In its reliance on fossil fuels, American energy policy is a cause of global climate change. The United States has a moral responsibility to lead a transition to a new sustainable global energy system. Everything we do to assure safe and sustainable energy domestically must, at the same time, promote it internationally. We must join in binding international agreements, such as the Kyoto Protocol, which set energy conservation targets and timetables. Preventing climate change is a preeminent expression of faithfulness to our Creator God.
Energy conservation is global leadership.
Rooted in these values, we have organized the Oregon Interfaith Global Warming Campaign to raise awareness of the far-reaching destructive effects of our current reliance on fossil fuels, to involve congregations and their members in energy conservation, and to make our concerns known to elected officials. Here in Oregon, we know well the destructive effects of wasteful, shortsighted energy policies and practices that do not focus on conservation, and lifestyles that depend upon unlimited exploitation of finite natural resources. Our overuse of energy requires precious water to be diverted for electric power generation that threatens numerous species of salmon, which have great cultural and spiritual value to people of the Pacific Northwest. Nuclear plants, which have failed economically in our region and which produce wastes that cannot be safely stored, are now being recklessly considered as a source of energy. Towns whose livelihoods depended upon continuous extraction of minerals or logging of forests face bleak economic futures without policies oriented toward conservation and sustainable development.