9/23, on the way home

9/23—On the way home (there was no WiFi on the train, so couldn't post this until now)

We just passed through Toledo, Ohio on the way back to Chicago, where I will change trains and head south to Omaha before turning west again toward Denver. It is a beautiful day. The sun is up, the sky is blue, and we are passing through fields of corn and past lush, green farmsteads. On the rights side of the train is a gigantic materials reclamation facility; there are huge piles of metal and other materials.  On the one hand, it is good to see the effort being made to reclaim and recycle.  On the other, those piles are a sobering reminder of the sheer amount of resources that we consume. And ALL of those resources are finite. Will we succeed in figuring out a way to live sustainably on the earth, or will the future be inevitably characterized by the progressive depletion of resources and wars over what remains until there are few or no humans left? We often hear talk about “saving the planet”, but the planet will remain long after we are gone; it will eventually find a new equilibrium point, and life itself will go on.  It is not the planet per se that we need to preserve, but the ecosystems that currently support human life. 

Of course, we know that human life on this earth will end some day. That may be in a hundred years or a hundred thousand years. From the perspective of cosmic time and scale, the difference is hardly significant. What is significant, it seems to me, is that whether it is a hundred or a hundred thousand years, we human succeed in realizing our calling to be the conscious manifestation of love in the universe, i.e., whether we learn to revere and to cherish the mystery and the miracle of life in all its magnificence, in all of its mystery, in all of its beauty as well as the incredible privilege of being consciously aware of it all and to know that it is not in length of life nor the amount of resources we consume nor it attainment of material comfort that “abundant life” as Jesus called it is found, but in the privilege and joy of sharing, for a time in the beauty and the mystery, as our native brothers and sisters say, with “all our relatives”.

Ironically, and tragically, the consumption-oriented, fossil-fuel driven, industrial way of life we have developed and embrace over the last couple of centuries has steadily distanced us from the wonder and beauty of our earth at the same time that it is steadily destroying it. But the Spirit is alive, is moving, and is at work to open our eyes and our hearts and to awaken us to that reality. Our ears are being opened to the groaning of the Creation, and we are beginning to hear and to respond. I believe that the People’s Climate March this past weekend was a small manifestation of that movement of the Spirit which is happening all over the globe in ways both small and large. Do you not see? Do you not hear? I am doing a new thing, says the Spirit. Watch and listen.

9/22, Flood Wall St.

This morning people converged on Battery Park, the staging area for Flood Wall St. We set out from Battery Park at noon.  I estimated the crowd at 1,000. By the time we got up Broadway within a couple blocks of the Stock Exchange, it was more like 5,000. At that point, the street was completely occupied. The crowd was noisy but peaceful, and the police were quite also peaceful, though less noisy. Apparently, the leadership made a decision not to try and advance on the stock exchange, and everyone stopped. The spirit was contagious. "We are unstoppable, another world is possible" was the chant that went on and on.  Again, there were all kinds of people-- young, old, different colors, even people in suits. There is no doubt that a powerful statement was made. The impression was that this is indeed a pivotal moment in the movement to stop the voracious exploitation and destruction of the earth for the sake of profit.  One can only hope. But there is also no doubt that there will need to be many more such moments in order for this movement to succeed.

In a couple hours I'll be getting back on the train headed back to Colorado. Don't have any idea how many of the same folks will be on the same train back.

I'm really glad that I took the opportunity to come to NYC. From my perspective, well worthwhile. I hope that you all feel like these posts have helped you to feel more a part of it all. Even more, I hope that you are motivated to think about what you can do, or what more you can do, to help grow the movement.

Evening, Sunday, Sept. 21

What a day! Went to the Mass for Creation at St. Peter's Lutheran Church in mid-town at 8:45 am. Afterward made our way (a couple dozen of us from St. Pete's) to the staging area for the faith-groups contingent.  There the ranks of Lutherans (in spiffy green T-shirts and holding matching signs printed and donated by the ELCA advocacy office) swelled to perhaps 150, and joined with many thousands of other folks from every faith under the sun. It was inspiring and energizing, and felt like the "foretaste of the feast to come" that we sing about in our eucharistic liturgy.  No arguing about beliefs or doctrines, no fretting about whether anyone was compromising their religious purity by associating with all those "others", just ALL of us excited and glad that all the rest of us were there to act out our own faiths through a common commitment to the welfare of the planet and all its creatures.

