Earth Day and frequent-flyer miles

Instead of a sermon this past Sunday, and in honor of Earth Day, our Rector read a “pastoral teaching” on the environment from the Episcopal House of Bishops. He is committed to environmental issues, for which I commend him. But he omitted the best part, which is the location from whence this was issued:

The Episcopal Church House of Bishops, meeting in Province IX, in Quito, Ecuador, issued the following Pastoral Teaching …

The mounting urgency of our environmental crisis challenges us at this time to confess "our self-indulgent appetites and ways," "our waste and pollution of God's creation," and "our lack of concern for those who come after us" … [my emphasis]
LINK

So the U.S. Bishops all flew to Ecuador in order to pontificate about our carbon footprint. Impressive!

The Episcopal Church seems to go out of its way to maximize travel. In 2008, I was invited to a Credo Conference as a participant in the church pension plan. The location was Louisiana, about a thousand miles from where I live and work. This was purposeful, as their materials indicated, in order to get me well away from my regular commitments. A hypothetical Credo participant from Louisiana would be shipped off to Virginia, or Minnesota. But despite misgivings, I accepted the invitation.

[An aside: one of my memories of the week is from my personal financial review with one of the conference faculty. He looked at our family portfolio (such as it is) and advised “You need to get rid of most of that cash. Put it in equities, or real estate. Buy a house. Don't just let all that money sit around in CDs.” This was at the beginning of September, about a fortnight before the Lehman collapse. I was glad that I did not rush home and take his advice. I hope also that he did not lose his shirt that fall.]

It bothers me that the Episcopal Church presents its political views as “pastoral teaching.” Like our Rector, I am committed to the environment. I suspect that we are well along the path toward its systemic collapse, and seek to do what is in my power to delay that event. But this document goes well beyond that: it “urges every Episcopalian” to actions such as “advocat[ing] for a climate treaty, and work[ing] toward climate justice.” Aside from sensing that the phrase “climate justice” is essentially meaningless, it is far from clear to me that these steps are the only Christian response. A more Christian response might include (for example) fewer frequent-flyer miles for our House of Bishops. And more pointedly, it might include quite a bit of inconvenience for me, and for all of us. I have met few Episcopalians who are ready for that.