EarthBeat Weekly: By calls and texts, faith groups prod climate voter to the polls

By calls and texts, faith groups prod climate voter to the polls   EarthBeat Weekly Your weekly newsletter about faith and climate change November 1, 2024   (Dreamstime/Roman Samborskyi) As Election Day inches ever closer, poll watchers and an anxious nation are closely watching, speculating and analyzing who will vote and how in seven states likely to decide the 47th president of the United States. While some focus on the quadrennial undecided voters, others have directed attention to a different, though equally hard to pin down, cohort: the infrequent voter. Reaching these Americans has been the focus for months for several faith groups that have partnered with voter outreach organizations in the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. And specifically, low-propensity voters who already care about the environment. As I reported today, GreenFaith has partnered this election year with the Environmental Voter Project in its quest to reach 4.8 million infrequent environmental voters in 19 states. According to the nonpartisan Environmental Voter Project — which works to identify low-propensity voters who care about the environment and motivate them simply to head to the polls — more than 8 million environmentalists did not vote in the 2020 presidential election. "We don't usually focus on voting as an organization, but given how very important it is, we felt that we needed to put some energy towards this this year," said the Rev. Amy Brooks Paradise, a Unitarian Universalist minister and GreenFaith's North America organizer. While climate change has received scant attention from candidates and voters — it ranked 9th out of 14 issues in NCR's poll of Catholics in the swing states — the outcome of the presidential election will have far-reaching implications for national climate policy at a critical juncture. The next U.S. president will be in office for much of the rest of the decade, a period during which climate scientists say global greenhouse gas emissions must be nearly halved in order to hold global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit). Harris has said she will continue implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act, the nation's largest-ever climate law that is directing more than $360 billion toward clean energy and other projects aimed at slashing national emissions. Trump, who was twice impeached while in office and faces criminal charges for his efforts to overturn the 2020 election and for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, has touted a refrain of "drill, baby, drill" and has called climate change "a hoax." He has pledged to again withdraw the U.S. from the Paris Agreement and undo parts of the Inflation Reduction Act, including tax credits for electric vehicles. "With the extreme weather going on now, more than ever, this message of voting around environmental issues was really key and important to us, so we have had a chance to engage our community to take a step up in advocacy," said Marqus Cole, organizing director for Georgia Interfaith Power and Light, which has sent 800,000 text messages to people in the Peach State urging them to vote with creation in mind.   Read more: In battleground states, faith groups call environmental voters to the polls Related: The climate stakes of the Harris-Trump election     What else is new on EarthBeat:   In Africa's Congo Basin, Indigenous peoples lose homes to conservation efforts by Ngala Killian Chimtom As nations meet in Colombia for the COP16 summit under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, African bishops and other religious leaders are joining calls to protect Indigenous rights in conservation efforts Read more here »   Millions at risk of hunger amid historic drought in southern Africa by Tawanda Karombo More than 27 million people across southern Africa are afflicted by a historic drought — triggered by El Niño and exacerbated by climate change — and a devastating food crisis that is the worst the region has seen in decades. Read more here »   Pope, king, bishops decry 'devastation,' send condolences after dozens die in Spain's floods by OSV News Pope Francis, the king of Spain, bishops and politicians decried the devastation and loss of life in southeast Spain amid horrendous floods that left thousands of people homeless and city streets unrecognizable. Read more here »   Amid torrential rain, flooding in southeastern Spain, archbishop urges parish support, prayer by Associated Press Archbishop Enrique Benavent of Valencia said Oct. 30 that parishes of his archdiocese "will collaborate in everything necessary so that people can regain hope, from closeness and solidarity." Read more here »   Maryland's first cemetery dedicated to only natural burials is in Baltimore Archdiocese by Christopher Gunty, OSV News Father Patrick Carrion, director of Cemetery Management for the Baltimore Archdiocese noted that burying without embalming has been done for centuries. Natural decomposition also respects the body, which in Catholic teaching is "made in the image and likeness of God and a temple of the Holy Spirit." Read more here » What's happening in other climate news:   5 ways to get out the vote for climate in the final days before the U.S. presidential election —Claire Elise Thompson for Grist Oil bigwigs open wallets for Trump after billion-dollar request —Rachel Frazin and Taylor Giorno for The Hill Hindered wildfire responses, costlier agriculture likely if Trump dismantles NOAA, experts warn —Jake Bolster for Inside Climate News See how the Inflation Reduction Act is affecting your community —Niko Kommenda, Shannon Osaka and John Muyskens for the Washington Post Clean energy is booming in the U.S. The election could change that. —Brad Plumer for The New York Times E.P.A., just rebounding from Trump years, faces an uncertain future —Lisa Friedman for The New York Times The next president could address the plastics crisis — or worsen it. Here’s how. —Joseph Winters for Grist Final Beat: On Wednesday, we at EarthBeat reached our five-year milestone. As the lead reporter since NCR launched this faith-and-climate reporting project on Oct. 30, 2019, in the immediate aftermath of the Amazon synod at the Vatican, I can say it's been a fast-moving five years. So much news has happened. Without getting into too much hyper-nostalgia, I've reshared below five articles and features from EarthBeat's coverage that stand out to me, for various reasons. (And perhaps they can offer a brief respite from all the election coverage above.) An estate plan for the Earth: Religious congregations choose conservation over profit Hazel Johnson, the mother of environmental justice, was Catholic Lens on Creation Hymns, teach-ins and a horse ride to school: Catholic stories of the first Earth Day In Honduras' Dry Corridor, climate change poses a painful dilemma: Adapt or leave In the meantime, to join in celebrating EarthBeat's five-year anniversary, I encourage you to share this newsletter with five others — be they friends, relatives, parishioners, priests, sisters, bishops, environmental activists, even climate deniers. Ask them to sign up, so they too can be informed, like only EarthBeat does, on what's happening at the intersection of faith, climate and environmental justice. Thanks for reading EarthBeat through these five years.   Brian Roewe Environment Correspondent National Catholic Reporter broewe@ncronline.org Instagram: @broewe_ncr     Featured Advertisers   Explore spirituality and social justice at Xavier University. Graduate theology degrees and certificates. Online options. Tuition discounts available.   Advertisement