BY JULIE IRWIN
The Cincinnati Enquirer
New voices are joining the ecologists, business leaders and politicians who debate the issue of global warming: the clergy and lay people of organized religion.
With a two-day conference in Columbus this weekend, Ohio becomes the first of nine states to see thelaunch of an interfaith campaign in support of the Kyoto global warming treaty. The effort brings together Baptists, Methodists, Quakers and Presbyterians from around the state who want the United States to pledge a reduction in the use of fossil fuels.
The multistate campaign is another example of the growing interest that religious communities are taking in environmental affairs. Religious leaders are trying to convince their followers that crises from air pollution to urban sprawl are essentially spiritual problems that can't be solved without the aid of faith.
"The environment is an issue addressed specifically in Scripture, it's part of the Genesis story, God's good creation, and it's also a justice issue," said the Rev. Robert Ridenour, pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Deer Park and a participant in the Columbus meeting.
"In recent years the environment has taken a back seat to some other things in culture and the church. We thought this was a good opportunity to bring it again to the fore."
The global warming campaign is an especially ambitious effort to enlist the faithful in environmental work. Many, but not all, scientists think that carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases are causing Earth's temperature to rise, placing the world at risk of floods, famine, disease and drought.
The Kyoto agreement, which the U.S. Senate must ratify, would require industrialized nations by 2012 to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent to 8 percent below 1990 levels. Critics -- including oil companies, the coal mining industry and auto manufacturers -- warn that the changes would cost each American household hundreds of dollars and eliminate thousands of jobs.
The interfaith campaign targets the states where support for the treaty is lacking. The others are Indiana, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Illinois, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota. "Ohio, as much as any state, represents America's heartland, where diverse interests need to be brought together to address this issue," said Paul Gorman, executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, who will be an observer at the Columbus meeting.
"You have coal workers and conservationists kneeling together in the same pews. We're trying to start a conversation among people about the common good, and we believe these groups, instead of trading sound bites, should be entering serious dialogue with each other."
The conference, sponsored by the Ohio Council of Churches, will bring together about 75 Ohioans as well as representatives from other states in the campaign. Participants will develop plans for sermons, letter-writing campaigns, church-based workshops and other strategies to persuade U.S. senators to vote for the climate treaty.
The Columbus meeting follows statements by the heads of 24 Christian denominations and 26 national Jewish organizations in favor of the Kyoto treaty. But despite the interest, Mr. Gorman acknowledges global warming isn't always the easiest issue to sell to the religious community.
"Endangered species is a more intuitively resonant issue for people of faith, and environmental justice -- that's more immediately familiar to our people," he said. "But if we're in a faith tradition that's structured internationally, then the fact is that this is a planetary concern and our brothers and sisters around the world are seriously impacted by this."
At the end of the month the Archdiocese of Cincinnati will sponsor a weekend retreat called Returning Home: Renewal for Ourselves, Our Earth, Our Faith.
The retreat will bring together parish leaders, clergy and local academics to decide how Catholics can apply church teachings to problems such as air quality and disappearing farmland. Organizers are especially concerned about suburban sprawl. Catholic churches are popping up there in response to the growth.
"You've got people moving (to previously rural areas of Warren and Butler counties) and they need to be attended to and served," said Thomas Choquette, director of the archdiocese's social action and world peace office. "But by setting up parishes there, do we reinforce the sprawl?"
Efforts like the global warming initiative and the archdiocesan retreat are indicators that the faith community is finally taking environmental crises seriously, but it still has a long way to go, said Brennan Hill, chairman of Xavier University's theology department. He attended two of 10 conferences scholars held this year at Harvard University concerning various faith traditions and the environment.
"It was a very beginning baby step," Mr. Hill said of the Muslims, Christians, Buddhists and others who gathered to share views. "Here were all these scholars from all over the world saying, we have to do this but how do we do it?"
Mr. Hill finds that issues of air and water pollution and other problems that affect people's health provoke the greatest interest among people of faith. But, he said, it's not enough to agree that people must care for the Earth -- they must define concrete steps and take them.
"This is a serious justice issue that can't be solved with pious concern," he said. "It's not enough to say you care."