There was an interfaith service which went on while we were all waiting our turn to join in the march.  The first marchers had stepped off at 11:30 AM.  We were all feeling a little weary already as it approached 2 PM and we had yet to march a single step.  But then came our turn to merge into the main current of the march, and all weariness left.  It felt really great that our Lutheran contingent was among the most visible-- and VOCAL-- of the faith groups. We sang, and clapped, and danced as we marched.

It was impossible for us to even begin to guess how many people there were, because at any time we could only see a small portion of the total crowd, but we started to get the sense that it was big.  As we neared the halfway point of the march, I received a text from the organizers that initial estimates were over 300,000 people, which was considerably more even than the unofficial hoped-for participation of 200,000. It felt like were part of a really big moment.  In fact, shortly afterward we received the word that the march had so exceeded expectations that concern had grown about crowd management at the end of the route, so we were asked to begin dispersing from the route well before we reached the original end-point. And to add icing to the cake, though the crowd was loud and exhuberant, it was exceedingly peaceful.

This evening I attended the Religions of the World Interfaith Service for the Earth at St. John the Diving cathedral in uptown. There was a lot of beautiful music and prayers and such, but what impressed me most was the numerous renowned religious leaders who stood up to commit themselves personally to helping lead the climate change movement and to commit to mobilizing their own communities to do the same. I heard the religious community as a whole saying, "It's time we took our place in the leadership of this movement, because we have something important to contribute, and that is the spiritual power of our traditions."

I know I sound a little overly exhuberant myself, and no doubt there will be disappointments and frustrations ahead, but knowing that is the case, I feel this is the kind of shot in the arm we needed. And I believe both political and business leaders will take note of what happened today and will begin revising their calculus about the most wise and prudent course of action to take as a result.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a report on "Flood Wall Street".

Sunday morning

Yesterday I spoke at City Lights fellowship, a small congregation meeting in the old Friends church in Manhattan, and led by my friend Vince Anderson. Yes they meet on Saturday morning with breakfast at 11 am and service at 11:30.  It's an offshoot of a Seventh-Day Adventist group. Lovely group of people. They were in the midst of a series about Loving Our Neighbors, so my reflections on climate change and faith fit in quite well.

Afterward we went to Vince's place in Queens and caught up on each other. Vince had been part of an intentional Christian community in Denver of which I was also a part years ago. Now he leads or helps to lead four small congregations of people earnestly seeking to live in a Way that is compassionate and true. Vince is a terrific musician; one of his "congregations" meets in a bar called Union Pool late on Monday nights.

Today is the big day of the Climate March. What else to say on that?  I hope to share some reflections later today.  Right now, I'm off to St. Peter's Lutheran Church in mid-town, where they are having a Mass for Creation during their 8:45 AM worship.

9/20--Lower Manhattan

Beautiful day in NYC today. Went to meet up with a friend at the Catholic Worker soup kitchen in the East Village this morning, then went to lunch. Afterward, walked around awhile, found a park to sit and visit. Saw a sign in a window: "One bedroom apartment: $3500.00" That's per month! I guess gentrification has hit even here.

Signs for the Climate March posted all over the city. UN Secretary General Ban-ki Moon has said he will join the march.  And literally hundreds of related activities going on both before and after the march. News reports say that organizers are hoping for 100,000 people but, honestly, I think that would be a disappointment.

