Thank you for your example Rev. Betsy Sowers and Rev. Dr. Michelle A. Walsh PhD, LICSW.
An excerpt from Rev. Dr. Walsh's statement: "I am choosing to risk arrest today because my faith calls me to oppose environmentally destructive actions that continue to damage our planet and all her creatures...As both a clinical social worker and a Unitarian Universalist clergyperson, I am called to be a moral witness to these truths and to place my body on the line in nonviolent resistance on behalf of beloved community and social justice. I call for other local clergy, as well as social workers and human service providers, to do the same. We have very little time left for current and future generations."
Update: Two more people were arrested at the North Parcel today for stopping Enbridge. Clergy members, Rev. Betsy Sowers and Rev. Michelle Walsh, stood in front of the gates that lead to the construction site. We thank them for putting their bodies on the link to protect the community.
Their statements are below.
Rev. Betsy Sowers, Minister for Earth Justice, Old Cambridge Baptist Church, Cambridge, MA: "I am here today because my faith compels it. Christians are in the midst of Advent, the season of anticipating One who will bring down proud and powerful empires, lift up the lowly, and send the rich away empty (Luke 1:31-32). As a faith leader, I am called to follow Jesus’ example: to expose and oppose destructive empires, and to invite people to join in creating a new order with love of neighbor and defense of the vulnerable at the center.
Locally, empire takes the form of Enbridge’s proposed compressor station. It is adjacent to two Environmental Justice Communities, already suffering some of the highest rates of respiratory, heart, and neurological diseases, and cancers in Massachusetts, due to toxic emitters already in the area. They are supposedly protected from further exposure. Environmental law, in fact, requires the existing pollution of local air, water, and soil to be cleaned up. Yet MassDEP dismissed data showing local air pollution at alarming levels, saying it was not their practice to consider existing pollution when permitting a new project. Similarly, the fact that this site is a toxic coal ash dump, where digging is exposing residents to high levels of arsenic and asbestos, was dismissed as insignificant. Also dismissed was the fact that this project will make it impossible for Massachusetts to reach its legally mandated targets under the Global Warming Solutions Act.
Globally, this project endangers life, health and safety from the fracking fields of Pennsylvania to the Mi’kmaq people in Eastern Canada (https://stopaltongas.wordpress.com/), to the places abroad where it is destined to be burned. This week, global leaders are meeting to try to salvage any hope of averting climate catastrophe, as scientists’ warnings become ever more dire (http://bit.ly/34asD2u). With gas as the primary driver of increasing greenhouse emissions, it is simply madness to continue the fracking gold rush that places short-term profit over the survival of life on earth.
The fossil fuel industry is a proud, powerful, rich empire. It has come to the Fore River Basin in the form of Enbridge to destroy the lives, health and safety of my vulnerable neighbors – local and global, human and other-than-human. It has coopted our Governor and President, and the regulatory agencies created to protect the public and environment from being sacrificed in the name of profit. As a follower of Jesus, I am here today to say that this empire of extraction must end. This project must be stopped. The Commonwealth must move quickly to 100% clean energy within a fair economy that includes all of our neighbors. Until that happens, as Martin Luther once said, “Here I stand. I can do no other.”'
Rev. Dr. Michelle A. Walsh, PhD, LICSW,
Affiliate Community Minister with United First Parish Church UU in Quinc: "I am choosing to risk arrest today because my faith calls me to oppose environmentally destructive actions that continue to damage our planet and all her creatures. Our addiction to fossil fuels and the creation of pipelines and compressor stations foster these destructive actions. Compressor stations are known hazards to the environment and surrounding communities – so much so that there is a unanimous agreement among the mayors of these communities in opposition to this particular compressor station. Compressor stations emit methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, and contribute to public health issues for the surrounding communities, including cancer and asthma. Public safety issues also are ongoing risks, particularly for population dense areas such as Weymouth.
My action today testifies to my deep belief that we need an immediate and radical change of heart and cultural transformation in our personal and social practices if we are to successfully face the larger climate crisis that is upon us now, with less than a decade left according to the latest United Nations scientific reports to change. We cannot afford any development that furthers our dependence on fossil fuels and contributes to the current climate crisis. This is the moral issue of our time, with humanity itself at stake and the most marginalized by race, class, gender, and ability, as well as first responders, taking the brunt of the traumatic impact first. As both a clinical social worker and a Unitarian Universalist clergyperson, I am called to be a moral witness to these truths and to place my body on the line in nonviolent resistance on behalf of beloved community and social justice. I call for other local clergy, as well as social workers and human service providers, to do the same. We have very little time left for current and future generations."
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