Vote Your Values: Be a Climate Voter

Published by Shelley Dennis on October 24, 2016October 24, 2016

As people of faith, we believe that responding to the urgent threat of climate change is essential to caring for God’s creation and loving our neighbors. Human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels for energy, has thrown nature out of balance, polluted the air, raised sea levels, made thousands of God’s creatures extinct, and threatens the lives and livelihoods of our most vulnerable brothers and sisters. In short, we have become destroyers, not sustainers, of life. Pope Francis writes:

“Climate change is a global problem with grave implications: environmental, social, economic, political and for the distribution of goods. It represents one of the principal challenges facing humanity in our day.”

Some political leaders ignore or deny the overwhelming scientific evidence that human behavior is exacerbating global warming. We can’t afford denial, delay, or indifference.

That’s why we encourage you to vote for the candidate most capable of promoting the accomplishment of the following mission-critical goals:

• Transition from dependency on fossil fuel toward a clean energy economy.
• Honor the emissions-reduction commitments our nation made at the UN Conference on Climate Change in Paris in 2015, and taking additional actions neeed to avert catastrophic global warming.
• Assist developing nations—who are leas responsible for climate change but most impacted by it—in coping with threats such as increased droughts, floods, and sea-level rise by sharing clean energy technology and other supports.

Excerpted from Faith, Values and the 2016 Election: Toward a Politics of the Golden Rule published by FaithinPublicLife.org and Interfaith Power & Light.