Uniting Church members pen pleas to PM on climate

On Thursday, 22 July, Uniting Church members and friends joined a workshop to write letters urging stronger action on climate change.

This was the first action of the Uniting Climate Action Network, launched on-line just last month. The network aims to support Uniting Church members in their care for creation. This care is expressed in a host of ways- recycling and waste reduction, switching to renewable energy, advocacy for policy change, hosting community gardens, protecting farmland and country from mining, and more.

Last night’s action was in support of an initiative by the Australian Religious Response to Climate Change. ARRCC is calling on people of faith to write to our Prime Minister urging stronger action in response to global warming. Increasingly, our nation is falling behind the commitments made by our major allies and trading partners. ARRCC will receive all the letters and then present them to the Prime Minister’s electoral office in one go. This initiative aims to demonstrate the breadth and depth of support from ordinary people of faith for our nation and government to do more to address this challenge.

Participants in last night’s Letters, Learning and Leverage workshop shared their motivation for taking part and their previous experience of writing to politicians. From Alice Salomon, Social Justice Lead at Uniting, we learnt about organising principles and how actions such as this can help bring about policy shifts and political change. Bec Reidy from Bidwill Uniting shared personally how care for creation is deeply rooted in her Christian faith and discipleship. We went through a suggested format and structure for our letters and then got down to the task of composing them, each letter reflecting the writers’ perspectives and concerns.

On 10 September, when ARRCC presents the letters to the Prime Minister’s electoral office in the seat of Cook, the sack will be a bit fuller and the voice of Uniting Church members will be stronger, because of the contributions of the participants last night.

To find out more about the ARRCC letter writing action you can get that information here.

If you have questions about the Uniting Climate Action Network, or would like to know more, please contact Jon O’Brien on 0477 725 528 or joobrien@uniting.org