Social Justice

About UUA and social justice. Social justice infuses almost all of the work of the UUA in some way.

Threat of Global Warming
Study/Action Issue

Issue: What can Unitarian Universalists do to promote individual and collective changes in the way we live and work in order to slow and ultimately reverse global warming?

Background and Reasons for Study: Greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide generated by burning fossil fuels, are trapping heat in earth's atmosphere and raising temperatures. The evidence is everywhere – retreating glaciers, thinning polar ice, and warming oceans and lakes. Scientists have estimated that global warming could increase worldwide average temperatures as much as eleven degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Predicted effects include extreme weather, spreading disease, widespread species extinction, and large areas of the planet becoming uninhabitable because of rising sea levels or drought. Changes in plant and animal life are well underway, including alterations in the range and distribution of plants; dying coral reefs; shifting migration patterns of birds; declining numbers of some species such as Arctic ringed seals; and a potentially devastating impact on countless others, from polar bears to manatees and from salmon to krill (the base of the Antarctic food chain). Increasing acidity of the oceans from carbon dioxide absorption could eventually threaten the survival of shelled marine animals and calcium-containing plankton. Wildfires, which are difficult or impossible to control in earth's northern forests, will become more likely as the environment become drier. Yet many political and business leaders in this country have failed to take seriously a problem we ignore at our peril. Our experiences with the insecticide DDT and synthetic fluorocarbons should have taught us how much damage human activity can do to the environment. The risk global warming poses to virtually all life is a greater potential danger than any other we face today or perhaps ever have.

Significance to Unitarian Universalism: Transcendentalism awakened 19th century Unitarians to the experience of the sacred through the unfolding of the natural world. Our seventh Principle challenges contemporary Unitarian Universalists to remember that we are part of the interdependent web of all existence. The choices we make, coupled with the choices made by government and the private sector, profoundly affect our environment. We have a moral responsibility to future generations to mitigate global warming while there is still time.

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