Gretchen Castle, Clerk

Epistle from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

Called Session on Climate Change

Approved June 4, 2005

To Friends everywhere, greetings from Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, gathered in called session, 4 June 2005 in Philadelphia, to seek leading on the issue of climate change.

The science of global warming is detailed, technical, and not without controversy. Nonetheless, we can see the evidence of the reality of climate change, we are aware of ways in which societies and individuals affect it, and we know options for political and personal decision making. This is not a matter to be left to scientists or to governments.

In fact, it is a matter to which Friends are distinctly suited to speak. Our respect for individual and collective seeking of truth and right action gives us the responsibility to witness to our measure of truth, answer to the truth of others, and seek together the rightly ordered way forward.

Individual projects large and small are already underway, and several were raised up in our session, including:

Renovation of Friends Center: Plans go well beyond necessary business updates, to responsibly address sustainability and environmental friendliness. Just as the stylistic simplicity of Quaker meetinghouses have borne solid testimony to our faith, the plans for concrete stewardship offer another opportunity for us to live our faith.

FCNL witness: Friends Committee on National Legislation has been invaluable in keeping us informed and speaking for us in national political discourse. They have been responsive to our concerns on environmental issues.

PYM Climate Action Network: Our Peace and Concerns Standing Committee has approved the concept of developing a network, composed of individuals named by Monthly Meetings, who would plan regional action and coordinate for activity throughout Yearly Meeting.

Engaging Monthly Meetings in environmental concerns: On behalf of the Earthcare Working Group, clerk Ed Dreby issued a call to Monthly Meetings to walk in faith: not expecting God to rescue us from our folly, but expecting miracles to bless our discernment and actions.

We entered a deep period of open worship to discern our leading. Friends spoke movingly of both the dire need for action and the responsibility of Friends to be a model and a partner with other religious and civil groups for acting in faith and witnessing in works.

A few Friends have faithfully been under this weight for years, but the time has arrived for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting to engage the concern corporately. As distilled in our minutes of the session, we resolved the following:

Friends at this session unite behind the desire that Philadelphia Yearly Meeting incorporate this concern about the rise of global climate temperatures and its dangerous implications for life on our earth into the body of its work in the world. We feel ready, with divine assistance, to assume the challenges of being prophetic witnesses to protect our earth. We call upon the Yearly Meeting, in all its manifestations, to seek ways to hold our members lovingly accountable to live in God's world in a more environmentally sustainable fashion and to join other like minded groups and organizations in supporting this concern.

Signed on behalf of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting,

Gretchen Castle, clerk