Van Jones and I have an op-ed in “The Miami Herald” and many other McClatchy newspapers. I will have more on the moral dimensions of climate change in later posts.

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” wrote Martin Luther King Jr. from a Birmingham jail on April 16, 1963. “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.”

The Atlanta-based King was explaining why he was in prison for nonviolent demonstrations so far from home, responding to a critical public statement by eight Southern white religious leaders. His words are timeless and universal in part because King was a master of language but primarily because he viewed civil rights through a moral lens.

The greater the moral crisis, the more his words apply. The greatest moral crisis of our time is the threat posed to billions —  and generations yet unborn — from unrestricted carbon pollution. Now more than ever, we are “tied in a single garment of destiny,” cloaked as a species in a protective climate that we are in the process of unraveling.

Many have criticized the demonstrations against the Keystone XL pipeline, which would open a major spigot to the Canadian tar sands, as unwarranted and untimely — unwarranted given our broad dependence on fossil fuels and untimely because of our struggling economy. We disagree.

We think there has been far too little direct action, given the staggering scale of the threat. As the International Energy Agency has explained, we must leave the vast majority of fossil fuels in the ground if we are to preserve a livable climate and avoid levels of warming that “even school children know” will be catastrophic for us all. The tar sands would be near the top of any list of the largest, dirtiest pools of carbon that must be forsaken for the sake of humanity.

King explained in his letter, “In any nonviolent campaign there are four basic steps: collection of the facts to determine whether injustices exist; negotiation; self purification; and direct action.”

Has there ever been a problem where more facts from more unimpeachable sources have been collected and ignored than climate change? Every major scientific body and international group has taken to begging and pleading for action.

Last fall, the World Bank — no bastion of eco-consciousness – issued a report aimed to “shock us into action.” It warned that “we’re on track for a 4-degree Celsius warmer world marked by extreme heat-waves, declining global food stocks, loss of ecosystems and biodiversity, and life-threatening sea level rise.”

If we don’t act now, then, within decades, a large fraction of the world’s 9 billion people will find themselves living in places whose once stable climate simply now can’t sustain them – either because it is too hot or arid, the land is no longer arable, their glacially fed rivers are drying up, or the seas are rising too fast.

The overwhelming majority of those suffering the most – in this country and especially abroad – will be people who contributed little or nothing whatsoever to the problem.

This would be the greatest injustice in human history, irreversible on a time scale of centuries.

Has there ever been a problem subject to more failed negotiations? The international climate talks have been going on for a quarter century, full of sound and fury, but thwarted in large part by a U.S. Senate that itself talks to death every serious climate bill.

Read more

Tuesday

By Catherine Woodiwiss, Special Assistant for the Faith and Progressive Policy Initiative

A crowd filled New York Ave Presbyterian church in Washington DC yesterday to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday with a demand for the White House: take action on climate change.

The interfaith “pray-in”, which ended as a rally outside the White House, drew strong connections from Dr. King’s fight for racial justice 50 years ago to the ongoing fight for environmental justice today.

“Fifty years ago, we faced a racial crisis,” said Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr of the Hip Hop Caucus to the crowd gathered in the rain. “We all came together, we all made a difference. We can again. The time is now.”

Many credit Dr. King with planting the seeds for the environmental justice movement, and his well-known speech on moral urgency was quoted by several at the event.

“Dr. King said ‘We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now… Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, “Too late.”’, said Bob Edgar, CEO of Common Cause, calling these words “prophetic” in relation to the challenge of climate change.

The choice to hold the rally on what would have been Dr. King’s 84th birthday was symbolic of the moral seriousness needed to address climate change, said Lise Van Susteren, an organizer of the event. “People talk about climate change as weather. This is not about weather. This is a human rights issue that requires a moral attitude – to think otherwise is inhumane.”

The event – organized by the Interfaith Moral Action on Climate and representing diverse coalitions including Buddhist Global Relief, The Shalom Center, Judson Memorial Church, and Occupy Sandy – follows on previous public demonstrations that looked to Congress for action.

Yesterday, on the eve of the Inauguration, they took their message to the President.

“We are now facing a climate cliff that will not wait for gridlocked Congress,” said Yearwood. “If we go over the climate cliff now, our grandchildren will face suffering.”

The organizers believe President Obama is in a unique position to show leadership on climate issues. They publicly called on the President to “break the silence on climate change” through actions including permanently refusing permits for the Keystone XL pipeline, hosting a national climate summit, publically support and advocate for a carbon fee, and ending subsidies to coal, oil, and gas.

“This is a pressure point, and we aim to be relentless,” said Van Susteren, pointing to the growth in numbers at yesterday’s rally. “These weather events are relentless – so are we.”

Andy Burt being arrested at Keystone XL tar sands pipeline protest in DC August 21.

By Aylie Baker, Andy Burt, and Fran Ludwig

The ride to Anacostia Precinct is a short one, not more than ten minutes.

Thirteen women rode in the police wagon. No one had been arrested before — and yet — with our hands cuffed behind our backs and our bodies slick with sweat in the 90-degree heat, we were not afraid. There were only smiles on our faces.

Sirens blared as we left the White House gates and drove southeast over the Anacostia River. To get to Anacostia precinct  — it turns out — you have to follow signs toward Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

Though he died before the first Earth Day, King would have been proud to see the scores of protestors lining up in front of the White House last week. He would have recognized something in the faces of the clergy, doctors, seniors and college students. Their call for equality and justice echoed that of the people who joined him on the streets of Montgomery.

Sunday we gathered for the Tar Sands Action — a 2-week protest that may be the largest act of civil disobedience in the history of the climate movement. We were protesting the construction of a massive oil pipeline from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico.

In simple terms, the Keystone XL Pipeline is a 1,700 mile fuse to the largest carbon bomb on the planet. NASA climatologist James Hansen has stated that if we fully exploit the tar sands, it’s “essentially game over” for the climate. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could rise far beyond 550 parts per million (ppm). Currently we’re near 395 ppm. Modern human civilization developed during a narrow range around 280 ppm.

The proposed pipeline runs through tribal lands, national water sources, and fertile farmland. Getting at the tar sands means cutting down a tract of Boreal forest the size the United Kingdom, which, like Brazil’s rainforest, helps to cancel out CO2 emissions that cause global warming.

And it’s marginalized people that King fought for who are most affected by climate change.

Read more