UU’s Take on Global Warming.

UU’s Take on Global Warming Statement of Conscience on Global Warming and Climate Change Adopted June, 2006

General Assembly St. Louis, Missouri 2006 Delegates to the 2006 UU General Assembly in St. Louis, Missouri, June 20-25, arrived energetic about passing an in number Statement of Conscience on a dangerous atmospheric devation.

General Assembly Global Warming was embraced as a Study/Action Issue in 2004, starting a 2 year study process. UUA Commission on Social Witness drafted an announcement for thought at this GA. Some felt the draft Statement of Conscience was excessively tasteless: “The draft is similar to tapioca; we require dialect as hot as stew peppers!”

General Assembly In Plenary Session, more than 50 changes were proposed to fortify the Statement. Gini Courter, the UUA mediator, moved the representatives into a Whole's Committee and added an extra Plenary session to the GA calendar to accommodate more opportunity for the alteration procedure to develop. Amid the procedure, there was resonating agreement among representatives for an in number, activity situated articulation.

General Assembly Many of the 38 revisions eventually consolidated were those bolstered by a community included UU Ministry for Earth, UU Service Committee, UUA Commission on Socially Responsible Investing, and Members of intrigued UU gatherings. The revisions tried to fortify the associations between a worldwide temperature alteration, our religious qualities and standards, human rights, and equity.

General Assembly The Statement at last embraced incorporated: a require an in number denominational reaction, a call to UUs to lessen our own vitality utilization and carbon discharges by no less than 20% by 2010 or sooner, and gave clear rules to other congregational and individual activity.

Threat of Global Warming/Climate Change Statement of Conscience “Life on this planet will be enormously influenced unless we grasp new practices, morals, and qualities to direct our lives on a warming planet.” “We as Unitarian Universalists are called to join with others to stop rehearses that fuel an Earth-wide temperature boost/environmental change, to induce feasible choices, and to moderate the impacts of an unnatural weather change/environmental change with just and moral responses.”

Threat of Global Warming/Climate Change Statement of Conscience “As an individuals of confidence, we focus on a recharged veneration forever and regard for the reliant web of all existence.”

A Matter of Science There is logical accord that Earth’s atmosphere is changing brought on fundamentally by human utilization of oil, coal, and regular gas. Dissolving of polar ice and mountain ice sheets may bring about ocean levels to ascend by no less than 3 feet,probably more - by 80 feet in coming hundreds of years if the normal temperature rises five degrees. A large portion of the world’s plant and creature species at danger of eradication by 2100. Siberian permafost peat lowlands softening - discharging methane and quickening worldwide environmental change. Softening ice upsets sensitive salt equalization in North Atlantic Ocean, undermining a nearby ice age in northern Europe and parts of North America.

A Matter of Science Warmer atmospheres reaching out toward the shafts significantly change biological systems. Late increments in ocean surface temperatures are connected with more extreme typhoons. A worldwide temperature alteration can bring about both expands and declines in neighborhood temperatures and precipitation. Human-created nursery gasses are at a level not seen for no less than 600,000 years. While atmosphere is continually changing, studies demonstrate that common reasons don't represent the late quick temperature increment yet human action does.

2001 IPCC/SPM,Figure 2.4

A Matter of Faith and Justice “As Unitarian Universalists, we are called by our Seventh Principle to assert and advance “respect for the related web of all presence of which we are a part.” “We imagine a world in which all individuals are guaranteed a safe and significant life that is environmentally dependable and supportable, in which each type of life has inborn value.” “To manage the reliant web, we must weight it less while keeping up the essentials of our lives.”

A Matter of Faith and Justice “Our world is calling us to assemble in group and react from our ethical and otherworldly riches, together we can change our individual and congregational lives into demonstrations of good witness, disposing of our destructive propensities for new practices and practices that will maintain life on Earth, ever cautious against injustice.”

