For Immediate Release Contact: Tom Stokes, 413 243 5666
3 December 2007 Father Paul Mayer, 973 675 2142
U.S. CAMPAIGN: “BECAUSE WE LOVE THIS EARTH” WITH ARTISTS, RELIGIOUS LEADERS, COMMUNITY GROUPS
Groups mobilize to call attention to meeting in Bali
3 December 2007, Washington, D.C.: As world leaders begin an historic meeting in Bali, Indonesia today to set the ground rules for negotiating the post-Kyoto climate change treaty, people throughout the world will protest, hold educational, cultural, religious, and outdoor activities on December 8th to call attention to the urgent need to act on individual, community, national and global levels to turn around the climate crisis. The congressional passage of a strong energy bill will signal the seriousness of the U.S. in participating with the rest of the world in addressing this grave threat to the planet and to humanity.
Activities are planned in more than 75 countries. In the U.S., sponsored by the Climate Crisis Coalition (www.climatecrisiscoalition.org and www.climateusa.org), Greenpeace and the National Polar Bear Plunge, individuals and groups from all walks of life are engaging in unusual and creative programs to dramatize the need for thought, commitment and action. Among the far ranging events are a “Green Menorah Campaign” led by Rabbi Jeff Sultar on the feast of Chanukah, polar bear plunges to illustrate the need to keep the waters cold, poetry readings, community art installations and exhibits, town meetings, vigils, prayer gatherings, and a d.j. youth music event in Washington D.C. called Turning the Tides. Award winning actor Kathleen Chalfant will dedicate her lead performance in “A Hard Heart” at the Culman Theater in New York, to “Because We Love This Earth.” Composer Butch Morris will dedicate his day long music and performance workshop at the Bowery Poetry Club to the campaign, followed by a poetry reading.
World renowned singer/songwriter activist, Pete Seeger, has recorded a video which can be viewed on the website. North Carolina artist Roger Haile designed a poster which is begin exhibited throughout the country. “Because We Love This Earth” is endorsed by artists, activists and groups including 1199 the Health and Hospital Workers Union, Focus the Nation, 1 Sky, The Earth Day Network, The Indian Law Alliance, the Seventh Generation Fund, actors Danny Glover, Susan Sarandon, Martin Sheen, Kathleen Chalfant, poets Sonia Sanchez, Alexis De Veaux, Bob Holman, Meena Alexander, Oscar winning film director Jonathan Demme, creator of Vagina Monologues Eve Ensler, and many more. From Omaha, Nebraska to Portland, Oregon and the Berkshires, Mass, people of all ages and professions, will join to re commit themselves to putting political pressure on elected officials for sane energy policies, call attention to the role of the United States, the greatest carbon producer; expressing through action, art and inspiration the unwavering determination to change the disastrous course of global warming towards economically and environmentally viable policies.
According to Climate Crisis Coalition co founder Father Paul Mayer: “It is imperative that the world leaders meeting in Bali know that people throughout the world are paying attention, taking action, and not going to sit back while our precious earth, air, and water, are destroyed as a result of greed and denial. We need this earth and each other, and we know now more than ever that we must act out of that need. ”
For a full list of activities, endorsers, and background information, see www.climateusa.org, enlarge the map and see list.
Remarks by Rabbi Jeff Sultar
Of The Shalom Center’s Green Menorah Program, www.shalomctr.org
And also on behalf of the Climate Crisis Coalition, www.climatecrisiscoalition.org
Office: (215) 438-2983
Cell: (215) 983-7820
E-mail: greenmenorah@shalomctr.org
Tomorrow night, we in the Jewish community will light the first candle of Hanukkah. We celebrate the miracle of a single cruze of olive oil burning for eight days. We celebrate, in other words, the use of one day’s worth of oil to fulfill eight day’s worth of energy needs. Seen in this way, Hanukkah can inspire us to use our energy more efficiently. Since the original menorah burned olive oil, it can inspire us to use renewable sources of energy. And it can inspire us to burn energy that is clean, that does not contribute carbon dioxide to our atmosphere.
Just as Hanukkah celebrates one day’s worth of oil burning for eight days in the menorah, we support Congress making the commitment to make sure that one gallon’s worth of oil burns for at least 35 miles.
And just as the original menorah burned clean, renewable olive oil, so too do we support Congress making the commitment to make sure that clean, renewable sources of energy are responsible for fulfilling an ever-increasing percentage of our electricity needs.
Hanukkah is also a celebration of the first successful struggle for religious freedom, for the preservation of minority rights in the face of overwhelming majority pressure. This aspect of Hanukkah can inspire us to address in any energy and climate bills the disproportionate impact of the global climate crisis on those who are most disenfranchised.
On this point I speak not only as a representative of Judaism, but with a wider religious voice, to the moral dimensions of environmental justice and equity. We in the religious community will not allow those people and countries who are most easily left out of the discussion to be ignored or forgotten. We will make sure that the inter-related realms of social, economic and environmental justice continue to be a major part of any energy and climate legislation.
We at The Shalom Center’s Green Menorah Program and in the wider religious community are joined in all of these concerns by the Climate Crisis Coalition. We join our voices together on this day when the United Nations Climate Talks begin in Bali. To coincide with these talks, December 8 has been declared as an “International Day of Climate Action.” Actions will be held around the world in at least 75 countries. And they will be held all around the United States in at least 60 communities.
What each of these actions will have in common is people demanding bold action from our leaders. We are letting our leaders know, loud and clear, as the numbers of the recent Zogby poll demonstrate, that we as individuals and organizations are willing to make the changes and commitments necessary to confront the global climate crisis, and we expect no less than that from our leaders in the legislation that they pass.
We in the United States have a unique roll to play, because we are disproportionately responsible for carbon dioxide emissions. But this greater responsibility for the problems is accompanied by greater possibilities for the solutions. The world looks to us to take leadership in this area. And we the people must expect no less than this from ourselves and from our leaders.
We in the Jewish community are required by our tradition to “publicize the miracle” of Hanukkah, to broadcast widely that it is possible to burn one day’s worth of oil in such a way that we fulfill eight day’s worth of needs, to make known that it is possible to fill our world with light without filling the atmosphere with carbon dioxide.
Some of our teachings explain that the true miracle of Hanukkah did not come from a Divine source, but rather the miracle was the faith that the people had and the action that they took. Because the menorah in the Temple in Jerusalem was never supposed to go out. And so, without having enough oil to keep it burning for more than one day, the people never should have lit the menorah in the first place. But they did anyway. And that human act of chutzpah then allowed the miracle of the long-burning oil to occur.
Seen in this light, each year when we light our Hanukkah menorahs, we re-ignite the possibility once again of the miracle of our own action. May this Hanukkah be for us all a season of lighting a candle in the midst of the darkness that surrounds us. And may we, through the miracle of our own actions, bring light and make a difference in our lives and in our world.