Spent awhile hanging out in Washington Park in lower Manhattan. An amazing place. All of humanity-- the good, the bad, the ugly, and the beautiful-- was there. Hundreds of people just enjoying the beautiful day, several street musicians playing in different corners of the park, lots of folks, including me, taking pictures. The scene made me think about what will happen to that place and all those people if we are not able to arrest global warming. It was just announced that the average concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has hit an all-time (in human history) high. But walking around Manhattan makes one realize what a huge undertaking it will be to change so much about the way we live, the way we do things. Again, it seems that only action at the top levels of government could possibly spur that kind of change in the time that it is needed, meaning the next couple of decades. That's why this march and all the thousands of other activities around the world are so important.

I've learned about another event on Monday called "Flood Wall Street" which is not officially connected with the climate march. It will involved thousands of people dressed in blue who plan by their sheer numbers to disrupt "business as usual" for those who profit from the despoiling of the environment. Rumor has it that some of these activists will engage in civil disobedience in order to try and get their message across. I plan to join those who will be making a visible statement by wearing blue and converging on the area, but not to take actions that could risk arrest, though I sympathize with those who do. I hope and pray that there is no violence associated with this action.

All day tomorrow are numerous events collectively being called the Climate Convergence: teach-ins, performances, forums, etc. You can find a schedule of those events at http://convergeforclimate.org/schedule.  You can also find a list of events around the country and the world at http://peoplesclimate.org/global/. Like the tag line for the climate march reads: To change everything, we need everyone.

Do we really have time for this? A dialogue

Just received this from my friend Jeff Neuman-Lee.  See my response below.

Do we really have time for this?
A letter to environmental leaders.
by Jeff Neuman-Lee
September 17, 2014

I was at the rally yesterday to greet the demonstrators taking the train to NYC. These things are all good fun and perhaps I should simply take the event that way. We were there to bolster the spirits of those who would spend their time and money to demonstrate the necessity for very rapid movement away from fossil fuels and other human activities which are changing the survivability for humans of earth’s climate toward new ways of powering our human communities and consumption of protein.

But on the part of the majority of speakers, as I heard them, the focus was not simply on the necessity of dealing with our human specie’s climate disrupting behavior, it was also on the necessity of dealing with our social order which has arguably gotten us in this fix. The comments on social order include such topics as social justice and the deficiencies of capitalism. While historically linked, I see these two things as distinct for one simple reason: time.

It took well over one hundred years from the abolitionists to Lincoln to King. And from King to now, well a few of us older folks have experienced how little/much progress has been made. (Why was our rally so white?) We don’t have two hundred years. We have maybe 20 to set new trajectories in our energy and protein production.

We can deal with our climate using very practical means, new technologies, new behaviors (i.e. riding bikes, eating beans, etc.) which can be learned with some rapidity.  And these changes can be made within the current social order.

On the other hand, creating a new set of morals as well as economic exchange, is very problematic. As a religious leader I know “religious” language when I hear it. It doesn’t need robes and buildings, just simply be utopian enough. And that’s what we were speaking to ourselves, a religious code. Of the speakers at the rally, several I count as good friends, I personally agreed with what I could hear of it. But it is a distraction.

I dislike putting it this way because I know in my being that humans are far more than dollars and cents, but in this American culture, that is what speaks. And we have a powerful, economic message that can be heard by most Americans, just not including ourselves. I.e. the price of wind is cheaper in Colorado than any other source of electrical power, the price of PV plummets, storage such as pumped storage is very available, as the price of utility grade batteries is coming down. Other, very promising to be cheaper techs are in the pipeline. Monetary cost is the signal that has the most universal acceptance today.

When we talk in our utopian vision, we enter into religious war with those who don’t like it, for whatever reason.

Our messaging matters. If we are just speaking to ourselves, let’s be clear about it and forego the notion that enough others will rally to our side.and adopt from us what they see fit.




