Climate Action: Senate Letter
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January, 2010
Dear Senator:
The impacts of climate change as currently predicted and understood by leading scientific bodies including the National Academy of Sciences and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have and will dramatically and negatively alter God’s gracious gift of Creation. These impacts will have a disproportionate impacts on those living in poverty and suffering from hunger as well as the elderly, infants, communities of color and those least responsible for greenhouse gas emissions
As a person of faith, I urge you to respond to climate change with great haste. Please support mandatory measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to the levels called for by respected scientific bodies, while protecting and providing for those living in poverty both in the United State and abroad
In particular, any moral response to climate change should include the following provisions:
- Ensuring that the US adequately reduces its greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the worst impacts of global climate change. The current recommended levels are 25% below 1990 emissions levels by 2020 and 80% below 1990 emissions levels by 2050
- Providing adequate financial protection for those who are living in poverty to ensure they are not pushed farther into poverty as a result of climate legislation which will increase the cost of food, transportation, and other goods as a result of the price put on carbon
- Include international adaptation assistance funds for those living in developing countries who are already suffering from the impacts of climate change and are unable to cope with the droughts, floods, and lack of food devastating many of their communities
National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA
Washington Office
110 Maryland Avenue, NE, Suite 108
Washington, DC 20002