Georgia Interfaith Power & Light
GIPL
  • Who We Are
    • Our Mission & Story
    • Faith Principles
    • GIPL Staff
    • Board of Directors
    • Donors & Partners
      • Faith Communities
      • Friends & Families
      • Outreach Partners
    • Interfaith Power & Light
  • Get Involved
    • Power Wise
      • Sign Up for an Energy Audit
      • Energy Efficiency Grants
    • Solar Wise
      • Solarize Program
    • Green Team Registry
    • African American Creation Care Program
    • Advocacy
      • The Problem with Plant Vogtle
      • The Problem with Coal Ash
    • Events
  • Resources
    • Four Directions Fund & Sacred Activism Workshop
    • Prayers & Liturgy
    • GIPL Classes & Workshops
      • Educational Resources
    • Earth Day Resources
    • Encyclical Resources
    • Our Blog
      • Sightings From the Treehouse
  • Ways to Contribute
    • Donate
    • Email Sign Up
    • Contact Us
    • Volunteer
    • Employment Opportunities
  • Who We Are
    • Our Mission & Story
    • Faith Principles
    • GIPL Staff
    • Board of Directors
    • Donors & Partners
      • Faith Communities
      • Friends & Families
      • Outreach Partners
    • Interfaith Power & Light
  • Get Involved
    • Power Wise
      • Sign Up for an Energy Audit
      • Energy Efficiency Grants
    • Solar Wise
      • Solarize Program
    • Green Team Registry
    • African American Creation Care Program
    • Advocacy
      • The Problem with Plant Vogtle
      • The Problem with Coal Ash
    • Events
  • Resources
    • Four Directions Fund & Sacred Activism Workshop
    • Prayers & Liturgy
    • GIPL Classes & Workshops
      • Educational Resources
    • Earth Day Resources
    • Encyclical Resources
    • Our Blog
      • Sightings From the Treehouse
  • Ways to Contribute
    • Donate
    • Email Sign Up
    • Contact Us
    • Volunteer
    • Employment Opportunities

Archives

Category Archives: Climate Change
Climate Change

Al Gore, Rev. Barber & Rev. Warnock to Mobilize Climate & Environmental Justice Activists at Interfaith Mass Meeting in Atlanta March 14th

Whitney BrownAdvocacy, Announcements, Climate Change, Community, Creation Care, Creation Care Champion, Energy Efficiency, Environmental Justice, Events, Interfaith, SustainabilityJanuary 30, 20190

Washington, DC (January 16, 2019) – The Climate Reality Project announced today that former Vice President Al Gore, Reverend Dr. William J. Barber II, and Reverend Dr. Raphael G. Warnock, and other faith leaders, will lead A Moral Call to Action on the Climate Crisis, an interfaith mass meeting on March 14. The meeting will take place at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia at 7pm, and is open to the public. Georgia Interfaith Power & Light (GIPL) is a proud partner and organizer for this interfaith dialogue.   Continue reading

Sightings from the Treehouse: Lessons from the Anthropocene

Whitney BrownAdvocacy, Catholic, Climate Change, Community, Creation Care, Encyclical, Energy Efficiency, Interfaith, Power Wise, Reflections, Sightings from the Treehouse, SustainabilityDecember 27, 20180

After researching and writing 20+ blogs over two years on climate change and the faith community, several themes and actions have organically emerged. They will be summarized below to pull together the threads identified through the Sightings blog series.  These suggestions hopefully will help the faith community understand the current state of creation and steps they can take to prepare and adapt to changing ecological conditions occurring across the planet now and in the coming decades.  This period is commonly referred to as the Anthropocene epoch, the age of the humans.   Continue reading

Have an Eco-Friendly Holiday

Whitney BrownClimate Change, Community, Creation Care, Energy Wise, Holidays, Recycling, SustainabilityDecember 6, 20180

GIPL Board member and frequent guest blogger, Susan Varlamoff offers her favorite eco-friendly tricks for the holiday season:

Make Natural Decorations: Rather than buying plastic ornaments, wreaths, and decorations shipped from overseas, make your own from pine cones, holly, seashells, river stones, and evergreen branches. Christmas tree lots often will give away branches they’ve trimmed off the bottom of trees. Continue reading

Sightings from the Treehouse: I Mourn for the Children

Whitney BrownAdvocacy, Climate Change, Congregations, Creation Care, Creation Wise, Reflections, Sightings from the TreehouseNovember 20, 20180

Let’s start out with a basic fact.  Global temperatures are 1-degree C over pre-industrial levels.  With that increase we are seeing:

