Archive for Church in the World – Page 6

Coal in Oakland & Refugees from Central America

2-16-16 ministers in front of city hall 2On Tuesday evening members and friends of Skyline’s Green Team joined hundreds of others to take part in Oakland City Hall’s ongoing discussions about approving a coal distribution center in the port. There will be an interfaith vigil, and undoubtedly, a long evening of discussions. 

I lift up thanks to the great collective sense of civic responsibility involved in these meetings, and even more, in our collective efforts to transition to renewable energy sources.  

The outcome of Tuesday’s meeting is that the City Council did delay the vote on taking the next step to bring coal through Oakland.Here’s a video of Laurie speaking at the press conference Here’s CBS Bay Area’s news report from last night.

I’d like to share with you some quotes on the UCC’s stand and long history involved in the environmental justice movement. 

This Sunday, Rev Deborah Lee will be joining us to share stories about the refugees from Central America and Dleeways in which faith communities, including ours, are offering support to refugees and their families.  After worship she and her colleague, Daniel Pinell, will share stories about the underlying causes. 

Thank you, Skyline for your compassionate hearts and voices!

A Press Conference and Vigil to Oppose Coal in Oakland, Feb 16

dreamstime_Coal trainThere will be a press conference sponsored by several faith and environmental groups at 4:30.   Then the vigil will be held from  5:00 – 6:00 pm at Oakland City Hall (Frank Ogawa Plaza). The Oakland City Council needs to hear from people of faith about our deep concern about the negative impacts on the health of our brothers and sisters in West Oakland if this proposed project proceeds. (See below for City Council members you can contact). For more information contact Rev Laurie Manning, [email protected].

Pastor Laurie’s statement on coal in Oakland.

Some organizations supporting this:

350BayArea.org http://www.350bayarea.org/coal-free_oakland_city_council_20160216

OccupyOakland.org https://occupyoakland.org/event/no-coal-in-oakland-city-council-meeting/

Article in New York Times

WHERE:

Frank Ogawa/Oscar Grant Plaza, in front of

Oakland City Hall. (1 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza)

WHAT CAN I DO?

City council members really need to know how the people that they represent feel about Coal so that they may take action and stop this disastrous plan. You can;

1.     Sign the MoveOn petition to tell the city Council to stop Big Coal

2.    Copy this email and send it to your neighborhood listserv if you live in Oakland. Otherwise, forward it to everyone you know in Oakland

3.     Call and write Oakland city council members.   Email is easy to ignore, a phone call isn’t.  It doesn’t hurt to do both

Below is a brief script for calling and the text of a sample email. Feel free to personalize them.

To find your council district click here:

District 1 Dan Kalb   

   238-7001 [email protected]

District 5 Noel Gallo

238- 7005 [email protected]    

District 2 Abel Guillen

238-7002 [email protected]

District 6 Delsey Brooks

238-7006 [email protected]

District 3 Lynette Gibson McElhaney

238-7003  [email protected]

District 7 Larry E. Reid 

238-7007

[email protected]

District 4 Annie Campbell Washington

238-7004

[email protected]

At Large Rebecca Kaplan

238-7008 [email protected]

 

Mayor Libby Schaaf 

238-3141 [email protected]

Phone:

“Hi, My name is _____________ and I live and vote in your Council district. I’m concerned that the city of Oakland could become a terminal for shipping coal. West Oakland does not deserve the negative health and toxic environmental impacts of mile-long coal trains shedding coal dust. Coal must be prohibited from the new export terminal. I call on you as my city council representative to pass an ordinance banning coal on health and safety grounds.”

Thank you

Email:

Subject:   Coal trains

Dear Mr./Ms./ council member,

My name is _____________ and I live and vote in your Council district. I’m concerned that the city of Oakland could become a terminal for shipping coal. West Oakland does not deserve the negative health and toxic environmental impacts of mile-long coal trains shedding coal dust. Coal must be prohibited from the new export terminal. I feel strongly that it would be a terrible mistake to expose our community to this toxic commodity.  I call on you as my city council representative to pass an ordinance banning coal on health and safety grounds.”

