Daryl Junes Joe testifies at an EPA hearing, July 2017.
ACTION: Tell Chevron to Plug the Leaks Now!
Chevron Corporation is the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide in the world since 1880 and one of the top 10 producers of natural gas. Chevron substantially lags behind its peers in efforts to reduce methane and toxic pollutant leaks and emissions. Methane, the primary component of natural gas, is 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping heat over a 20-year time frame. Toxins, which leak alongside methane, jeopardize more than 15 million people living near these emissions leaked by oil and gas companies, which can lead to preterm birth, asthma attacks and cancer. Methane emissions from the oil and gas value chain are among the cheapest to abate of all greenhouse gas emissions: the global oil and gas industry could reduce up to 75 percent of methane emissions using existing technologies.
Join United Methodist Women and sign your name to a letter to the new Chevron CEO Mike Wirth, demanding that Chevron take important steps toward fixing their leaks, stopping new natural gas projects and investing in renewable energy. Learn about the issue.
Tools:
United Methodist Book of Discipline
All creation is the Lord’s, and we are responsible for the ways in which we use and abuse it. Water, air, soil, minerals, energy resources, plants, animal life, and space are to be valued and conserved because they are God’s creation and not solely because they are useful to human beings. God has granted us stewardship of creation. We should meet these stewardship duties through acts of loving care and respect. (Social Principles, ¶ 160)
United Methodist Women calls for sound stewardship of the earth and environmentally friendly lifestyles that preserve creation for the benefit of present and future generations.
Get involved in our environmental work:
"They shall not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord.”
Climate Justice Plenary
In the climate justice plenary at National Seminar 2015, we engaged with a simulation experience, learning how the drivers of climate change affect economically vulnerable communities and what is being done in those communities.
Jacqui Patterson, Environmental and Climate Justice Director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) led this plenary, drawing on her expertise and experience working with persons of color across the country and around the world. She has recently gathered a set of indicators that help to understand what needs to be in place to support a community or family's resiliency. Download this resource from naacp.org:
Equity in Building Resilience in Adaptation Planning.
Greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane and other gases that trap heat in our atmosphere and warm our earth. The energy sector is the biggest emitter of human-made greenhouse gases and the greatest contributor to global warming. Global warming contributes to climate change.
“The adverse impacts of global climate change disproportionately affect individuals and nations least responsible for the emissions. We therefore support efforts of all governments to require mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and call on individuals, congregations, businesses, industries, and communities to reduce their emission.” UMC Social Principles 2016 General Conference
Climate Justice
Phone: 212-878-7812
E-mail: climatejustice@unitedmethodistwomen.org
Mailing address:
United Methodist Women
Church Center for the United Nations
777 UN Plaza, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10017
Learn More:
"Oil & Gas Threat Map"
"Gasping for Breath"
"Too Dirty, Too Dangerous"
"Coal Blooded"
"The 'Environmental Justice with Indigenous Peoples' Curriculum"
Download the “Environmental Justice with Indigenous Peoples” resource
The Climate Justice Simulation Experience
The Climate Justice Simulation experience—a new role-playing exercise to help us understand some of the concerns of an environmentally degraded community.
Process Questions and Next Steps for the Climate Justice Experience
Download the 13 Steps signs
Download the 13 signs; share and post in your community
Scriptural Inspiration
“I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live.”
~Moses-Deuteronomy 30:19
Ready to take the survey?
Once you have worked with your event planning team to implement one or more of the sustainability principles by looking at the questions that will be asked of you for that principle (
which you can find in principled approach steps,) you are ready to fill out this survey custom designed for UMW events! This data will be used to measure our progress as a national organization in these invaluable practices for caring for the earth and her people. Take good care of one another and the earth and thank you so much for your commitment to practicing faith, hope and love in action for this and future generations.
Once you have your facts and figures ready, take the online survey.