{"id":375,"date":"2007-12-19T16:23:57","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T16:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to.php"},"modified":"2007-12-19T16:23:57","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T16:23:57","slug":"un-looks-to-faith-community-to","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to","title":{"rendered":"U.N. Looks to Faith Community to Combat Global Warming"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Kat Glass<br \/>\nReligion News Service<\/strong><br \/>\n(RNS) The United Nations is looking to partnerships with the faith community to spearhead the drive against global warming.<br \/>\nThe U.N. recently linked with the Bath, U.K.-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), pouring funding and attention into the ARC&#8217;s ongoing campaign to use faith groups as a vessel for tackling environmental problems.<br \/>\nMembers of the Baha&#8217;i, Buddhist, Christian, Daoist, Hindu, Jain, Jewish, Muslim, Shinto, Sikh and Zoroastrian faiths will launch a seven-year climate change plan starting in 2009.<br \/>\nIndian Sikhs, for example, plan to cut down on fossil fuels by cooking with solar power and other fuel-efficient equipment in their gurdwaras, or temples. Japanese Shinto shrines will follow sustainable forestry standards during their ritual rebuilding every 20 to 25 years.<br \/>\nAround 50 countries are already involved in the effort with the ARC.<br \/>\nThe U.N. support will give the project a &#8220;massive, massive surge forward,&#8221; said Martin Palmer, ARC secretary general.<br \/>\nFaith groups are a natural steward for environmental conservation, Palmer said. &#8220;If you&#8217;re looking to the longterm future, they are the strongest and most stable unit anywhere in the world,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nPalmer criticized the new trend of buying carbon offsets, likening it to the sale of indulgences in the 15th and 16th centuries, which sparked the Protestant Reformation. &#8220;Indulgences remove from you the moral responsibility,&#8221; he said.<br \/>\nHe instead promotes a more direction-action approach. &#8220;We&#8217;re saying, let&#8217;s celebrate that this is a fabulous world created by the divine. And because it is being so severely damaged, we should move &#8212; not from fear, but from compassion,&#8221; Palmer said.<br \/>\nThe partnership with the ARC is a major shift for the U.N., which has maintained a secular approach since its inception, Palmer said.<br \/>\n&#8220;The old ideology that religion would fade away &#8230; is giving way to a recognition that in many parts of the world, it is religion that holds society together,&#8221; Palmer said. &#8220;So to exclude it is to be quite foolish.&#8221;<br \/>\n<em><br \/>\nCopyright 2007 Religion News Service. All rights reserved. No part of this transmission may be distributed or reproduced without written permission.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Kat Glass Religion News Service (RNS) The United Nations is looking to partnerships with the faith community to spearhead the drive against global warming. The U.N. recently linked with the Bath, U.K.-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), pouring funding and attention into the ARC&#8217;s ongoing campaign to use faith groups as a vessel&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>U.N. Looks to Faith Community to Combat Global Warming<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"U.N. Looks to Faith Community to Combat Global Warming\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Kat Glass Religion News Service (RNS) The United Nations is looking to partnerships with the faith community to spearhead the drive against global warming. The U.N. recently linked with the Bath, U.K.-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), pouring funding and attention into the ARC&#8217;s ongoing campaign to use faith groups as a vessel&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beliefnet News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-12-19T16:23:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"nsymmonds\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"U.N. Looks to Faith Community to Combat Global Warming","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"U.N. Looks to Faith Community to Combat Global Warming","og_description":"By Kat Glass Religion News Service (RNS) The United Nations is looking to partnerships with the faith community to spearhead the drive against global warming. The U.N. recently linked with the Bath, U.K.-based Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), pouring funding and attention into the ARC&#8217;s ongoing campaign to use faith groups as a vessel&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2007-12-19T16:23:57+00:00","author":"nsymmonds","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to","name":"U.N. Looks to Faith Community to Combat Global Warming","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-12-19T16:23:57+00:00","dateModified":"2007-12-19T16:23:57+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2007\/12\/un-looks-to-faith-community-to#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"U.N. Looks to Faith Community to Combat Global Warming"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/f960b23e9c3a51222269c557a209b4f2","name":"nsymmonds","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/13d\/13ddfa3407d6847bc2fbd32a13b67708x96.jpg","caption":"nsymmonds"},"description":"Nicole Symmonds is Beliefnet\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Prayer editor and also covers Christianity. A New Yorker by birth but a Floridian by tenure, Nicole graduated from Florida A&M University with a B.S. in Public Relations and a minor in Sociology. She moved to NY to pursue a career in journalism which started at In Style magazine. There she learned the ropes of magazine reporting, researching, and writing\u00e2\u20ac\u201dand became exponentially more stylish. But what seemed like a deep interest in fashion and entertainment would soon be revealed as merely the vehicle that moved her closer to discovering her purpose, writing and covering matters of the Christian faith. While in her purpose-driven vehicle she can be found traveling between Brooklyn, Manhattan and Queens for life, work and worship, respectively. From fashion to faith and the journey isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author\/nsymmonds"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}