Comments by Nelson Bock, of Colorado Interfaith Power and Light, on the need to support green jobs in a renewable energy economy.

I am pleased to represent Colorado Interfaith Power and Light, and the IPL movement which now has affiliates in 28 states, and whose mission is to mobilize the religious community to respond to the threat of climate change. I am here to support green jobs in a new energy economy, because it is our conviction that green jobs is not just an economic issue, and not just an environmental issue, but that it is also a profoundly spiritual issue. The earth, our home, is a sacred gift, the care of which we have been entrusted, and on which we live in a web of interdependent relationships. Living with reverence for that gift and those relationships is at the core of spirituality, and also the key to our survival and health as a human family. This is an issue that connects the health of our planet, the health of our people, and the health of our economy, because those things are all intrinsically connected in the larger scheme of things

The earth, our home, is in peril because of our excessive dependence on the fossil fuel economy we have built over the last two hundred years. Climate change, accelerated and exacerbated by greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere as a result of human activity, threatens to severely disrupt the ecological balance which has supported human life, and the life of millions of other species with whom we share the earth. At the same time, human health is threatened by the emission of many other pollutants which foul not just the air, but the water and the land on which we likewise depend. And the health of our communities is threatened by economic dislocation and by the environmental destruction of public lands caused by ever more rapacious activities necessitated by the drive to seek and extract the last drops of fossil fuels wherever they may be found. These activities do not just damage landscape and wildlife habitat; they damage our spirits, as they increasingly estrange us from the earth, which we treat not as a living system of which we are a part, but as an inert depository of raw materials and a convenient repository for our waste. Further, these activities estrange us from one another, as exploitation of the earth's resources is based on exploitation of people and communities whose environment is despoiled and whose labor is treated as just another commodity, and who are then left to deal with the economic and environmental fallout when the resources are depleted.

What we are learning is that a healthy society--one in which people and communities are healthy and happy and secure-- is dependent on a healthy relationship to our environment. Yes, people need jobs, and that is why we are here today. But a job is not just a job. Work is an expression of the human spirit. The work we do also shapes our spirit, making us more or less healthy as we embody our relationship to the earth through our work. So what kind of jobs are going to give us healthy people, a healthy economy, and healthy communities? The kinds of jobs which preserve a healthy planet. Jobs which discover, create, and utilize renewable sources of energy, jobs which help us to conserve the earth's finite and precious resources. Jobs which are based on sustainable sources of energy and other natural resources. Jobs which create and promote alternative forms of transportation. Jobs which allow communities to be more self-sustaining and less dependent on global supply lines and the exploitation of the labor and resources of people from other parts of the world. Jobs which allow people to express and take pride in the dignity of their labor through a reverent and respectful use of the earth's resources, and which provide families with a living wage.

So we want to urge the people of Colorado and the United States to support candidates, initiatives, and policies which move us away from our unhealthy reliance on fossil fuels and towards green jobs in a green economy, for the health of our people, our communities, and our planet.