FossilFreeUMC

To see the final result of what happened with Fossil Free UMC’s petition at General Conference, see our final press release or A Report on What Happened with Fossil Fuel Divestment at General Conference and What You Can Do Now.

Please pray for us

It is very likely that today our petition before General Conference—to divest from fossil fuels—will have its first hearing. Our petition will come before the General Administration committee. It is the job of the good delegates of our church in the many committees of General Conference to do this important work: to review the petitions submitted for consideration, to discuss them, and to vote to either recommend them for consideration to the full deciding body of General Conference, or to reject those petitions.

Please pray for us. We will not have a voice in the committee. Yes, there are those who support divestment among those seated and beyond. At the same time, the process does not allow us to speak (unless asked by a delegate). As such, how do we try to communicate to our good siblings the urgency here? There is so much we cannot say in a small paragraph proposed for the Book of Discipline. And there is so much that must be said.

What we are fighting for here is a “livable planet,” for us, and for our children.

A number of us, volunteers, spent all day in the committee hearing room yesterday as observers. In addition to our fossil free supporters, there was a number of investment folks, employees and executives of The United Methodist General Agency charged with investing the money of The United Methodist Church given in the pews into pension plans and other investments.

As I sit here typing and thinking of the day, it was honestly a lot to take in. We are all good folks. How are we so divided?

I was transported at times to 2015 and 2016 when a coalition of grassroots folks—union members, small business owners, indigenous tribal representatives, people of faith, school teachers and nurses—when we fought back against oil and coal and natural gas in Southwest Washington state.

I remember the big hearings, people would show up and testify to stop these oil companies. The companies wanted to build huge projects that would have destroyed riverbanks and forests, that would have poisoned the air of communities, that would have contributed to the non-livability of our planet, without a second thought. Their whole business model was to extract, transport, refine, and deliver this poison to be burned, and then count the profits.

At the hearings, these corporations—and I am remembering specifically the fight with Tesoro—these corporations would send a phalanx of attorneys, lobbyists, and executives. I remember at one of the FERC hearings, how charming they were.

We won that fight. Instead of one of the biggest crude oil transfer stations on the banks of the Columbia River, there is now a business park and mixed housing where people can take their dogs and children for walks in the fresh breeze along the green next to thriving trees. The longshoremen unload wind turbine propellers and parts instead of shipping crude. And there are more jobs at the business park now than were ever proposed from Tesoro.

We won that fight. We went on to win many more, stopping a behemoth coal station in Longview, Washington, and a huge fracked-gas plastics refinery in Kalama, Washington, and others.

Why is The Methodist Church investing in these behemoths? Do we not understand the destruction to communities these monstrous refineries represent? The miles and miles of coal trains and crude trains and methane pipelines that communities do not want? Its not about NIMBY its about the air our children have to breathe! It’s about the right to a livable planet for THIS generation!

We must somehow communicate that the matter is urgent. It’s not about petty church politics of whose on what team. This is about life itself and God’s creation. If engagement worked, I’d be 100% for it. The effort is laudable. I’m glad we tried it. But it isn’t working.

Our planet is a climate crime scene. Fossil fuel companies are in the business of oil and gas and coal and plastic. That is what they do and are. They are not repenting or slowing down. Billions in oil and gas buildouts are underway around the world. The plastics industry plans exponential growth.

The United Methodist Church has over a billion dollars invested in the industries that are actively poisoning us and literally making our planet unlivable.

Please pray for us. Please pray for our efforts. Please pray for everyone in that room, we are all siblings, we share one baptism and one faith. Let us, I pray, let us be one people in God. Let us chose a livable planet. Let us divest.

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Read: What’s at Stake. Also, the MFSA Plumbline on Divestment from Fossil Fuels. Sign our Call to Divest from Fossil Fuels.

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Rev. Richenda Fairhurst is an elder in the Greater Northwest Area of the UMC, living in Southern Oregon. She volunteers with the United Methodist Creation Justice Movement and a number of other organizations at the intersection of faith and climate change. Find her at justcreation.org