In this book religious leaders and their institutions call for strong national action on global climate change. This call comes from the majority of America's religions including Protestant, Catholic, Jewish, Eastern Orthodox, Episcopalian, Evangelical, Quakers and Bahai. Dr. James Hansen, Director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, provides scientific insights showing that climate change is real. The evidence is mounting all around us. The carbon dioxide in the air is increasing. This causes the air temperature to rise, and also increases the acidity of the ocean. Mountain glaciers are retreating. The sea ice in the Arctic is shrinking. Sea levels are rising, and water supplies are threatened. The impacts on humans and other species are already alarming. The challenge we face is a moral test. The statements from religious leaders are important because our world is rapidly changing. Human population has doubled in just the past thirty years. Technologies are changing with bewildering speed. Humans are the most powerful biological and geological force on the planet. If current trends continue, the impacts of our fossil fuel addicted economy will last for millennia. If we remain on our present course, we will condemn our children and those children that follow to a much poorer existence than that with which we have been blessed. This book provides the moral basis for avoiding this catastrophe. It provides a prescription for choosing life so that we and our children may live.
About the Author: Dr. Tom English Dr. Tom English is President of the TESSI Endangered Species Institute, and Creation Care Educator for the Presbyterian Church's Synod of Southern California and Hawaii. He led the campaign to have the Presbyterian Church adopt a new policy "On Preserving Biodiversity and Halting Mass Extinction." He has directed major environmental programs for IBM, GE, JPL, EPA, and the Silicon Valley Manufacturing Group. He led this group's effort to reduce toxic environmental releases by 86%. According to William Reilly, former Administrator of the EPA, "This reduction led the entire world." His legislative accomplishments include improving the California Clean Air Act, which resulted in savings of several billion dollars. Dr. English advised President Carter's Office of Science and Technology Policy, and the Government of Sweden on high-level nuclear waste disposal. At the EPA, he directed an $80 million per year Energy & Environment Program; and also directed a study of 40,000 people to determine the health effects of air pollutants. He received a Presidential Award for leading the F-111 fighter/bomber recovery program after the wings fell off the aircraft. He received an award for "Engineering as a Christian Vocation" at the 2001 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA). His academic background includes a postdoctoral MS in environmental engineering, a Ph.D., and a MS in electrical engineering, and a BS in physics. He taught environmental courses at Santa Clara University, San Jose State University, the University of North Carolina, West Coast University, and UC Santa Cruz. He was also an Assistant Professor in the Electrical Engineering Dept. at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an Adjunct Professor at Palomar College. Dr. English presented a three-day environmental management seminar in Moscow. He frequently lectures on Environmental Issues to university, civic, industrial, and church groups. He is Past-President of the Coalition for Clean Air, and the San Diego Chapter of Reasons to Believe. He and his wife, Jan, live in Carlsbad, California. They have 4 adult children, and seven grandchildren. Frederick W. Krueger Frederick W. Krueger serves as the Executive Coordinator for the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care (NRCCC). In this capacity he coordinates rainforest restoration in both Belize and Guatemala, articulates a religious ethic of forest conservation, and promotes programs to help inner city youth experience the outdoors. Previously he was the founder and the first executive director of the North American Conference on Christianity and Ecology (NACCE). As the goals of that first Christian ecological effort were fulfilled, he became the executive director of the Christian Society of the GREEN Cross, in Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. By background Krueger has served as a Serbo-Croatian linguist and Russian intelligence analyst for the National Security Agency, as a political campaign manager, as magazine editor, lecturer, religious organizer and trout fishing guide. He has authored over a dozen publications on religion and ecology. He lives with his wife and teenage daughter in Santa Rosa, California.