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Quakers pledge action on climate change
August 21, 2009:
Quakers from around the UK have joined together to call for the government to change its priorities, and to take steps to reduce their own carbon footprint, and increase their care of the natural environment.
The Quakers, who are preparing their own Seven Year Plans to protect the planet, are taking several key initial steps, including advocacy, promoting simple living, and working with ARC to host a major public meeting for up to 1000 people in London on religions and the environment.
AdvocacyQuakers in Britain are calling for governments to change priorities and take radical steps in order to avert climate change. Quakers have long been known for encouraging simplicity and finding alternative paths to conflict resolution other than warfare, but the threat of climate change gives a new urgency to their call.
Quaker lifestyles as a modelAround the country Quakers are redoubling efforts to reduce their carbon footprint. The Quaker Living Witness Project offers an audit to measure carbon footprint. Quakers at Cotteridge Meeting in Birmingham used the audit to green their meeting house. Their steps for change included changing electricity providers, installing air sourced heat pumps, double glazing and dry lining solid walls. They have cut their carbon dioxide emissions by sixty percent.
Quaker statement
The Quakers’ call for action and commitment is summed up in a statement to be sent to world leaders ahead of the United Nations Conference in Copenhagen. The statement was endorsed recently by the Quakers’ annual gathering in York. It promises that "we are prepared to support decision-makers in taking the radical steps necessary."
“We call for unprecedented international cooperation to enable the large cuts in global emissions which are required. This will be a difficult road to travel but we are prepared to support decision-makers in taking the radical steps necessary. An inequitable global agreement on climate change could lead to forced migrations and serious conflict. Any agreement must put the world's poorest first; it falls to richer countries to bear the greater burden of responsibility for change. The goal is achievable but priorities will need to change: currently, the majority of states commit more resources to warfare than to tackling climate change.
“The crisis of global climate change represents a supreme test of humanity's collective wisdom and courage. Many of the poorest people are already suffering changed climate; they are asking us all to act. The Earth is God’s work and not ours to do with as we please. We recall Gandhi’s saying, often quoted by Quakers: ‘Live simply that others may simply live’. Climate change is challenging us to ask anew what our faith leads us to do.
“We call for unprecedented international cooperation to enable the large cuts in global emissions which are required. This will be a difficult road to travel but we are prepared to support decision-makers in taking the radical steps necessary. An inequitable global agreement on climate change could lead to forced migrations and serious conflict. Any agreement must put the world's poorest first; it falls to richer countries to bear the greater burden of responsibility for change. The goal is achievable but priorities will need to change: currently, the majority of states commit more resources to warfare than to tackling climate change.
“Our faith in common humanity gives hope; love, rather than fear, can still lead us through this crisis.”
The statement will be made to coincide with ARC/UNDP's major gathering in Windsor
in November, where the Quakers will join dozens of faith traditions from around the world to launch their own Long Term Faith Plan to Protect the Living Planet.
Public MeetingQuakers will then host an open meeting at Friends House in London from 7pm to 9pm on Wednesday 4 November. Climate change: we can change! will be an opportunity to hear from leading United Nations, scientific and religious figures, ahead of the Copenhagen climate change conference. Anyone concerned with climate change will be welcome.
The plan is to draw together faith and secular organisations in a meeting that will include inspiring presentations, music and discussions. Entrance will be free but owing to high demand, tickets must be booked in advance.
Registration.
Resources and LinksThe Quaker Living Witness Project
offers ways to check your carbon footprint on and Walk Cheerfully, Step Lightly lists one hundred ways to green your life.
See too, the Canadian Quaker Ecology Network
Further Notes* Quakers are known formally as the Religious Society of Friends, and refer to one another informally as Friends.
* Many Quaker meetings are using study briefings produced by Quaker Peace and Social Witness to focus their thoughts. Called Responding to climate change, they can be downloaded from www.quaker.org.uk/responding-climate-change
* Two conferences are planned on A Zero-Growth Economy? What would it mean for us all? Saturday 26 September at Friends House, London and Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November at Woodbrooke Study Centre in Birmingham. See www.quaker.org.uk for booking forms.
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Last updated: September 24, 2009 :
Latest news on the Long Term Commitments
A sample of some of the faith groups around the world that are creating Five, Seven, Eight and Nine Year Plans to protect the natural environment, through the UNDP-ARC framework. |
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ARC at a glance
ARC is a secular body that helps the major religions of the world to develop their own environmental programmes, based on their own core teachings, beliefs and practices. |
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