The Rev. Woody Bartlett 

Georgia Interfaith Power & Light 

EPA Testimony on Carbon Emissions 

June 28, 2014- Atlanta, Georgia 

I'm the Rev. Woody Bartlett, a retired Episcopal clergyman. My wife and I co-founded Georgia 

Interfaith Power & Light, some eleven years ago. It is now a $200,000 a year private nonprofit 

that has over 500 partner congregations across the State of Georgia. We cover many different 

environmental issues but we are most focused on the harmful by-products of the ways we 

generate and use electrical power- namely carbon emissions. 

This morning I want to tell you my story and why I got involved. I'm doing this in the hope that 

it will add one more voice to the chorus that is demanding that we do all in our power to 

reduce our carbon emissions. 

It started with me in the Spring of 1988, over 25 years ago. I was in San Diego for a conference 

on poverty. By mistake I got there a day early. I had a free day in San Diego! So then what do 

you do? You go to the zoo, of course. 

I'd never been to the San Diego Zoo before. It is a beautiful place, with many exotic creatures 

exhibited in their natural habitats. There are just a few cages and bars. Mostly, it is animals with 

humans looking at them like so many honeybees around the first blossoms of spring. 

As I wandered along the pathways, my curiosity was piqued by a red triangle with a white E in it 

at the top right corner of many of the exhibits. Looking in my guidebook, I was startled to see 

that it meant that that species was "Endangered." Then I noticed the explanation off to the side 

of each of those displays that told how and why that particular species was so vulnerable. 

Almost all mentioned the presence of humans as the prime cause. The red triangles then took 

on a blood-red hue. 

Finishing my tour of the zoo in the early afternoon, I went across the park to the Natural History 

Museum. And wouldn't you know it; it featured a special exhibit on extinction. I couldn't stay 

out of it. And it told similar stories to those told in the zoo. And it claimed that 99% of the 

extinctions were caused by the direct or indirect presence of humanity! Finally, at the end of 

the exhibit, I was faced with one final chart. It read: 

Rates of Extinction 

Before Man- one species per thousand years. 

During the age of the dinosaurs- 100 species per year 

At the present time ( 1988) ten times that rate- that is, 1000 species per year 

At that rate of increase- by the year 2000 (that is 14 years ago)- several species per 

hour or some 20,000 per year 

The last line was the real shocker: "When humanity?" 
I was stunned. We are in a great extinction event that is harsher than any that has come before 

-way harsher than the extinction that wiped the mighty dinosaurs off of the face of the earth. I 

did know that at that time up to 90% of the existing species had disappeared. If the collapse 

happened in their time, it could also happen in our time. And it could take out humanity too. 

These are my children, my people, my flock. My eyes misted up. 

When I returned to Atlanta, I checked out the claims at the zoo. There was fairly solid 

agreement. There were many different opinions about the mechanisms of this great collapse. 

But high on every list was the release of carbon, long stored under the earth in coal and oil, 

released back into the atmosphere in the form of so-called greenhouse gases. And most of 

those are generated as we power our lives- condition our air, transport ourselves, grow our 

food, power our industry. 

So at what cost do we live? Can we restrain the release of these greenhouse gases in some 

meaningful way? I come begging that the proposed carbon pollution standards be adopted. I 

make this plea in the name of my people.