National Campus Day of Hope, Prayer and Reflection On Global Warming

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National Campus Day of Prayer and Reflection on Global Warming
Earth Day Weekend, April 21-22, 2007
Why is the faith community concerned about global climate change? It is a matter of justice. Justice for poor people who will be most severely impacted by changing weather…Justice for future generations who will inherit an unstable climate…Justice for all of creation that is threatened by climate change.
—Interfaith Climate Change Network (www.protectingcreation.org)
A Call to Action
The time has come for people of conscience to act to protect the future from a great injustice. Global warming, the process by which human-made greenhouse gases are steadily raising the planet’s temperature, threatens to bring suffering, displacement, drought, famine, and war to millions. The burden will fall heaviest on those least able to bear it—the poor and dispossessed. The times are out of joint; the round of the seasons itself is breaking. Polar bears don’t have enough ice to live on; trees can no longer survive where they first sprouted and grew. The creation itself is at risk due to humanity’s demands for more power and material prosperity.
While technical and political solutions are needed, ultimately global climate change presents a moral dilemma, one that must be faced by all people of conscience. How are we to live righteously in a civilization that is imperiling us all? How can we begin to change? These questions burn brightest for the young: students who must come of age in the warming future.
We are calling for campus religious leaders and all people of conscience to address this threat to their communities in a coordinated day of prayer and action on the weekend of Earth Day, April 21-22, 2007. Working together, we can rise to face the great moral challenge of global warming.
The Day of Prayer
On April 21 and 22, 2007, we hope that students, faculty, and staff at schools across the country will join us in considering the climate crisis’s challenge to all people of conscience. Groups could sponsor many activities for the day of prayer. Consider:
• Sermons discussing the religious and ethical implications of global warming
• Service projects, which can be as simple making a sanctuary more energy efficient or writing letters advocating action on climate change
• Working towards for campus carbon neutrality
• Talks by campus experts on climate science or policy
• Creating discussion groups for those who wish to learn and do more
• Screening An Inconvenient Truth or another film on climate change
• Raising money to buy carbon credits or offsets to reduce emissions
• Committing to aid those most threatened by climate change, both in our country and around the world