Sunday, July 21, 2013

Hypocrites vs. climate change

From The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette-

The resolution on climate change approved last month by the General Synod of the United Church of Christ has garnered mostly admiring attention from the news media. But I admit to a degree of perplexity and sorrow over the document, which seems to place the blame for our heavy use of fossil fuels mostly on the companies that produce them -- not the consumers who demand them.

The resolution is intended to create a path toward divestment of church funds, including pension money, from "fossil fuel companies" unless they meet certain benchmarks. The text never defines "fossil fuel companies," but it's a good bet that the target is oil and mining enterprises.


The resolution also calls upon church members to "make shareholder engagement on climate change an immediate, top priority for the next five years" and to "demand action from legislators and advocate for the creation and enforcement of carbon-reducing laws."


-snip-

I am put in mind of the General Convention of my own Episcopal church, which adopted a resolution a few years back condemning the use of public money to provide vouchers for poor children to attend private schools, and then rejected a resolution encouraging Episcopalians to send their own children to public schools. The breathtaking hypocrisy of the decision was evidently lost on the delegates, who saw nothing peculiar in placing the cost of their own enthusiasm for public education on the shoulders of those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. (Later on, the Episcopalians allowed that perhaps a study of the issue was appropriate, but nothing has come of it.)
Read more:

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/opinion/perspectives/hypocrites-vs-climate-change-696277/#ixzz2ZgKjpYFY

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