Our shared environment is in crisis, and as people of faith we are called to tend to it, to nurse its wounds, and to care for the people suffering due to climate change and environmental racism.

Every year we record a new record high temperature, higher global CO2 emissions, ever larger and more widespread wildfires, and shorter, warmer winters. The science has been done, the jury is in, climate change is real humanity is responsible in no small part for it. As people of faith we have an obligation to respond to that reality and work to preserve as much of God’s Garden as we can. Climate Justice is a thing we can achieve, as climate change worsens, we can have equitable outcomes for those most at risk. But it will require work. Work we’re not starting to be sure, but work we’re happy to be continuing and carrying forward into the next pivotal years and decades.

Our work isn’t only about mitigating the damage anthropogenic climate change will cause in our lifetimes, there’s plenty of work to be done pursuing justice for those far from the coastlines and the wildfires. Environmental racism, the manifestation of intentional urban planning choices, has led to sweeping disparities in quality and duration of life for communities of color who too often find themselves living next to smokestacks, freeways, and water treatment plants. Our work is bound up in achieving equity for these communities as well. While less dramatic than sinking cities, epidemic asthma and cardiac conditions from air pollution are no less serious crises that need the work of God’s helping hands.

The Environmental & Climate Justice Network of the Justice & Witness Action Network calls on local churches, clergy, and justice leaders across the Central Atlantic Conference to join us in the work of tending to God’s world, and the people in it through the struggle for environmental and climate justice