CSJP Leadership Team Statement on Clean Power and Climate

March 31, 2017
Clean Power & Climate Statement

The Leadership Team of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace (CSJP) offers the following statement regarding the signing of the Executive Order replacing the Clean Power Plan.

As leaders of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace we want to express our deep concern at President Trump's executive order overriding the Clean Power Plan. We believe this decision is short-sighted and ill-conceived. It prioritizes profits and potential jobs ahead of the planet which sustains us. Yes, you have promised to create jobs, but, far more jobs are being created in clean energy sectors than in fossil fuels. It is more critical that we pass on to our children a planet that is sustainable for them and for their children.

We believe in a sustainable world, yet we see Earth's life-giving resources weakened by human choices and actions. Climate change, especially global warming, is already affecting peoples and biological systems throughout the world. (Seeds of Peace: Care of Creation & Climate Change 2008)

Ecological sustainability is one of the most urgent religious and moral challenges of our time. This challenge calls us to conversion of heart and change in behavior as individuals and community. (CSJP Land Ethic, 2017)

We have come to know not only that all people on Earth are interdependent, but that we are intimately connected with Earth herself.

Recognizing the interdependence of all life, we count among those who are poor all Earth's creatures whose lives are threatened or diminished. We experience a call to live our stance of nonviolent peacemaking in regard to creation. It is faithfulness to this charism in our own time that compels us to respond to the crisis of climate change and global warming. (Seeds of Peace: Care of Creation & Climate Change 2008)

This executive order does not make America great. It threatens the very life of the planet that sustains us and thwarts a global effort, led by the United States, to gather 193 nations to the table in the Paris Climate agreement. Should we now turn our back on the agreement, then neither our allies, nor our adversaries will have reason to trust us. We ask that you commit our nation to honor the Paris Climate Agreement and continue our nation on the path to reduce carbon emissions by 26 percent by the year 2025. 

Download a PDF of this statement