     --Thanks for sharing  this, Jeff.  I will share it further on my blog.  Not because I totally agree with everything you said, but because it deserves to  be heard and considered. My own response is that you are right, but also that only government action can create behavioral change on the level and to the degree that is needed to avert catastrophic climate change.  Maybe that is what you are saying, as well. So the Climate March is one effort to impress the necessity of government action upon the world's leaders.  Now, I'm pretty sure that those leaders, or at least those among their advisors, are aware of the facts and the realities which you cite. But I also believe that those facts and realities are not enough to spur them to the action we need from them; if that were the case, I think they would have done so by now.  Only a mass movement of people will motivate those leaders to act with the kind of dispatch that is needed, and only a powerful spiritual/moral message is going to mobilize that kind of mass movement. That's why I'm on the Climate Train, and that's why I spoke the words I did at the rally.  I trust that I am among those friends whom you reference in your letter.

Thanks for your witness, your leadership, your energy, your courage. Adelante!

Nelson


Jeff Neuman-Lee

Sept. 17, 9 am-- community on the train

9 am, Sept. 17

Got on the train in Denver last night after a “Whistle-Stop Rally” and sendoff by a hundred or so folks at Union Station. There are approx.. 170 “climate riders” on the train; lots of them are wearing blue “People’s Climate Train” T-shirts.

Quite a variety of us on this train. Last night it was the younger people who were most in evidence. At 8 PM I went to an education session presented by a couple fo the younger people from Colorado, they were teaching about the impacts of oil and gas development on Colorado’s environment, economy, and politics. In one car there was a very energetic group of young people dancing to music on someone’s phone.

I was awakened at 7 am this morning by the breakfast announcement over the intercom. Decided to head to the dining car for the first seating. I had breakfast with a middle-aged couple from Portland, OR, who are also on their way to NYC for the Climate March. She is a Unitarian minister. Seems like we somewhat older folks are up for the early breakfast shift this morning. Walking through the coach cars on the say to the dining car, I saw a lot of younger people who were still “out”.

There’s a great energy and sense of community on the train.  People talking energetically, meeting and greeting each other. Much different than traveling by plane, when people are squished together for a couple hours and communal conversation is pretty much non-existent. Just now two women sat down with me at my table in the lounge car.  One is from San Diego, the other from “the Bay area”.Louise has on a hand-embroiderd “350.org” shirt, and is just not taking a picture of Olivia, who is holding a small whiteboard on which she wrote a message to be shared on Louise’s Facebook page. And just now she took my picture, as well.  My message:  “The Earth does not belong to us, we belong to the Earth. Whatever we do to the Earth, we do to ourselves.”

There are various sessions scheduled throughout the day.  I saw a sign for free massages;  after a night trying to sleep in a coach seat, I just might have to take advantage of the offer.

In case you don’t know, not only is there a large march taking place in New York this weekend,  there are hundreds of other events taking place all over the world. You can see a map locating all the events at www.peoplesclimate.org.

In a couple hours we’ll be passing not far from Wartburg College, for which I work as co-director of the college’s urban-semester program in Denver, CO.I’m privileged to work for such a fine church-related liberal arts college, but I’m doubly privileged to be living and working in Denver. People on the train from the west coast have been commenting about the beauty of travelling through Colorado by train.

Big shout out to my man James, from San Fransisco, who just sat down with me and has a WiFi hotspot and let me sign on using it (no WiFi on the train itself). James has a start-up company called Bay Efficiency which is doing energy audits and efficiency plans for commercial buildings in the Bay area. Look him up!

Media Release

Whistle Stop Rally at Union Station to Celebrate Colorado Climate Delegation

Dozens of Coloradans riding People's Climate Train and bus to historic climate march in New York City

DENVER, CO— More than 40 Coloradans either hopped aboard the People’s Climate Train today for a two-day cross-country trip or are riding a chartered bus en route to what's expected to be the largest demonstration in the history of the climate movement this Sunday in New York City - The People's Climate March. Organizers anticipate 200,000 or more participants at the march.

The Whistle Stop Rally was organized to celebrate and show support for the Colorado delegation of more than 40 individuals travelling to the March. The Whistle Stop Rally, which took place in front of the recently renovated historic Union Station from 6-7PM, featured participants dressed in blue and green, singing, waving Earth flags, playing kuzoos and listening to activists from the west coast and Colorado speaking about their motivations for attending the climate march. Speakers included youth leaders, student Fossil Free divestment organizers, ministers, Native American and NAACP activists, 350 Colorado board members, Climate Train organizers and more.

