People of faith from around the globe are taking the lead on global warming solutions. Following on the heels of an alliance among some U.S. faith leaders to fight global warming, the Vatican has announced plans to install a giant solar power system.

The 1,000 solar panels will adorn the football-sized roof of the Paul VI audience hall, one of the top energy guzzlers in the sovereign city state. The solar system will be able to provide all the heating, cooling, and lighting needs of the entire building year-round, and any extra electricity generated will be fed back into the Vatican’s grid.

Pier Carlo Cuscianna, head of the Vatican’s department of technical services and mastermind of the project, was inspired by the calls of Pope Benedict XVI and Pope John Paul II to treat the planet with respect and their warnings that global warming will effect the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

This isn’t the first time the Vatican has shown leadership on clean energy. In 1999, the entire lighting system of St. Peter’s Basilica was refurbished with energy-efficient lighting, which cut its energy consumption by about 40 percent.

Although Vatican City is not a signatory of the Kyoto Protocol, the Catholic News Service reports that this solar project marks “a major move” to reduce its carbon-footprint and move away from its dependence on Italy’s power grid.

CathNews
Catholic News Service

Last week, leaders of Christian, Muslim, and Jewish faiths formed a pact to fight global warming. They delivered a letter to the White House and Congress announcing their alliance and calling on lawmakers to create limits on carbon global warming pollution.

Citing the Koran, the Hebrew Bible, and the teachings of Jesus Christ, the interfaith body declared global warming “a moral issue” in An Interfaith Declaration on the Moral Responsibility of the U.S. Government to Address Global Warming:

“All of our traditions call us to serve and protect the poor and vulnerable. And it is the world’s poor, who contribute the least to this problem, who will suffer the most from global warming.”

The group asks fellow people of faith to see beyond their differences and make the protection of life on earth a priority. But besides working on global warming soluations, faith communities must prepare to care for those who will be displaces and impoverished by its effects.

Advertisements, meetings with elected officials, and campaigns in individual congregations are planned for the near future.

Christian Post Reporter
Episcopal Life Online
An Interfaith Declaration on the Moral Responsibility of the U.S. Government to Address Global Warming

In a report released on Monday and on the heels of the first debate in the United Nations Security Council on the issue, 11 retired U.S. military leaders assert that climate change raises risks and tensions in the world’s most volatile areas, and the U.S. needs to start planning and cooperating with other nations to mitigate and respond to those risks. From the Associated Press:

“The report warns that in the next 30 to 40 years there will be wars over water and increased instability from hunger, worsening diseases, rising sea levels and global warming-induced refugees. ‘The chaos that results can be an incubator of civil strife, genocide and the growth of terrorism,’ the 35-page report predicts.

‘Climate change exacerbates already unstable situations,’ former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gordon Sullivan said. ‘Everybody needs to start paying attention to what's going on. I don't think this is a particularly hard sell in the Pentagon. … We're paying attention to what those security implications are.’

Gen. Anthony Zinni, President Bush's former Middle East envoy, said in the report: ‘It's not hard to make the connection between climate change and instability, or climate change and terrorism.’”

The leaders urged the U.S. to take action now, without waiting for a total certainty on global warming’s impacts. Extreme weather like drought, flooding, rising sea levels, and shifts in habitat for plant and wildlife are some of the expected consequences. Any of these could prompt U.S. military involvement; for example, the U.S. and Europe may have to accept environmental refugees from Latin America and Africa as drought increases and food production declines. Climate change impacts could also make life more difficult in unstable locales like parts of Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, perhaps driving the U.S. more frequently to provide stability before conditions are exploited by extremists.

Although the U.S. is the planet’s biggest emitter of global warming pollution, the report stressed that it does need to develop strong partnerships with other nations like China and India, who will be contributing significantly to the global economy and to its emissions.

The report was published by the non-partisan CNA Corporation think tank.

Associated Press, via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution
CNA Corporation
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