Youth, Church, and Business–Finding Common Ground
October 19th, 2006 by Carbon CoalitionWho said climate change was all bad? Government’s inability to take formal action to combat global warming has only created common ground for a schmorgousboard of people and organizations that might not typically see eye-to-eye.
Last Wednesday the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition held mock-funerals in 14 cities across the nation. The symbolic “funerals for their future” were held to protest the “death of Canada’s environment” projected by many to be inevitable if the current Conservative government remains complacent to climate change (the story from Canada.com.)
This editorial in the Minnesota Daily describes evangelical Christian leader involvement in the fight against global warming. “As the US government continues to hem and haw about the state of global warming (they still can’t decide it actually exists,) religious groups are positioning themselves to lead America to a greener future.” Since last winter 86 Christian leaders have signed a statement that acknowledges human impacts on climate change, and churches across the country are taking active approaches to get the word out. In fact, churches across the Granite State have been showing “An Inconvenient Truth” to help get the word out about climate change. Using religion to help spread civic awareness can be very beneficial to the cause and in this case “the leaders of this new movement aren’t praying for change, they are actively pursuing it, and people of any faith can appreciate that.”
A new report published by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, announced that many top US companies “anticipate that a US federal law regulating greenhouse gas emissions could take effect as early as 2010.” This article in MarketWatch describes a rise in recent voluntary activity by many companies to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. The Pew report says, “Sustainabable climate strategies cannot be an add-on to business as usual; they must be integrated with a company’s core business activities.”