  • Melting of the Arctic and Antarctic,
  • Accelerating sea level rise,
  • Ocean acidification,
  • Global ecosystem disruption,
  • Spread of vectors and diseases,
  • Extreme storm intensification,
  • Increased drought and flooding
  • Expansion of wildfires

Continue reading

Sightings from the Treehouse: Wish Upon a Star

Whitney BrownClimate Change, Creation Care, Reflections, Sightings from the TreehouseOctober 25, 20180

Recent discoveries and research suggest life is not an earth-only experiment.  The building blocks of life could be widespread throughout the universe.  Carbon and water are two vital ingredients for life along with a temperate climate.  During Thomas Berry’s life (1914-2009), he saw many discoveries in astrophysics which fed into his thinking for the new story about the creation of the universe, earth, life and consciousness.  New discoveries suggest there are 100-200 billion galaxies in the cosmos and billions of earth-like planets in our Milky Way.   The recently discovered building blocks of life found on Mars and Saturn’s moon, Enceladus, support the notion of life throughout the universe.  All would expand Berry’s creation story.  Continue reading

Install Solar. Plant Trees. Eat Your Veggies!

Kate McGregor MosleyClimate Change, Community, Congregations, Creation Care, Creation WiseOctober 20, 20180

Last week was a real doozy. I was just beginning to digest the intense news that came from the United Nations’ IPPC latest report on rising global temperatures and the fact that we have far less time to turn this ship around. Then came Hurricane Michael, delivering a catastrophic blow to people and places I love along the Gulf Coast & South Georgia.  I join countless others now feverishly praying for those enduring the intensity of this massive storm. I am shaken by the profound vulnerability of the world in this moment.

Pema Chodron, Buddhist teacher & author,  writes of the power of such vulnerability, “This tenderness for life [called bodhichitta] awakens when we no longer shield ourselves from the vulnerability of our condition, from the basic fragility of existence. It awakens through kinship with the suffering of others. We train so as to become open and take in the pain of the world, let it touch our hearts and turn it into compassion.”

Using the lens of this spiritual teacher, I now think it is quite possible to see the dire news from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as an opportunity for the human family rather than a death knell. Our exposed vulnerability can move us towards hopeful action on behalf of G-d’s fragile planet.

I can attest through the hundreds of people and houses of worship with whom I connect through GIPL on a weekly basis that much of what is needed for course-correction by 2030 is already underway. And yet, we need to move faster. That’s the most important aspect of the report. We can no longer deny that the climate is changing rapidly and having negative impacts on vulnerable communities across the globe.

The collective actions required to keep us from warming the planet by another 2+degrees (Celsius) fall on industry and individuals, governments and NGOs. It’s not a matter of when, but HOW.

Fortunately, IPCC scientists didn’t just hit the panic button. They provided concrete steps forward for us. It’s as if Mother Earth called to say, “Install solar. Plant trees. Eat your veggies!”

Now I do not intend to make light of the IPCC report’s serious warning to us about our fate on this suffering planet. I do wish to highlight an encouraging word embedded in that historic document — our consumer choices matter. As people of faith, we must see ourselves as more than consumers. We are citizens of this world.

We are neighbors sharing a common home. All of the world’s major religions teach the value of showing care for our neighbors. Adopting the IPCC’s recommendations and embracing climate action shows love of neighbor.

Today, love of neighbor looks like:

– a new energy plan that provides affordable, renewable energy;

– a more sustainable, plant-focused diet that wastes less;

– planting trees one grove at a time; and

– engaging our elected officials to adopt climate action plans for all communities.

All of these climate actions can be practiced as individuals, as congregations, and as entire communities. GIPL has the resources to support you in making these changes – whether you join one of our Solarize campaigns, get serious about reducing food waste or support reforestation projects in Georgia or beyond.

Remember, “Hope is a verb with its sleeves rolled up.” (with thanks to David Orr) In the wake of this game-changing climate report, let’s roll up our sleeves and get to hope!

(Connect with GIPL Team today and share with us ways that your faith community is responding to the United Nation IPCC’s call to action. Email us:  info@gipl.org)

 

Rev. Kate McGregor Mosley is GIPL’s Executive Director and Chief Officer for Hope.

