First Universalist Environmental Justice Team Mission
The First Universalist Environmental Justice Team’s mission is to live out our commitment to justice, reduce our church’s and our community’s environmental impact, and engage our congregants in working collectively to connect and take action. We embrace both the 7th UU principle, “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part,” and the recently added/proposed 8th principle, “Affirm and promote journeying toward spiritual wholeness by working to build a diverse multicultural Beloved Community that accountably dismantles racism and other oppressions in ourselves and our institutions.”
The Environmental Justice Team believes:
- That major efforts are necessary to avoid the devastating impact (tornadoes, floods, fires, warming oceans) on the earth due to increasing carbon emissions that most impact the world’s minority and poorest populations.
- That racial justice is deeply intertwined with environmental justice and the climate crisis.
- That environmental degradation hurts everyone and everything in our world, but because of systemic racism it has had an unusually devastating impact on black and indigenous people and other people of color.
- That we are prepared to follow BIPOC leadership in advocating and acting for environmental justice
- That the intersectionality of racial justice, economic justice, and environmental justice is central to our work.
The Environmental Justice Team collaborates with a host of local environmental justice organizations, including MN350 and MN Interfaith Power and Light, our congregation’s Faithful Action partner, which recognized First Universalist Church as a Climate Justice Congregation in 2019.
Six Initiatives
The Environmental Justice Team works to accomplish its mission through efforts in six initiatives:
Renewable Energy initiative
Focus:
- Support efforts to access and adopt renewable energy solutions in our community
- Reduce carbon generated through the use of existing fossil fuel energy sources by supporting generating electricity through solar and wind generation, transitioning to electric vehicles, and adopting offsets to carbon-based activities.
In the recent past, the environmental justice team has encouraged home and church energy audits, promoted congregant subscriptions in community solar gardens, advocated for the installation of rooftop solar panels on the Education wing, and in spring 2020 held a workshop on household energy conservation and residential renewable energy alternatives as well as electric vehicles.
Moving forward, the renewable energy team plans to help the church achieve a “Net Zero” goal of generating the equivalent of one hundred percent of electricity used by the church through renewable energy from the church enrolling in community solar gardens and installing rooftop solar panels. The renewable energy team also hopes to collaborate with the Racial Justice Education Team and MNIPL on ways to support minority and underserved communities to transition to renewable energy.
Keep It In the Ground
Focus: Oppose fossil fuel infrastructure development and extraction, particularly in connection with treaty rights and the rights of waterways in Minnesota.
Our Keep it in the Ground team has attended rallies, demonstrations, and planning meetings, in coalition with other activist groups, to oppose the building of Line 3 across northern Minnesota. The team provides Line 3 information to the EJ team and congregants through webinars and the EJ newsletter.
The team opposes Line 3 for the following reasons:
- Line 3 oil will contribute to greenhouse gases equal to the emissions of 50 coal-fired standard power plants
- Line 3 passes over, under, and through pristine watersheds in northern Minnesota and presents a threat of accidental spills of this very dirty and heavy form of oil
- This pipeline will cross the lands of indigenous peoples and is in violation of treaty rights of these peoples.
In 2021 our team will continue opposition to Line 3 and keep First Universalist informed of efforts and possible actions to stop Line 3. The team will continue to support the 2021 Minnesota’s Clean Car Rule and to promote electric car adoption through webinars and in person events later in the year.
Food Solutions Initiative
Focus: Engage the church and congregants in significantly reducing global warming by cutting food waste and eating less meat and more plant foods—among the top three highest-impact solutions to our climate crisis.
In 2020 the The Food Solutions team held five programs (all but one virtual) to engage adult congregants in learning about and taking action via these two food solutions. The most recent iteration of the program includes short films, a collection of video testimonials from congregants with tips about their respective personal food journeys, a pledging exercise, and follow-up contact with program leaders plus occasional online “reunions.”
In 2021, the Food Solutions team will engage 6th and 7th graders (and their families) in food solutions to climate warming via a partnership with First Universalist’s Religious Education program and the Midwest Food Connection, a nonprofit organization with 20 years of experience working with youth. Programs for adults will continue with opportunities for support and action. Meanwhile, The Food Solutions team will continue to build its extensive list of resources to enable independent learning and exchange.
Healthy Soil/Cool Planet Initiative
Focus: Engage congregants in learning about and creating sustainable landscapes in order to capture CO2 from the atmosphere, protect waterways from pollution, and provide a healthy environment for pollinators.
In spring 2020 the Healthy Soil team held a virtual workshop that outlined converting lawns to a sustainable mixture of clovers and other low-growing perennials that help to hold moisture and provide food for pollinators. To help people envision changes such as this, the team held a tour of three First U congregants’ front yards that had been converted to earth-friendly mixtures of plants.
Susan Keller, team lead and master gardener, is helping design church landscaping and plantings for areas disrupted by the Education wing renovation in 2020.
Divest/Invest to Support Planetary Survival
Focus: Encourage divestment from funds and companies that increase environmental destruction (e.g. fossil fuels, deforestation) and investment in funds and companies committed to the healthy survival of Planet Earth.
The Divest/Invest team provides education and resources through virtual workshops to empower congregants to invest their time and treasure in activities that are best for the planet. The team shares online tools that support decision-making for individual investors and as well as for professionals related to the environment, and racism and white supremacy as well.
The Divest/Invest team hopes to work with the First Universalist Church Board and Foundation to help align our investment decisions with these principles.
Water
Focus: Continue to explore. experience and understand spiritual, relational and political/economic dimensions of water—the origin and sustainer of all life.
The EJ water team is committed to supporting the purity, safety and abundance of water in Minnesota and across the country for all peoples.
This past year the EJ team sponsored a film screening of “The Condor and The Eagle,” which documented indigenous peoples’ struggle for environmental justice in the Americas. We also participated in the relay of sacred waters from the headwaters of the Mississippi River through faith communities and delivered to sacred wild rice waters in northern Minnesota.
Our efforts to protect water have for many years followed the leadership of the LaPointe family (Rosebud Sioux). We look forward to resuming our collaboration with the LaPointes as the pandemic eases and allows resumption of the Mde Maka Ska community conversations and Mni Ki Wakan decade of water summits.
Connect with Us
You are invited to attend First Universalist Environmental Justice Team meetings, on the third Tuesday of each month via zoom from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. For the zoom meeting link, or more information about our environmental justice work, contact Todd Pierson at todd.pierson@gmail.com.