Christ UM Asks Whether Environment
Finally Has Nation's Attention

Santa Rosa -- September 30, 2005

Carol Gieg, chair of the EarthKeepers Task Force of Christ Church UM in Santa Rosa, wonders whether the riveting of the nation on environmental questions in the wake of Hurricane Katrina will last?

Environmental activists seldom get the attention of either the media or politicians, she laments. "Global warming is a scientifically proven current danger," Gieg writes in the October church newsletter. "The financial interests of our country and the potential current agenda deny the validity of these claims. What could be more relevant to all of our children's futures than the current and urgent threats to our natural resources?"

Gieg details how several federal agencies, established to manage resources, have, in her view, undermined those resources since 2001. The National Park Service authorized more oil drilling in Florida's Big Cypress National Preserve. The Forest Service has opened its lands to road-building and logging and opened Montana's Flathead National Forest's grizzly bear habitat to snowmobiles. The Department of the Interior is seeking to triple gas drilling permits in Wyoming. Congress has opened 58 million acres of forest to road-building, and most famously has opened the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil-drilling. In all Gieg lists 12 matters on which she thinks the national government has compromised the environment.

The Rev. Gayle Pickrell of Christ UM insists she would never suggest from a pulpit what political candidates to vote for in an election, but a church advocating how to vote on ballot propositions is different. Consequently, Christ UM is urging its members not only to vote for Sonoma County's Proposition M on Nov. 8 -- to put a 10-year moratorium on planting genetically engineered crops in the county -- but also to volunteer in its campaign.

"The church needs to deal with the social issues of the day," said Rev. Pickrell. "John Wesley [founder of Methodism] certainly spoke out often about the issues of his day. Just read the Book of Resolutions from General Conference or our own conference resolutions to get a feel for how the church makes its voice heard on social issues in our day."