To Be Good Stewards of God's Creation
Our religious and spiritual traditions call us to be stewards of our Sacred Earth, God’s Creation, and to care for our neighbors and those who are suffering. This means working to protect the environment and to stop climate change is more than a mere civic privilege; it’s a moral duty that we all must bear. Climate change is one of the greatest threats to our planet today. It threatens the ecosystems on which billions of people and all living things rely. If we don’t stop it, if we don’t cut climate pollution enough to halt the global rise in temperatures, then we should expect that our planet will become a much less habitable place than it is now.
As an ordained faith leader and president of Interfaith Power & Light, an organization dedicated to mobilizing people of faith and conscience to take bold action on climate change, I’m heartened to see that our country is beginning to take important steps to address this crisis. The Inflation Reduction Act represents the most significant step taken in recent years and is the single largest investment in climate and clean energy in American history. Experts expect that implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act will cut America’s contribution to climate change by over 40 percent by the end of the decade.
In addition to helping shepherd this law through Congress, the Biden administration has enacted many measures through various federal agencies to cut pollution. Most recently, the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, finalized strong standards aimed at cutting carbon pollution from power plants, which represent one of the greatest sources of climate pollution in America.
These rigorous new standards will apply not only to existing coal-fired power plants but also to new gas-fired power plants, mandating major reductions in the amount of carbon pollution these plants can release. The standards are expected to cut about 1.38 billion metric tons of carbon pollution, the equivalent of taking 328 million gas-fueled cars off the road for a full year.
The benefits of these standards are twofold. The first major benefit is that the standards will help address the climate crisis by further reducing America’s contribution to it. Scientists say that we need to cut climate pollution by 50 percent by 2030 in order to avert the worst consequences of climate change. If the IRA achieves a 40 percent reduction in climate pollution, other measures will still be needed to achieve the full 50 percent. That’s why these power-plant standards along with other standards implemented by the EPA, the Department of Energy, and other federal agencies— are critical. Without them, our country won’t be able to finish the job on climate.
But that’s not the only benefit these standards will help bring about. It’s important to remember that climate pollution is pollution. This is to say that the same pollution that contributes to climate change also contributes to chronic health issues associated with pollution in general. Therefore, by cutting climate pollution, the Administration is drastically reducing a major source of health problems for many millions of Americans. It’s estimated that, by 2035, these standards will have avoided 1,200 premature deaths and almost 900 hospital and emergency room visits. It’s also expected that the standards will help prevent the onset of roughly 360,000 asthma cases. As people of faith, we should not only applaud these new standards that will safeguard our health and the health of our Sacred Earth, but also recognize the moral opportunity they present to create a better future for our children and grandchildren. These standards are proof that our advocacy is making a difference. When we come together with our shared spiritual values of faith, hope, and love, we can live into our calling to be stewards of God’s Creation and do what is needed for a better climate future for all.