Thank you 

  This action section was prepared by Heather MacLeod, Alameda Interfaith Climate Action Network (A-ICAN)

Don’t Ship Coal Through Oakland

dreamstime_Coal trainWhy Rev. Laurie is against coal in the Port of Oakland..

The “Golden rule” of all the world’s religions teaches us to care about our neighbors.  Who doesn’t care about the kid down the street breathing dirty air?

As Flint has made us all aware, these are matters that particularly impact poor children of color. West Oakland has many parallels. This is a local health issue, especially for the children of West Oakland who are already contending with fumes & noise from the heavy volume of diesel trucks & other pollution from the port. What if it were your children?  Jess Dervin-Ackerman of the Sierra Club points out that “major organizing victories squashing export proposals in Oregon and Washington mean that Big Coal has turned its sights on California.  Bay Area communities are already burdened by poor air quality caused by our five oil refineries and the shipping industry. We even have some coal snaking through our neighborhoods by rail and shipping out of a private terminal in Richmond. Now Oakland is in Big Coal’s crosshairs.”

It’s a bad investment for Oakland, for both the short term and the long term.  The coal industry is rapidly failing, and demand is rapidly falling. Why would you want to invest in something going in the wrong direction, even in the short term, as major coal companies are going bankrupt? We’re living in a time when you can make good financial arguments about it. Things have really shifted because, in many states, renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel . The second line of defense from the fossil fuel industry is denial, and the first line of defense is money – it’s going to cost us too much. However, as  Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize economist, has recently noted, fossil fuels are way of past, renewals are way in the future – if we care about the future, we care about switching.

In 1987 the United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice published an explosive report entitled Toxic Wastes and Race in the United States. People of color, especially African-Americans, the report demonstrated, are the most likely victims of industrial pollution. Based on the findings, Reverend Ben Chavis helped launch the movement against “environmental racism.”

 “Environmental racism is racial discrimination in environmental policymaking. It is racial discrimination in the enforcement of regulations and laws. It is racial disccrimination in the deliberate targeting of communities of color for toxic waste disposal and the siting of polluting industries. It is racial discrimination in the official sanctioning of the life-threatening presence of poisons and pollutants in communities of color. And, it is racial discrimination in the history of excluding people of color from mainstream environmental groups, decision-making boards, commissions, and regulatory bodies.”

– Rev. Benjamin Chavis, Jr.

“Environmental justice advocates are not saying, ‘Take the poisons out of our community and put them in a white community.’ They are saying that no community should have to live with these poisons. They have thus taken the moral high road and are building a multicultural and inclusive movement that has the potential of transforming the political landscape of this nation.”

– Benjamin Chavis, Jr.

Post about Feb 16 Interfaith Vigil to Stop Coal

Beautifying Without Harming – the Green Team

5-30-15 Catherine Work DayMichael retold the events of our May 30th Green Workday  during worship on the 31st:

We are caring for our Church gardens by beautifying without harming any living thing (except the weeds!).  Thanks to everyone who participated.

Because we want the Church to look cared for, as it is, in the labyrinth we removed weeds by uprooting with shovels and hoes and then laying down paper to prevent regrowth. We then put the pebbles back over the paper. We also used a fire torch remove weeds in the courtyard.

As a faith community, we are committed to not using chemical herbicides. It is now known that herbicides in frequent use today cause birth defects in humans. They are known to kill amphibians and insects. The salamanders on our church property are vulnerable.
Recently, the U.N. World Health Organization has issued a statement that these herbicides are probably cancer causing. We want to keep the Church property safe for children, pregnant women, all  people, and the wildlife that lives here.  Our church land is part of the watershed that drains into Redwood Creek, a habitat for native trout.

Finally, we installed 32 LED (light emmiting diode) lights in the sancurary. They are energy-saving and have a very long life, which is great because it is not so easy to changethose lights!

We hope you will join the next Workday and take part in our stewardship of our part of Mother Earth.

Catherine Kessler and Michael Armijo

SCC Green Team’s Mission Statement

water drop & handWe recognize humanity’s impact on Earth and the urgent necessity to be stewards of God’s creation for the future of all beings.

We will promote awareness of our local and global environment, and work to reduce our environmental footprint in all Skyline activities:

worship
education
buildings and grounds
energy and water use
community service
our individual lives