president of The Regeneration Project in San Francisco, which works to engage religious people and groups in ecology.
The churches' contract with Hudson Energy Services requires a 10 percent purchase of electricity from renewable sources within Texas.
This doesn't mean that when somebody flicks a switch at First United Methodist Church of Dallas, 10 percent of the electricity will come from a wind turbine. But it does mean that Hudson is obligated to buy renewable energy equal to 10 percent of what the 180 churches use.
Ten percent translates to 4.2 million kilowatts a year, or about 280 average-sized homes with electricity generated solely from green sources such as west Texas wind, said Dan Marzuola, Hudson's vice president of sales and marketing.
The Methodists' big group purchase will increase the share of Texas' electric grid that comes from wind power and decrease the share from air-polluting coal-fired plants, said Bee Moorhead, executive director of the Austin-based environmental group Texas Interfaith Power and Light.
She described the United Methodists' contract as potentially "market changing" because it serves as a model to other religious groups and shows the clout any large customer has in demanding green electricity.
Since 2001, most churches in the 20-county North Texas Conference have taken advantage of deregulation by coming together to negotiate for a favorable rate that holds for the length of the contract.
Conference officials began to negotiate a new contract earlier this year. Because the conference had taken a pro-environment stand in 2006, voting to join a stewardship campaign organized by Texas Interfaith Power and Light, officials asked that companies bidding for the new contract include some green power.
Hudson prevailed with a four-year contract, at a rate conference officials would not disclose.
Churches will see about a 15 percent increase in electric bills under the new contract, according to a letter they got from the conference. But that's because market prices have increased since the last contract was signed, said Trenton Cogdill, a consultant with Priority Power Management who helped with negotiations.
Tom Christian, assistant director of property and risk management for the North Texas Conference, agreed that the green power component was not a major price factor.
"We were surprised at the small amount of additional cost that it took to go 10 percent green," he said. "We're excited and pleased and looking to increase [the percentage] even more over the next contract."
Mr. Marzuola said that by buying electricity as an "aggregation group" (the industry term), the churches save between 6 percent and 8 percent over what they would pay individually. The green component costs about 6 percent, leaving what he described as "an effective neutral to 2 percent cost reduction" by buying as a group.
The new contract lets individual churches pay Hudson extra for a higher percentage of green power, and some plan to do so.
Northaven United Methodist Church in North Dallas has many environmentalists among its 580 members and will pay an extra $2,400 a year to go 100 percent green, said Eric Folkerth, pastor.
He called the decision "a no-brainer, given the values of our congregation."
Most denominations aren't as centralized as the United Methodists, and some areas don't have electricity deregulation.
But the North Texas United Methodists still provide an example, Ms. Moorhead said.
"If they hadn't asked for it," she said of the wind-generated electricity guaranteed by the contract, "it wouldn't be produced."

Interfaith Power and Light is a religious response to global warming with chapters in 25 states and Greater Washington, D.C. Find a link to your local chapter at http://www.theregenerationproject.org/State.
Find discounts on energy saving products at http://www.shopipl.org/

Science and Religion: Together Again

Submitted for your consideration: another editorial on science and religion uniting to solve the problem of climate change. This one is co-authored by The Rev. Sally Bingham, founder of Interfaith Power and Light, who will be the featured speaker at our October 16 Sacred Trust Forum in West Hartford, Connecticut. Here is an excerpt:

Science and religion have proved to be capable of independently inspiring social change and reshaping global consciousness. Just imagine what these forces could do together, in a united effort to reverse the damage we have done to our planet.

IREJN is Connecticut's Interfaith Power and Light. Visit us at www.irejn.org.
See our list of links to visit other Interfaith Power and Light sites, including the national IPL site.