On Wednesday morning, here in the Bay Area, we awoke to the strangest shared experience. Even our cats were wondering… what’s going on? Why is the sky as orange as a pumpkin? Why is it getting darker rather than lighter? Why can’t I smell smoke? Will it get worse? When will the locusts come? As Marvin Gaye once sung it, “What’s going on?”
By now, many of you have
read about what’s going on.
What’s really going on? Human induced climate change. Let’s do what we can in this upcoming election to support the Green New Deal! Thank you to our denomination, the UCC for being the f
irst Christian body to endorse the Green New Deal! Thank you to Skyline Church for initiating the resolution at our 2019 NCNC Annual Meeting, as it made it’s way up to the National UCC body.
Here are excerpts from my presentation at last year’s NCNCUCC Annual Meeting. I’d be happy to share more from my presentation, or from my climate change talk at Annual meeting.
What is it: 
The Green New Deal (GND) marks the 1st time that Congress has been presented with an opportunity to act on climate change by taking a vote that recognizes the scope of the challenge , the urgency of the crisis, the intersectionality of the numerous justice issues that are amplified by climate change; the opportunity to act on climate in a way that also addresses racial injustice, economic injustice, and the need to create clean, healthful, and family supporting jobs that our planet needs; and the opportunity to deploy solutions that address all of these moral challenges.
Here’s why it’s important:
1. The GND addresses the most important justice issues that the UCC has been committed to for decades. It demands that the federal govt. address injustice of climate change in a way that also tackles the systemic injustices that disproportionately affect vulnerable and front-line communities, including racial injustice, economic injustice and the need to create clean, healthful, and family supporting jobs that our planet needs.
2. The GND acknowledges the necessity of assuming moral responsibility for intergenerational harm caused by the failure to act on climate change and the urgency of acting on a comprehensive scale to reduce the catastrophic future generations will inherit.
3. The GND offers tangible hope in the face of threats that are becoming more and more real – in the US & world-wide- or to put it another way it’s up to us to transform these threats into opportunities. To create fair paying secure jobs, secure clean air and water, redress manifestations of environmental racism, and pursue a just transition to clean and renewable energy.
Here’s what we can do locally:
1. standup for science & continuing to learn from new science
2. discuss climate change more often – at church, home & in social encounters
3. tell others that we already have all the tech. we need to achieve the goals of the GND
4. incorporate into our worship & community leadership an awareness of climate change, its conseq. esp. for vulnerable & front-line communities, & make the changes science says we must & technology says we can
5. help our communities prepare for extreme weather events & to become a resource
6. lift up this reality of millions of people, regardless of their political affiliation or resolve to support the GND
7. engaging federal state & local agencies as advocates for policies & legislation that advance the goals of GND including its commitment to address systemic injustice, that disproportionately affects front-line invulnerable communities.
8. advocate for a just transition for all those workers & communities most dependent on fossil fuel energy so that they also have opportunities for clean healthful &: family supporting jobs that heal our planet.
And here’s a resource from UCC – 10 Ways to Mobilize.
With The Rev. Dr. Jim Antal , guest preacher in worship 
