Environmental Justice

The Environmental and Climate Justice Team (EJ team) 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. 

Environmental and Climate 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 most vulnerable.
  • 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.
  • BIPOC leadership must be centered.
  • That the intersectionality of racial justice, economic justice, and environmental justice is central to our work.

The EJ 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 and 2023. 

The environmental justice team works to accomplish its mission through efforts by its following working groups.

Environmental & Climate Justice Working Groups

Focus:

  • Support efforts to access and adopt renewable energy solutions in our church community, 
  • Reduce carbon generated through the use of existing fossil fuel energy sources by promoting electricity generation through solar and wind, transitioning to electrified vehicles and homes. 

In the recent past, the Electrify Everything Working Group helped fund and coordinate the installation of rooftop solar panels on the Religious Education wing during remodeling. In 2022, the First U Electric Saturday event at church showcased congregants’ electric cars and bikes. 

For ways to get involved contact Todd Pierson: Todd.Pierson [at] gmail.com

Focus:  Oppose fossil fuel infrastructure development and extraction, particularly in connection with treaty rights and the rights of waterways in Minnesota. 

The Keep it in the Ground group actively opposed Enbridge’s Line 3 pipeline and continues to align with water protectors who monitor aquifer breaches to hold Enbridge accountable for the environmental destruction the pipeline has caused.  

The group continues to work in tandem with MNIPL and Stop the Money Pipeline in opposition to the continued use of an ailing Line 5 in Wisconsin and Michigan.

For ways to get involved contact Roberta Haskin: roberta.haskin [at] gmail.com

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. 

Most recently, the Food Solutions Working Group promoted food solutions through First U’s Daytime Connections and community supper events. Group members helped found the Twin Cities Food Solutions Coalition, working to promote food solutions through coordinated efforts with the Sierra Club and Elder Climate Action.

The team plans to continue offering plant-based options for many church gatherings. 

For ways to get involved contact Kira Berglund: kira.berglund [at] hennepin.us

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 Working Group provides education and resources through workshops to empower congregants to invest their time and treasure in activities that are best for the planet.  The group shares online tools that support decision-making for individual investors, as well as for professionals, related to the environment, and racism and white supremacy culture. 

The working group is currently dormant and hopes congregants step forward to lead efforts in the future.

Focus: Highlighting the protection of biodiversity worldwide, emphasizing the ecological significance of biodiversity, habitat protection and conservation—and restoration, when needed.

Join this working group for an opportunity to set in motion congregational learning opportunities and actions to protect biodiversity. 

For ways to get involved contact Cathy Geist: cathy.geist [at] minneapolis.edu

Focus:  Explore, experience and understand spiritual, relational and political/economic  dimensions of water—the origin and sustainer of all life.

In 2018, First Universalist Church approved a resolution to become a Water Protector Congregation. This working group’s efforts to protect water have for many years followed the leadership of the LaPointe family (Rosebud Sioux). In 2022, the group continued its collaboration with the LaPointes through Mde Maka Ska community conversations culminating with a visit to Bdote, the sacred location where the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers join.  

For ways to get involved contact Susan Keller: gardenyogi5 [at] gmail.com

Focus: 

  • Engage congregants in learning about and creating sustainable landscapes in order to capture CO2 from the atmosphere, protect waterways from pollution, produce nutritious foods, and provide a healthy environment for pollinators. 
  • Provide avenues to explore local regenerative farms through food cooperatives and everyday food choices.
  • Advocate for regenerative agricultural practices here at home and around the world. 

Susan Keller, team lead and master gardener, is helping design and maintain church landscaping and plantings for areas around the church property.

For ways to get involved contact Susan Keller: gardenyogi5 [at] gmail.com