A Matter of Policy “It is an astringent incongruity and a grave bad form that financially created nations that are most in charge of an unnatural weather change/environmental change have the riches, innovation, and framework to adapt to its negative impacts, while the individuals who have the slightest will have the biggest weights to bear.”

A Matter of Policy U.S.A. confirmed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 1992. U.S.A. has not sanctioned the Kyoto Protocol to the tradition, which sets points of reference for decreasing nursery gas emanation rates. Universal collaboration is discriminating for tending to this worldwide problem.

A Call to Action “Affirming that we are a piece of this world and that mankind has realized an Earth-wide temperature boost/environmental change, we, the part gatherings of the Unitarian Universalist Association , vow to ground our missions and services in adoration for this world and obligation to it as we embrace these individual practices , congregational activities , and support objectives .”

Personal Practices Reduce our utilization of vitality and our utilization of fabricated products that get to be squander. Use option wellsprings of vitality to diminish a worldwide temperature alteration/environmental change and to energize the improvement of such sources.


Transportation Choose the most vitality effective transportation systems that address our issues and capacities (e.g., walk, bicycle, carpool, utilization mass travel and correspondence advancements, and point of confinement travel).

Personal Practices Determine our own vitality utilization and vow to lessen our utilization of vitality and carbon outflows by no less than 20 percent by 2010 or sooner and into what's to come. Vitality Efficiency Tips: www.uuvisalia.org/equity/energy.html

Personal Practices Reuse, reuse, and decrease waste. Plant and protect trees and local plants and pick economically reaped wood and wood items. Eat and serve vitality effective sustenance that is privately created and low on the nourishment chain.
 Use money related assets to energize corporate social obligation with reference to an unnatural weather change/environmental change.

Personal Practices Model these practices by focusing on an existence of straightforwardness and Earth stewardship. Expend less, pick apparatuses that are appraised vitality effective (e.g., by the EPA Energy Star Program), and pick items and materials that are produced using renewable assets and can be reused toward the end of their value.

Personal Practices Commit to keep on finding out about the science, effect, and relief of a dangerous atmospheric devation/environmental change and impart this teaching so as to learn about and talking about the issues and perils of, and activities to address, environmental change. www.uuvisalia.org/equity/personal_practices.html

Congregational Actions Celebrate veneration for the related web of presence in all parts of congregational life. Regard ecologically dependable practices as an otherworldly train . Look for confirmation through the Green Sanctuary Program of the Unitarian Universalist Ministry for Earth.

Congregational Actions Educate ourselves, our youngsters, and future eras on manageable approaches to live reliantly. UU Visalia Action: Northwest Earth Institute Study Course on “Sustainable Living” - January, 2007

Congregational Actions Whenever conceivable, arrangement congregational offices around nearness to open transportation and support devotees, as they are capable, to go by open transportation, strolling, biking, and carpooling. Look for U.S. Green Building Council Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) confirmation for all new congregational building activities and utilization LEED rules for redesign ventures. Select in the EPA’s Energy Star for Congregations Program.

Congregational Actions Use congregational money related assets to absolutely address the a dangerous atmospheric devation/environmental change emergency. Practice naturally dependable utilization and energize intentional straightforwardness among individuals. Construct a more extensive base for ecologically careful strategies and practices through congregational partnerships inside Unitarian Universalism, through interfaith channels, and with common substances.

Denominational Affairs Call upon every political partie to address the issue. Give assets to congregational and individual reactions. Look for open doors for open witness on ecological equity. Perform ecological reviews of UUA properties and model naturally supportable practices. Discover trust later on.

Advocacy Goals USA to approve Kyoto Protocol. Shift government appropriations from fossil fuel commercial ventures to renewable vitality advances and enhanced vitality proficiency. Trust projects to moderate unfriendly impacts. Sheltered and mindful advancement of force sources with low nursery gas outflows. Build forestation and different types of CO2 sequestration.

Advocacy Goals Fund vitality proficient mass travel. Support an Earth-wide temperature boost/environmental change effect contemplates by nearby and provincial