A multifaith group focused on the environment is calling on whoever sits in the governor’s office in 2027 to commit Wisconsin to a clean energy future.
“More than 100 faith leaders from across the state have signed an open letter to the next governor declaring that the climate crisis is a spiritual crisis, and our next governor must lead us to a just transition to 100% renewable energy,” said Laura Lane, the Wisconsin outreach director for Faith In Place, at a Tuesday morning press conference outside the state Capitol.
“Clean energy is the solution for lowering energy bills, having cleaner air and water, and enjoying a livable planet,” Lane said. “All Wisconsinites deserve the dignity of a life where the basic conditions of health and joy can be met. And the next governor must lead us to that future.”
Faith In Place is made up of individuals as well as houses of worship in Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin, organizing to improve environmental conditions in the Upper Midwest. Lane said it was founded 27 years ago and has helped spawn “green teams” dedicated to environmental issues in religious congregations in all three states.
“Although God created everything good, we have not been good in America to the beautiful creation,” said Rev. Teresa Thomas-Boyd, a faith partnership consultant for the Walnut Way Conservation Corp. in Milwaukee.
“We need to have cleaner energy and not only to reduce the cost of energy for Wisconsin, but also to mitigate the natural disasters that we experience each year,” Thomas-Boyd said. “So I urge the future governor of Wisconsin to move us to be good stewards.”
Rev. Kelly Asbrooth-Jackson, a Madison Unitarian Universalist minister, said Wisconsin is behind both Illinois and Minnesota in the transition to renewable energy.
“The need for an environment friendly to human beings and the need for each of us to make ends meet have been pitted against each other for a very long time now,” Asprooth-Jackson said. “It is time for us to let go of that story because it has kept us from practicing the values common to so many of our religions, including my own — to care for the precious gift of this planet that has been entrusted to us and to care for our neighbors with whom we share it.”
The effects of climate change have been most recently experienced in severe weather events, including historic flooding and destructive tornados in Wisconsin, as well as wildfires in Canada that sent smoke hundreds of miles,including to the Wisconsin skies.
“We were breathing the smoke with our most dangerous air quality ever recorded,” said Rev. Nick Uptall, a Lutheran pastor. “And we know that it’s getting worse.”
Climate change threatens the future of a longstanding tradition for the young people in his church, Uptall said — an annual canoe trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness on the border of Minnesota and Canada. Worse, however, it has harmed people as well as animals and plants, “which my faith understands to be our siblings in God’s creation,” he said.
“Jesus called us to love our neighbors as ourselves,” Uptall said. The state’s next governor must “lead Wisconsin to a better future, turning us from the waste and destruction of dirty energy and instead caring for God’s creation.”
The harms from climate change “fall disproportionately on those who have the least resources,” said Rabbi Abby Phelps of Milwaukee. “Ending our reliance on fossil fuels is a practical necessity and it is also a religious obligation.”
“The Earth becomes ours to use only after we bless it,” Phelps said, citing an interpretation of scripture by rabbinical commentators. “To take without blessing is theft. To take with blessing is partnership.”
Committing to renewable, clean energy honors that spirit, she added: “What better way could there be to bring blessing into this world than by harnessing its power in a way that protects the Earth and its inhabitants?”
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