A Letter from Swamini Adityananda Saraswati 
Chair, UUMFE

Last month, global leaders came together for climate justice at the United Nations’ COP30 meetings in Brazil.

What they left behind were empty promises in a time when we quite simply don’t have time. Since 1970, 60% of our world’s species have gone extinct. The UN Environment Program says that a million more are at risk of extinction right now.

My friends, we are running out of time. As the world heats up, we can expect to see more extreme disasters, more precipitation, more heat, more suffering, and more death.

According to the Lancet, “millions of people die needlessly each year due to fossil fuel dependence, growing greenhouse gas emissions, and failure to adequately adapt to climate change. Health risks and impacts of climate change are worse than ever before.”

The Lancet also finds that the number of people who died from climate change-induced heat has risen 23% over the past 35 years. The World Economic Forum predicts that the growing climate crisis could kill 14.5 million people by 2050, and sicken hundreds of millions more, leading to a significant strain on health systems and economies worldwide.

We sadly can’t pray the situation away. We can only act. And I firmly believe each action does count.

In the 19th century, Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau said: “What is the use of a house if you haven’t got a tolerable planet to put it on?”

Today, I believe that history calls upon us as UUs to carry his torch and the torches of other great
environmentalists and social justice heroes who lit up this world.

In the spirit of our living faith’s shared values, let us take a stand for the denied protection of the innocent, the poor, the voiceless, and the natural communities everywhere that are suffering and will suffer.

And so we call upon all our UU siblings to take up the sacred duty of protecting our beautiful world in whatever peaceful way possible. While the current political environment is calling for us to look away, the beauty of our natural world and the lives of countless beings are at stake. Therefore, we can genuinely say, climate justice is social justice.

As always, we are here for you, to spiritually support your good work, to provide community, and to provide opportunities to help right the wrongs that prevent us from living in a just and sustainable world. We look forward to all the good that we can continue to do together.

With all my best wishes,

Swamini