"I’m attending the People’s Climate March because I believe in the power of people - that we have the collective power to take back our country and our Earth; to rewrite the future that we choose, not one that is chosen for us by corporate power and political might," said 350 Board Member Katie Falkeberg, who is riding the train to the march. "I believe the time for us to exercise our power is now."

The People's Climate Marchers are taking to the streets Sunday to call on world leaders attending the United Nations Summit on the climate crisis to take action, demanding "a world with an economy that works for people and the planet, a world safe from the ravages of climate change, and a world with good jobs, clean air and water, and healthy communities". UN Secretary­ General Ban Ki-­moon is urging governments to support an ambitious global agreement to dramatically reduce global warming pollution.

About 170 people — including nuns, ministers, tribal leaders and student activists — will ride the People's Climate Train, which departed Emeryville, CA, Monday morning and was organized by the Center for Biological Diversity.  Riders will participate in workshops, discussions and activist trainings as the train passes through lands threatened by the climate crisis.  The train will stop and pick up more climate riders in Reno, Denver, Salt Lake City, Omaha and Chicago. The train arrives in New York on Thursday.

 “It’s really inspiring to see so many people climbing aboard this train united in a call for action on global warming,” said the Center’s Valerie Love. “In one way or another, the climate crisis will touch every corner of this country. People know now that if we don’t act soon, we’ll see more heat waves, rising seas and disastrous storms. We have a chance to change the course of history.”

"We cannot win this battle to save species and environments without forging an emotional bond between ourselves and nature as well - for we will not fight to save what we do not love." 
~ Stephen Jay Gould

The global environmental emergency we face is indeed a crisis.  It also represents an opportunity for humankind to take the next step in the evolution of our consciousness, our spirituality, our awareness of and appreciation for our interconnectedness and interdependence with everything else which exists.  One word which can communicate this kind of awareness and appreciation is “reverence”.  We must learn to revere the earth on which we live, as well as all the other creatures with which we share it.  We must learn to handle everything with reverence, because  our own existence and well-being is contingent upon it. 

The irony and tragedy of modern life is that the same technological prowess which has enabled what we are used to calling "progress", and which is degrading critical components of the ecosystem upon which we depend for life has also, during the last couple centuries, also steadily distanced us and alienated us from nature.  We can only live in harmony with creation when are enamored with it, but we have learned to view it not as a "Thou"-- to use Martin Buber's characterization-- with which we are in a relationship of mutuality, but as an "it" to be exploited for our own short-term satisfaction.  We have lost sight of the reality that we do not stand apart from are rather a part of nature.  As Chief Seattle is reported to have said in his response to the US government's proposal to purchase his tribe's lands, "The Earth does not belong to us-- we belong to the Earth.  We did not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it;  whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves." We must learn to see the entire Earth community as our neighbor, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. As Stephen Jay Gould asserts, that is the only way we can marshall the spiritual resources necessary to confront the emergency with threatens our Earth community and to save it from our own greed and apathy.

Climate change primer

As I mentioned in my first post, those of us who will be riding the People's Climate Train are headed for NYC to participate in the People's Climate March, an effort to make concern about climate change loud enough and visible enough so that world leaders, who will be meeting at the United Nations on Sept. 23, get the message that they MUST create a strong international agreement to take whatever steps necessary to reverse the growth of emissions of greenhouse gases so that catastrophic climate disruption can be averted. What follows is a simplified explanation of the basic issue.  

 Currently, the average surface temperature of the earth is relatively hospitable to human life, as well as to the life of  the other creatures with which we share the earth, as has been the case for several million years. That temperature, we now know, is sensitive to the levels of certain gasses in the atmosphere, and has fluctuated with those levels over the millenia. These are called “greenhouse gasses”, because, like the transparent surface of a greenhouse, they allow most of the radiant energy of the sun’s rays to reach and warm the surface of the earth, but they then trap the infrared rays radiated back out by the earth rather than allowing them to escape back into space, thus keeping the earth warmer than it would be otherwise. To a certain extent this is a good thing, because without these greenhouse gasses the earth would be too cold to support life as it currently exists. However, too high a proportion of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere will cause the earth to be too warm to support life as we know it.

