Testimony of Kristin Barker, resident of 2005 Allen PI NW, Washington DC, in support of the EPA Clean Power Plan

As a native of New Mexico, a parent, a practicing Buddhist and co-founder of a global community of Buddhist engaged on climate change, I am here to speak in support of the Clean Power Plan.

The 2500 year-old Buddhist tradition at its core asks each of us to look closely at what is happening and then respond with wisdom and compassion. As it turns out, there are many teachings that apply to question of coal-fired power plant
emissions.

First and foremost, Buddhism is embedded with a deep reverence for the whole of life. AII other beings, human and non-human, are understood to be endowed with an inherently pure, luminous, vast and loving nature. The "first precept" of consciously and vigilantly minimizing harm thus arises from this clarity.

You have heard many accounts by now of the systematic and broad-scale harm caused by existing power plants. This harm comes directly in the form of decreased air quality in more than half the country's local communities. And it comes indirectly through their significant contribution to climate change, with upwards of 40% of US carbon emissions arising every day from these facilities. Buddhism holds that we are all charged not only with the protection of all present beings, but those yet to be born. The threat of global climate change thus implores us to speak and act to cut these emissions in order to protect the basic conditions for life.

Buddhism also recognizes the need for right-livelihood. That is, we each must have means for living in a way that meets our own basic needs and refrains from harming others. While proponents of coal-fired power plants may point to the threat of job loss, it is in your power to create the conditions for not only many more clean energy jobs well into the future, but the integrity of these jobs. We simply cannot blame the Kentucky coal miner for the harm her labors cause when she has no viable alternatives. It is the EPA's power to create the market conditions that produce more jobs and more harm-free jobs.

My tradition also speaks to the underlying causes of climate change as they are the same as all causes of suffering. Why in the presence of a clear and present danger on the scale of global warming would we not take decisive action to curb carbon emissions? The Buddhist wisdom tradition points to the three poisons, the three qualities that distort our view, the same that bind our awakening to the truth of our natural and pure being. These are the forces of greed, hatred and delusion. In our complex civilization, these have taken on institutionalized form: corporations running solely on greed as well as a media and body politic willing to perpetuate delusion. The EPA with the Clean Power Plan thus has a critical role to play in checking these forces on a national scale, insisting that the undiluted reality of a degrading global atmosphere come into balance with private coal company interests.

Finally, the Buddhist wisdom tradition understands that all things are interdependent. There may be no better illustration of this truth than climate change. [The coal pulled from the mountains of western Virginia and burned in Ohio creates carbon pollution that warms Earth and melts the glaciers of Tibet, flooding villages in Nepal and draining into the Indian Ocean, which raises sea levels, which in turn flood the US Naval base in Norfolk, Virginia.] We are learning that none of us, not as individuals, communities, or even nations, is wholly separate and independent of each other. While this runs in stark contrast to idealized notions of rugged individualism, global and catastrophic climate change will be a ruthless teacher if we don't learn its lesson soon enough.

But if the causes of global climate change are interdependent, so are its solutions. We are not separate. To protect the earth, the air, the water is to protect life, to protect ourselves. The EPA through the Clean Power Plan has the duty and the opportunity to minimize harm, enable plentiful and ethical jobs, recognize the interdependence of all life and play its assigned role in protecting the conditions for healthy life to continue.