Dozens gathered around the Wisconsin Capitol Building today for one mission: improving global climate health.
The event, called Prayers for the Planet, was coordinated through Greenfaith — a worldwide, multi-faith coalition that seeks a better future for the health of our planet.
Today’s rally featured eight speakers, with some demonstrators even bringing instruments, like the Shofar horn.
Togetherness was the main message for demonstrators, as representatives from Christian and Muslim organizations, Native American tribal leaders, followers of Paganism, and Unitarian Universalists all gathered together to spread awareness of their environmental objective.
Kelly Asprooth-Jackson is a senior director at the First Unitarian Society in Madison. He urged the need for collective action in solving climate change.
“Justice work around climate and the well being of the earth and the people that live on it, it’s just an obvious place for interreligious dialogue because all of us are bound up in this, all of us are connected by this issue, none of us can escape it. So we need to be a source of strength and support and solace for each other,” says Asprooth-Jackson.
Janice Knapp-Cordes helped organize today’s rally. She says making a lasting-impact for future generations keeps her drive for this issue alive.
“I have been concerned about climate action for over 20 years for my children in the beginning, but now for my grandchildren. So this is the area that is most important to me.”
Knapp-Cordes says there might not be much more time for action.
She cites a recent report from the International Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, a coalition of hundreds of climate scientists from around the world. The report is thousands of pages long, but in short, it finds that climate change is here, and is unequivocally caused by human action.
“The IPCC has declared code red. We have 10 years to reverse the amount of carbon dioxide we are putting into the atmosphere. Otherwise we are going to bake in some irreversible changes. So the message is, ACT NOW,” says Knapp-Cordes.
But that IPCC report also finds that some of the worst impacts of climate change can be avoided – if systemic action is taken quickly.
“We need to set a price on carbon emissions, that we should agree that carbon emissions are unacceptable. As we go into the future we need to phase them out, and that it is essential to protect the Earth’s climate,” says Bruce Beck, a member of the Madison environmental organization Citizens Climate Lobby.
Today’s rally comes before an international conference on climate change. Called COP26, the thirteen-day UN climate summit is slated to start at the end of this month. And it could be an opportunity to accelerate environmental agreements to combat climate change.