 Over billions of years, the earth has evolved a system of regulating the amount of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere. One of those is carbon dioxide. Certain processes, such as decaying vegetation, fires, and animal respiration release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.  Through photosynthesis, however, plants “breathe in” carbon dioxide, they separate the carbon from the oxygen, they turn the carbon into new vegetable matter, and “breathe out” oxygen back into the atmosphere, which we then breathe in to start the cycle again. Over time, a certain equilibrium between the creation and consumption of carbon dioxide has resulted in the climate we currently enjoy.

  People used to think (and some still do) that there is no way that human activity could have a significant effect on a system as massive as the earth, but three factors belie this belief:  one is the increasing power of human technology; another is continuing population growth;  the third is the delicate balance of the ecological system within which we live.  The tools we invented, which originally gave us an adaptive advantage but did not endanger the ecosphere at first because they were not so powerful and we were not so numerous, have become so sophisticated and powerful that our use of them has now become maladaptive. We now see that our activity does, in fact have significant impacts on the global ecosystem. Those impacts are threatening to cause the collapse of that system on any number of fronts, and of course if it does collapse it could well mean the end of us as it has already for numerous other species. 

It is not just that the earth is warming that is the problem. Just as big a problem is that all the weather patterns-- amount and distribution of precipitation, prevailing winds, season length and rapidity of changes, etc.-- upon which our global food supply depends is being disrupted. We are so dependent on the global system of industrial food production and distribution, which is in turn dependent on a stable and dependable climate, that significant disruption of those patterns can rapidly lead to a worldwide food crisis, followed by mass migration of populations and widespread violence. The violence in Syria was precipitated by a severe, extended drought in the northern rural areas of the country which forced millions of rural dwellers to urban areas seeking relief and employment.

The question is whether we will adapt and change our behavior rapidly enough so that the ecological balance on which our lives depend can be preserved for future generations of humans, or whether it will be left to other species to pick up where we left off once we are gone. That is very much an open question. The People's Climate March-- and solidarity events and activities that are happening all over the world at this point (see http://peoplesclimate.org/join-an-event/) is one effort in a growing movement weigh in on the side of future generations of humans. Not everyone can travel to New York to directly participate in the march, but everyone can do something to become part of the movement.

EPA testimony on climate change

Testimony at EPA regional hearing on new carbon rules

July 29,2014  Denver CO

Good morning. My name is Nelson Bock, I live here in Denver. I speak today in favor of the proposed regulations on emissions of carbon dioxide from existing power plants.

I am a Lutheran minister, and I teach on the subject of religion and the environment for a Lutheran college. I am also a member of the Board of Directors of Colorado Interfaith Power and Light. Colorado is one of 40 IPL state affiliates working with communities of faith to lessen the impacts of climate change through education, through taking action to reduce their own carbon footprints, and through advocacy for more environmentally responsible policies at every level of government. We do this out of our conviction that we human beings have a divine calling and responsibility as caretakers of the creation-- the beautiful, intricate, interdependent web of life and natural resources upon which all life, including our own, depends. It is a sacred calling to care for a sacred gift.

All major religious traditions share this belief in our calling to be stewards of creation, to see ourselves not as the masters and commanders of the earth, but as part of a community of creatures who live an interdependent existence. We are not outside or above the natural order, we are part of it, and everything we do affects that natural order. We cannot pretend that our activity on the earth has no impacts and no consequences. Our scriptures attest that the well-being of the creation is dependent on treating it and each other with reverence and respect.  In turn, our own well-being as a human community is dependent on the well-being of the ecosphere of which we are a part.