 

 

Readers Respond to NY Times Climate Change Article

Whitney BrownAdvocacy, Climate Change, Creation Care, Creation Wise, Environmental Justice, Interfaith, ReflectionsAugust 30, 20180

On August 1, 2018, Nathaniel Rich had an article titled “Losing Earth: The Decade We Almost Stopped Climate Change” in The New York Times Magazine. Editor Jake Silverstein writes: “This narrative by Nathaniel Rich is a work of history, addressing the 10-year period from 1979 to 1989: the decisive decade when humankind first came to a broad understanding of the causes and dangers of climate change. Complementing the text is a series of aerial photographs and videos, all shot over the past year by George Steinmetz. With support from the Pulitzer Center, this two-part article is based on 18 months of reporting and well over a hundred interviews. It tracks the efforts of a small group of American scientists, activists and politicians to raise the alarm and stave off catastrophe. It will come as a revelation to many readers — an agonizing revelation — to understand how thoroughly they grasped the problem and how close they came to solving it.”

Continue reading

Sightings from the Treehouse: Ecology of Creation

Whitney BrownClimate Change, Community, Creation Care, Creation Wise, Interfaith, Reflections, Sightings from the Treehouse, SustainabilityAugust 27, 20180

A common theme among many of the previous Sightings blogs is that natural laws (physics, chemistry and biology) govern the planet and universe and that life has evolved from the basic elements released during the Big Bang.  Each organism is part of a population of similar organisms and an ecosystem made up of other plants, animals and inorganic features.  They also evolved from a common ancestor living about 3.5 billion years ago. Continue reading

The Earth is our Mosque

Whitney BrownClimate Change, Community, Creation Care, Holidays, Interfaith, Islam, MuslimAugust 23, 20180

Written by Colin Christopher, this blog was originally posted on August 16, 2018 by Blessed Tomorrow. Blessed Tomorrow is a coalition of diverse religious partners united as faithful stewards of creation. Together, we inspire our communities to take action today on one of the greatest moral challenges of our era — protecting our shared home.

A few weeks ago, award-winning filmmaker Mawish Raza and I made the unlikely journey to Houston in the middle of July to make a film about climate change and the Muslim community. Everyone knows that Houston is hot and humid, but our time there included temperatures rising to 105 degrees. Some of our camera equipment was on the verge of melting. While there, many people mentioned to us that summer temperatures continue to rise year after year Continue reading

The Earth is the Lord’s: new policy from the General Assembly

Whitney BrownClean Power Plan, Climate Change, Community, Congregations, Creation Care, MissionsAugust 7, 20180

This article was originally posted on July 3, 2018 by the Presbyterian (PCUSA) Mission Agency. 

Another new policy on engaging with issues of climate change–through preaching, embodying, advocating and proclaiming eco-justice– passed last month by the General Assembly environment committee and then by the General Assembly itself is below. Continue reading

1 2 … 5 Next →

Recent Posts

  • Al Gore, Rev. Barber & Rev. Warnock to Mobilize Climate & Environmental Justice Activists at Interfaith Mass Meeting in Atlanta March 14th
    Al Gore, Rev. Barber & Rev. Warnock to Mobilize Climate & Environmental Justice Activists at Interfaith Mass Meeting in Atlanta March 14th

    Washington, DC (January 16, 2019) – The...

  • Solarize Atlanta Nearly Doubles Residential Solar in Atlanta
    Solarize Atlanta Nearly Doubles Residential Solar in Atlanta

    In Less than a Year Solarize Atlanta Nea...

  • Sightings from the Treehouse: Lessons from the Anthropocene
    Sightings from the Treehouse: Lessons from the Anthropocene

    After researching and writing 20+ blogs...

  • Committing to a Low-Waste Holiday Season
    Committing to a Low-Waste Holiday Season

    Guest blogger: Hannah Shultz, a third ye...

  • Congratulations to our 2018 Energy Efficiency Grant Recipients!
    Congratulations to our 2018 Energy Efficiency Grant Recipients!

    This year, the GIPL Power Wise Energy Ef...

Office Location

Harrington Center
Suite 231a
Columbia Theological Seminary
701 S. Columbia Dr.
Decatur, Georgia 30030

404.377.5552

info@gipl.org

https://goo.gl/maps/rVQYR



Search Site

Latest From Twitter

  • We hope you enjoyed Community RX - Live Bible Study today! For a full schedule and information on other launch eve… https://t.co/HY6YSkUiTY - 3 hours ago
  • Coal ash is the one of the largest types of industrial waste generated in the U.S. This is the first in a series by… https://t.co/xfToNxndlM - 7 hours ago
  • RT @julietscohen: Georgia Water Coalition #capitolconservationdayga #protectwhatyoulove #KeepingWatchOverOurWaters @CRKeeper https://t.co/v… - 10 hours ago

Celebrating 15 years of faithful environmental action!