11 posts tagged with "climate"

Amongst its many admirable principles, where does one find environmental concerns in the Bahá'í Faith? So I wondered, early on my journey on this religious path. Recently, in honor of Faith Climate Action Week, several friends and I reflected on this question.

Our conversation opened with a brief meditation on this passage of praise for God, who is recognized through all the natural wonders:

“… whatever I behold I readily discover that it maketh Thee known unto me, and it remindeth me of Thy signs, and of Thy tokens, and of Thy testimonies. By Thy glory! Every time I lift up mine eyes unto Thy heaven, I call to mind Thy highness and Thy loftiness, and Thine incomparable glory and greatness; and every time I turn my gaze to Thine earth, I am made to recognize the evidences of Thy power and the tokens of Thy bounty. And when I behold the sea, I find that it speaketh to me of Thy majesty, and of the potency of Thy might, and of Thy sovereignty and Thy grandeur. And at whatever time I contemplate the mountains, I am led to discover the ensigns of Thy victory and the standards of Thine omnipotence.”

Bahá'u'lláh, Prayers and Meditations by Bahá’u’lláh, CLXXVI

The serious nature of air pollution did not truly hit me until a family wedding in Austin, Texas in the late 90's. That year the pollution was so severe that older family members were warned by their doctors not to attend. As a kid from the suburbs, I didn't have to deal with the reality of "bad air" that millions of people in the urban cores breath day in, day out. As a person of faith, I began to awaken to the manifest injustice of suburban commuters contributing more than their fair share to pollution, from the tailpipe and the power plant. What had been a mere academic awareness suddenly turned visceral.

Back in the '90s, I remember my parents saying that it was less expensive to inspect their cars in Plano, in Collin County, than a few miles further south in Dallas County - because of the additional emissions inspections required in the latter. I never would have imagined that 20 years later, ten DFW counties are now in non-attainment for smog-producing ozone pollution - and we still have no plan to solve the problem.

Just looking at the smog, we all know it can't be good for any of us. The American Lung Association has a good article on the health effects of ozone pollution. Moreover, studies have shown that air pollution in general has a disproportionate impact on Latino and African-American communities.

Twenty-something years ago, not long after the Exxon Valdez disaster, I wrote a research paper on solar power for my middle school Earth science class. I've been trying to lower my consumption, and looking forward to rooftop solar, ever since. The wait is finally over.

Well, almost. The panels are on the roof, but now I have 4-6 weeks to wait until the electric grid company (Oncor) comes out to inspect.

This past Friday I finally completed the "public expression" portion of the eco-theology project for the GreenFaith Fellowship. The presentation is accessible at GreenBahai.com. It addresses the following topics from an multi-faith perspective:

• Highlight key themes in religious responses to climate change:
  • Love of Creation
  • Urgency
  • Love and Compassion
  • Justice
  • Oneness and Interdependence
• Call to Action — statements and declarations
  • Prevention
  • International Action
  • Awareness and Advocacy
  • Taking Action

A small group gathered at the Bahá'í­ Center of Irving last night in our second meeting on the discourses of society, reflecting on climate change. The first meeting in the series was too much of a slide-based lecture, so for this second one we chose two videos and facilitated an open discussion. The conversation was robust, heartfelt, and meaningful — yet in reflection, it raises some key questions about how to have a productive, spiritually-oriented conversation.

Stirring up a grassroots movement is hard work.

Dallas Interfaith Power & Light's steering committee has been working together for about two years now. We've held a number of workshops and dialogues on diverse topics, including: forming a green team, energy efficiency, solar, health impacts of climate change, the value of our park systems, the science of climate change, and more. Perhaps 100-150 people have attended, although our actual signed-in attendance count is 84 across all events.

Climate change and air quality were the unifying concerns at this past week's Dallas Interfaith Power & Light (IPL) meeting, held at White Rock United Methodist Church in Dallas on January 9. Our guest speakers, from Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), attracted an eclectic group of people from many organizations - attended by active members of IPL itself, the Sierra Club, Downwinders at Risk, Frac Dallas, and Americans for Nonsmokers's Rights. Each of us, from slightly different perspectives, are concerned about the damage we are doing to our selves and each other from continued pollution of substances such as mercury, CO, organic compounds, and CO₂.

Continue reading at dallasinterfaith.org (dead link removed; SF 2025)

At a Bahá'í retreat on Conversations on the Way: Kindling Hope in a Time of Despair, the conversation following a presentation on the environmental crisis turned to the notion of hastening the collapse of the old world order. There is a thesis out there, amongst some Bahá'ís and in parts of the Christian community, that environmental destruction is a signpost on the way to a better world; it is seen as a crucial element of the retributive calamity that ushers in the promised day of God.

Then it follow, so some say, that we should not try to stem the tide of climate change, of ecosystem degradation, of the loss of biodiversity. Moreover, why should we not actively work to bring about that collapse by purposefully over consuming — so that the day of reckoning, when we must transcend our baser natures in order to survive (or achieve the rapture, in another theology), will arrive that much sooner?

In an editorial published last weekend, Power, Privilege, and Climate Change: A Tale of Two Presidents, Vassar College professor Joseph Nevins contrasts the lifestyles of the richest and "poorest" presidents in the world, in the context of global climate change: those of the United States and Uruguay. It is a powerful reminder that we in the U.S. can't look at climate change, point the finger elsewhere, and keep going about our lives.