Two Jews ... One Opinion

As a community, Jews are not known to agree. Indeed, we're all familiar with the general rule: "Two Jews, Three opinions." Yet, when it comes to the Jewish community position on climate change we speak with one voice. Indeed, the organized Jewish community almost universally supports policies that would reduce US carbon emissions – and therefore reduce the incidence of climate change. Each of the four denominations of Judaism and many of our national organizations – including the American Jewish Committee – have bold policy statements supporting strong US action.
Of course, there are different things that bring members of our community to the table. Some focus on US energy security. Others are motivated by more traditional environmental concerns. Yet, regardless of what brings us to the table, we all essentially come to the same place: reducing our dependence on foreign oil will simultaneously enhance US energy security and lower harmful greenhouse gas emissions.
Access 20-20 challenges each of us to think about the future of Jewish activism. It challenges us to think about the fate of US energy policy in twenty years. Last week, President Bush announced his "global warming initiative" and attempted to answer that question. I commend the President for recognizing the importance of responding to global climate change. However, his proposal fell far short of the mark. The President proposed to stabilize US carbon emissions in roughly twenty years (by 2025). This proposal is contrary to the goals of the Jewish community and flies in the face of scientific reality. Indeed, last year, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change declared that emissions from industrialized nations must peak by 2015 – and decline by 20% by 2025. They won a Nobel Prize for this pronouncement.
As I wrote on the COEJL blog and in the Jewish Week, the Jewish community's commitment to Tikkun Olam, literally repairing the world, demands stronger action. More than two thousand years ago, Rabbi Hillel challenged, "If not now, when?" Last week, the President declared that we would begin to answer that question in 2025. But that answer is inadequate. Climate change is real. And the time for action is now.

[Click here and here to read more about climate change legislation being considered by the US Senate.]

[Click here to read more about the need for the Jewish community to advocate on climate and energy legislation.]


BY JENNIFER KEFER

tree huggers and hawks

Jim Woolsey, former head of the CIA and now energy guru, came to AJC recently to speak about a subject that has become his new burning passion – getting more Americans “off the grid.”_His most memorable story, one that will appear in the essay of a book soon to be published, was a fictional account of a contemporary conversation between John Muir, an early 20th century environmentalist, and George Patton, a U.S. General in WWII. He said the two disagreed vehemently about what they cared about and wanted to fix in America today – Muir was concerned about what we are doing to nature, and Patton was worried about the terrorist threat – but they surprisingly agreed on similar steps to address and improve the respective situations they saw.__The thesis: energy conservation and energy security are very complementary goals._But the people who espouse them are not. We’d like to explore how we can create an even more dynamic force for positive change in the area of energy usage by bringing together these two powerful motivating forces and the people who passionately espouse them today.