The Ohio Climate & Energy Campaign

MEEC coordinates the Ohio Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign (OICEC), a project of the Ohio Council of Churches’ Environmental Justice Task Force.  OICEC is one of 18 state campaigns that provide members timely information and suggestions about what people of faith can do at home, in their congregations and through public policy advocacy to reduce the threat of climate change for the poor, for future generations and for God’s creation.  The state campaigns are coordinated nationally by the Coalition on the Environment & Jewish Life (COEJL) and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA. 

We accomplish our mission in three ways:

• Education.  We provide trainings for faith leaders, lay and ordained, to better understand teachings of our faith traditions on creation and to understand solutions to climate change.  Since our inception in 1998, we have facilitated nearly 20 workshops and made dozens of presentations throughout Ohio.  These are based on sound science and the scriptural, ethical and theological foundation for a response to global warming.
• Witness.  By modeling energy and resource conservation in our congregational facilities, we are making personal and institutional choices to care for all of creation and to preserve the earth's resources for future generations.
• Advocacy.  We are confronting the impacts of global warming and related issues of air quality, power plants and automobile fuel economy through media events, sign-on letters, and a national e-advocacy network that brings the religious moral voice to public debate.

OICEC is guided by the Policy Statement on Earth Stewardship and Environmental Justice, which was approved by the Ohio Council of Churches in 2002.  The statement reflects our concern for God’s creation and how human consumption impacts creation.  Specifically, it calls us to live the following principles:

§         The Earth was made by God and we are called to be faithful stewards of creation.  We are inextricably linked to all of creation, each element of which is worthy of our respect and care.

§         As followers of our faith traditions, humility, simplicity, sacrifice and prophetic courage guide our decision-making and our actions.

§         We are, individually and collectively, responsible for the ecological impacts of our consumption, locally and globally.

§         We are, individually and collectively, responsible to the entire human

§         family, particularly the least among us and future generations who will bear the cost of our excess.

For more information on the Ohio Interfaith Climate and Energy Campaign, contact Leanne Jablonski at meec@udayton.edu.

For information on the National Interfaith Climate Change Network, visit http://www.protectingcreation.org/ or contact them at (202) 544.5130.

Publications
The Ohio Sustainable Energy Charter, published in 2006.

The Challenge of Environmental Justice, published in the April, 2003 issue of Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment.

Earth Stewardship Policy Statement adopted by the general board of the Ohio Council of Churches in May, 2002.

In the Resource Center
Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change, by Guy Dauncey & Patrick Mazza.  Published in 2001 by New Society Publishers.

Climate Affairs: A Primer, by Michaeal Glantz.  Published in 2003 by Island Press.

Learn more
Union of Concerned Scientists global warming pages