2018 Faith Climate Action Week in USA

On 14 March 2018, the United States national Bahá'í council wrote to all the members of the American Bahá'í community, as they have every year since 2011, encouraging their participation in Faith Climate Action Week, sponsored by Interfaith Power and Light.

They note that, in the nearly a decade that has passed since then, enormous strides have been made both globally and nationally, though there have also been some setbacks. As evidenced in Volume I of the U.S. National Climate Assessment, released on November 3 last year, the impact of carbon pollution is steadily increasing as average global temperatures, extreme weather events, and global sea levels continue to rise. Public acceptance of scientific findings strongly suggesting the human origins of the problem has increased significantly. Much consensus building remains to be achieved, however, and it is here that faith communities - with their emphasis on justice and on spiritual qualities as the means to bring it about - can play a critical role.

Both the Universal House of Justice's letter to the Bahá'ís of the world on March 1 last year regarding economic inequality (see excerpts at https://iefworld.org/uhj_econ) and its November 29 letter to three individuals on climate change (see excerpts at https://iefworld.org/UHJcc2017) underscore applicable spiritual principles and help us to recognize the agency to bring about change we can exercise as Bahá'ís. In connection with our efforts to participate in public discourse on pressing issues of our time, the Supreme Body notes in its November 29 letter that "[w]henever Bahá'ís do participate in activities associated with [climate change] in the wider society, they can help to contribute to a constructive process by elevating the discourse above partisan concerns and self-interest to strive to achieve unity of thought and action."

The letter encourages all the American Bahá'ís to participate in Interfaith Power and Light's Faith Climate Action week on April 14-22. Suggested activities - together with a kit to facilitate their implementation - can be found on the Faith Climate Action Week website. It invites those interested in learning more about climate change in the context of the Bahá'í teachings to consider participation in the climate change course being offered by the Wilmette Institute, which is scheduled to run from 1 April to 26 May (see separate articles in this and last month's IEF newsletter Leaves).