Last week North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality introduced members of the Secretary’s Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board during a ceremony in the agency’s Green Square Lobby. The scope of the Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board is to assist the Department in achieving and maintaining the fair and equal treatment and meaningful involvement of North Carolinians regardless of where they live, their race, religion or income with respect to the development, implementation, and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations, and policies. “These Board members have been tasked with working…
Sustainability Goals Delay Duke University Plans for Power Plant
Duke University officials have announced the indefinite delay of plans to build a freestanding Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant and will instead focus its attention on expanding opportunities to use biogas and other environmentally friendly fuels for its growing energy needs. “Duke has an aggressive goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2024 while ensuring that the energy demands of a growing, vibrant campus can be met,” said Executive Vice President Tallman Trask III. “While CHP technology creates much greater efficiencies for both the consumer and the producer, we also…
NC Religious Leaders’ Letter Opposing Offshore Oil Drilling Delivered to DC
In response to President Donald Trump and Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke’s proposal to auction off nearly every piece of America’s coastline to private oil companies, 34 religious leaders in North Carolina urged the Administration to invest in renewable energy instead of expanded fossil fuel exploration. The joint letter from the religious leaders comes at the end of a 60-day federal comment period that has seen heightened opposition to the Administration’s coastal drilling plan. The NC religious leaders are part of a larger 310-signer letter of religious leaders from across…
Lenten Guide: Fourth Sunday in Lent
Excerpted from the NC Council of Churches Lenten Guide, “Journey to Justice” You were dead through the trespasses and sins in which you once lived, following the course of this world, following the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work among those who are disobedient. All of us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else. But God, who is rich in mercy, out…
Don’t let Trump Repeal and Replace our Clean Power Plan
After failing to “repeal and replace” the Affordable Care Act, the Trump administration now has its sights set on our Clean Power Plan. For this one, they won’t have to go through Congress. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has announced his intention to “withdraw the so-called Clean Power Plan” — and replace it with a far weaker standard. The Clean Power Plan is one of the most powerful tools we have to curb carbon pollution from the power sector and move our country toward a clean energy economy. Weakening this plan…
What should the Peoples Climate Movement do next?
It has been three years since 400,000+ people came together in the streets of New York City for the first Peoples Climate March in 2014, and we’ve achieved a lot. But there is so much still on the line, perhaps more than ever before. This year and next are critical in the fight for action on climate, jobs and justice. NC Interfaith Power & Light is working alongside hundreds of national and local groups to determine our strategies for 2018 and beyond – and together as the Peoples Climate Movement,…
Praying in Opposition to Fracked Gas Pipelines
The Atlantic Coast Pipeline met more opposition last week. This time in the form of a prayer gathering by faith leaders outside the Department of Environmental Quality office. DEQ and the Cooper administration are currently considering a 401 water quality permit application that the pipeline must have before moving ahead with construction later this fall. Susannah Tuttle, Director of NC Interfaith Power & Light, brought word to the assembly of a resolution adopted by the NC Council of Churches Governing Board condemning the construction of pipelines such as the Atlantic…
Hurricanes and Interfaith Power & Light
Over the past week we have experienced a thousand-year flood in Houston and the most powerful storm ever to form in the Atlantic. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt says now is not the time to talk about climate change. But the mayor of Miami says “if this isn’t climate change, I don’t know what is.” Hurricanes Irma and Harvey were intensified and strengthened by the warming waters of the Atlantic Ocean – just like climate scientists have predicted. We need to take action now to fight global warming. Religious organizations are…
Gov. Cooper Speaks Up for Protecting NC’s Coast
Governor Roy Cooper has announced his strong opposition to offshore drilling and seismic blasting along North Carolina’s coast. “Our coast is part of our identity,” he said, speaking to the press at Fort Macon State Park near Atlantic Beach Penny Hooper, NCIPL Leadership Council Chair, was in the room for the Governor’s press conference. She was among representatives of faith communities, businesses, fishing families, beachgoers, and conservationists that have all joined together to protect our coast from drilling operations even as some political leaders push to let oil companies drill…
More Wind Energy, Not Less
It is becoming a national trend for politicians to “divide and conquer” by attacking the wind industry while supporting other forms of clean energy. This is fracturing the renewable energy community as folks are being forced to take positions that do not support one another. As Director of NCIPL, I pray that we do not take sides and instead continue to support all sources of renewable energy without pitting one against another. NCIPL is a member of the NC Sustainable Energy Association (NCSEA). Below is their statement on HB 589 and a summary…
Rising Up with Richmond County
“Biomass” may sound like a clean idea, but it actually means cutting down and turning trees into fuel pellets to be burned for energy — creating more carbon pollution than coal, accelerating global warming, and driving climate chaos. North Carolina’s former governor opened the floodgates to the wood pellet export industry. It tears down the very trees that capture carbon pollution and protect people’s health and quality of life, making wood pellets for export where they are burned in power stations to generate electricity. Enviva, the world’s largest wood pellet…
Now what? Staying Engaged and Grow the Interfaith Climate Movement
We were already living in a time of profound consequence. President Trump’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Agreement means that while the needs of our endangered climate are increasing, the response to global warming is diminishing at the national level. Our actions now, as climate conscious people of faith, matter more than ever. There are a few things you can do right now to help maximize our collective impact as North Carolina’s statewide multi-faith network committed to addressing climate change as a moral issue: Engage your interfaith climate conscious…
The People’s Climate March — Called to Respond
Multi-faith pilgrims on a moral high road unified to honor God’s creation at the Peoples Climate March last month on the National Mall. The event, which came as a crescendo in a week of climate action, drew 200,000 people from every state, with broad support from more than 400 sister marches in the U.S. and around the world. Interfaith Power & Light was represented by more than 40 state affiliate groups. NCIPL led North Carolinians as part of the “Keepers of Faith” contingent. We expressed our deep concern from our…
Science Must Matter to People of Faith
Crowds are gathered on this Earth Day in Washington, D.C. and in cities across the country to march for science and protect the deeply held value of truth and facts. They are marching to defend the vital role science plays in our communities and our world. They are marching because science is not partisan; it is not liberal or conservative. And they are marching to demonstrate that our nation values the scientists and the scientific agencies working to make our world safer, cleaner, and healthier. Why should a science march…
Let NC Legislators Know You Care about Creation
NC Interfaith Power and Light’s lay and faith leader network is at the General Assembly on April 6 until 4 p.m. for their Advocating with Compassion Day. Even if you cannot be there to meet with your elected officials, please contact them to hear their visions for NC’s future and to express your support for new and existing clean, renewable, and energy efficient policies. Please call your elected leaders in the state legislature and let them know you are aware that NC Interfaith Power and Light is having this advocacy day…