As people of faith, we believe that God speaks to us through the creation, and that scientific inquiry is one of the tools available to us in order to discern what creation is saying. Concerns about climate change and intensive scientific research into its causes and potential impacts have been ongoing for several decades, and we are now experiencing many of the impacts that scientists began alerting us to back then. Our climate is changing rapidly. We know that a major driver of that change is the emission of carbon dioxide, and we know that the largest single source of human-caused carbon dioxide emissions is electrical power plants, mostly powered by coal. There is no getting around the facts: carbon dioxide heats up in the presence of infrared radiation, and we are significantly and rapidly increasing the proportion of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.  In addition, atmospheric CO2 increases the acidity of the oceans, threatening the chemical balance which is so key the oceans’ ecosystems.

On behalf of the world’s poor and vulnerable, who are most susceptible to harm from the impacts of climate change, and whom we also have a sacred duty to care for and protect, and on behalf of future generations of humans and all species, I urge you to adopt the proposed rules as a first step towards bringing our emissions of greenhouses gases under control in order to help minimize the impacts of climate change.

As Chief Seattle is reported to have said when the United States government proposed to purchase some of the last remaining Indian lands: “This we know: all things are connected. The earth does not belong to us, we belong to the earth. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the children of the earth.  We did not weave the web of life, we are merely a strand in it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.”

In a little over a week, on Sept. 16, I will be hopping on the California Zephyr here in Denver, bound for New York City with I-don't-know-who-else to participate in the People's Climate March on Sunday, Sept. 21. The PCM is an effort to get the attention of world leaders who will also gather in New York for a United Nations special session on climate change taking place on Sept. 23. Several hundred organizations have joined together to call for this demonstration, hoping that hundreds of thousands of us will show up for the largest demonstration yet relating to the threat of climate change in order to plead for the world's leaders to pledge to work together in order to avert that threat, which is primarily being driven by emissions of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

When I first heard about the People's Climate March several months ago, my first reaction was "I've got to go, I've got to be there". I've been deeply involved in faith-based work to prevent climate change since 2007, and I couldn't imagine passing up the chance to add my body and my voice to this historic effort. But then I thought about my carbon footprint and decided I couldn't really justify flying to New York to participate in a protest against climate change, given that flying is one of the most carbon-intensive means of transportation there is. Then I learned about the People's Climate Train, which was someone's ingenious brainstorm to get folks from California to New York to ride the train together. This method of travel is not only far less carbon-intensive on a per capita basis, but has the added benefit of allowing us time and opportunity to create community as we spend about 48 hours traveling together. Within hours I had my ticket and had cleared my calendar for the trip.

I have a friend, another "climate activist", who has decided NOT to make the trip because of his concern about the degree to which travel powered by fossil fuels contributes to problematic GHG emissions. That's fine, that is his choice, his way of making a statement, his way of "doing what he can". That's really all that any of us can do, and we each have to choose to do what we think we can, even if we can't be sure whether or to what extent it will make a difference. When it comes to fighting climate change, it's not people disagreeing about what are the best choices to make; it's people who are not making any conscious choices at all, it's people who are either unaware or just careless about the impact of their choices on the planet we call home and the ecosystem on which we depend for life. To me, if the People's Climate March can be a loud enough voice, make enough noise to get some of those people to take notice and start to question why we are not doing more to avert drastic climate change, then I believe the time, effort, and money spent to bring it off will have been worth it. If not, then I still will have done what I thought I could do, which I believe is better than doing nothing even if I am wrong.  Because if I am wrong, then perhaps I and others can learn something from the mistake; but you can't learn or accomplish anything by doing nothing at all.

For the last seven years, I've been involved in Colorado Interfaith Power and Light, part of the national Interfaith Power and Light movement working to energize and mobilize people and communities of faith to recognize, claim, and exercise their calling to be stewards, guardians, caretakers of this sacred gift, this home, this rare, beautiful, intricate and-- we are learning-- fragile planet from which all life has sprung and upon which we depend for everything needed to sustain it.

So I'll be writing semi-regularly over the next few weeks, reflecting on life, faith, creation, history, human nature, etc., as this journey unfolds. I welcome your thoughts, reactions, reflections, as well.