“These times demand more than a radical, prophetic vision and voice. We are also called to create communities of resilience related to the effects of climate change and of resistance to the cultural, economic, and political status quo.”
Pamela Sparr, “Transforming Unitarian Universalist Culture: Stepping Our of Our Silos and Selves,” in Justice on Earth: People of Faith Working at the Intersections of Race, Class, & the Environment (edited by Manish Mishra-Marzetti & Jennifer Nordstrom)
UUJMCA has deep roots in California’s environmental justice movements. With a history of partnerships that have kept us engaged in the movement for water justice and the human right to water, we are working to deepen our efforts to promote just environmental practices and policy that care for all Californians and our world. Access education, advocacy, and witness opportunities for environmental and climate justice through:
- Centering Indigenous Organizers & Communities
- Call to Action! Stop the Shasta Dam Raise
- Call to Action! Protect Juristac
- Connecting with California-based Environmental Justice Coalitions
- Joining UUJMCA’s Climate & Environmental Justice Collective
- Shaping UUJMCA’s State-Level Climate Justice Campaigns as part of our Climate Justice Action Team
- Registering for “Create Climate Justice,” a national online network for UU Climate Justice Activists
Centering Indigenous Organizers, Activists & Communities
At the 2020 UUA General Assembly, delegates voted to adopt an Action of Immediate Witness (AIW) – Address 400 Years of White Supremacist Colonialism. Included in that AIW are clear charges for how our faith can and should engage in accountable anti-racism ministry in partnership with indigenous communities at all levels of our justice work. One such practice that we agreed as a faith to charge ourselves with was to “work to stop and reverse ecological harm in genuine collaboration with and taking leadership from communities most consistently and harshly impacted by extractive exploitation of land, water, air, and all beings.”
UUJMCA has historically partnered with indigenous communities and organizers in California, particularly in our water justice ministries. As we continue and deepen those relationships, we encourage all UUs individuals and congregations to do the same, by first reading the 2020 Action of Immediate Witness “Address 400 Years of White Supremacist Colonialism,” and internalizing the charge that we as a faith have given ourselves in this crucial moment for our lives, and the lives of those to come.
CALL TO ACTION: Stop the Shasta Dam Raise
Following the lead of our partners with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe from Bullium Puuyuuk (Mt. Shasta), UUJMCA remains in opposition of another attempt to raise the Shasta Dam in the Sacramento River. Those behind the effort to raise the Shasta Dam say that it is needed to move even more Sacramento River water to corporate agribusiness interests in the San Joaquin Valley. However, our partners at the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, as well as other, environmental organizations opposing the proposal because it would will kill the largest estuary on the Pacific coast, inundate future salmon and steelhead spawning grounds on the McCloud River, and flood Winnemem Wintu sacred sites. The Shasta Dam Raise will destroy sacred ceremonial places, poison the soil, and destroy unique habitat that is essential for salmon as well as other plants, birds, and marine life – our work as a faith community is to work alongside our indigenous partners to prevent the Shasta Dam Raise. Here are some of the ways you can take action:
- Send a letter to the Bureau of Reclamation telling them you oppose the Shasta Dam raise. Comments close October 5, 2020 – send yours today!
- Follow the Run4Salmon every summer, an annual prayerful journey to restore salmon runs, protect waters, and protect indigenous lifeway. Includes a series of all-ages Run4Salmon mini-lessons!
CALL TO ACTION: Protect Juristac
The Amah Mutsun Tribal Band (in what we currently call Santa Clara County), is fighting to preserve and protect the land known as Juristac from the proposed Sargent Quarry Project. Learn more about this effort to protect not simply the land, but its cultural, environmental, historical, and spiritual significance to the Amah Mutsun Tribal Band, and ways you can support the rights of indigenous peoples in Santa Clara County.
You can also learn more about and support the work of the Amah Mustun Land Trust, an initiative of the Amah Mustun Tribal Band, which seeks to return the tribe to their ancestral lands and restore their role as environmental stewards.
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
The Sogorea Te’ Land Trust is “an urban Indigenous women-led land trust based in the San Francisco Bay Area that facilitates the return of Indigenous land to Indigenous people…Through the practices of rematriation, cultural revitalization, and land restoration, Sogorea Te’ calls on native and non-native peoples to heal and transform the legacies of colonization, genocide, and patriarchy and to do the work our ancestors and future generations are calling us to do.” Learn more about this effort to restore indigenous community on ancestral land, and the responsibility we all have to ensure its success.
The Condor & The Eagle
Description of documentary. Co-hosting with UUJMCA options.
California-Based Organizations
California Environmental Justice Alliance
The California Environmental Justice Alliance is a statewide, community-led alliance that works to achieve environmental justice by advancing policy solutions. CEJA brings together local organizers from communities most impacted by environmental hazards – low-income communities and communities of color – to create comprehensive opportunities for change at a statewide level. By building the power of communities across California to create policies, CEJA is growing the statewide movement for environmental health and social justice, representing residents in the San Francisco Bay Area, San Joaquin Valley, Los Angeles, Inland Valley and San Diego/Tijuana areas. Learn more about CEJA, their work, and their local member/partner organizations to join their movement in your region.
California Interfaith Power & Light
The mission of California Interfaith Power and Light (CIPL) is “to be faithful stewards of Creation by responding to global warming through the promotion of energy conservation, energy efficiency and renewable energy.” CIPL does this work not only by supporting California faith communities/congregations in making changes to their operations and infrastructure, but also through public policy advocacy campaigns at the national and state level. Learn more about CIPL and find ways to connect your congregation to their resources here.
Center for Community Action & Environmental Justice
The Center for Community Action and Environmental Justice (CCAEJ) is a progressive, base-building, non-profit organization bringing communities together to find opportunities for cooperation, agreement and problem solving in improving their social and natural environment. Using the lens of environmental health to achieve social change, they work within communities to develop and sustain democratically based, participatory decision-making that promotes involvement of a diverse segment of the community in ways that empower the community. Through policy advocacy, civic engagement, and community organizing, CCAEJ works within local, statewide, and national coalitions to build community power and create lasting change. Learn more about CCAEJ’s work in California, and their collaborations with local organizers in the Inland Empire.
Communities for a Better Environment
Communities for a Better Environment (CBE) works to build people’s power in California’s communities of color and low income communities to achieve environmental health and justice by preventing and reducing pollution, and by building green, healthy and sustainable communities and environments. Their efforts include providing residents in blighted and heavily polluted urban communities in California with organizing skills, leadership training and legal, scientific and technical assistance, so that they can successfully confront threats to their health and well-being. You can learn more about CBE’s mission and work in general, as well as their specific campaigns in Northern California (including ending the existence of oil refinery’s in the Bay Area), and their campaigns in Southern California (such as their participation in STAND-LA, which seeks to end neighborhood drilling in LA).
Environmental Health Coalition
Environmental Health Coalition (EHC) works for environmental justice in the San Diego/Tijuana region and throughout California. Since its founding in 1980, EHC has worked to reduce pollution and improve health and well-being for thousands of people in underserved, low-income communities. Among their primary goals is the elimination of social and environmental injustice, the elimination of environmental and public health degradation caused by toxic pollution, pollution prevention, protection of the integrity of our ecosystem, corporate accountability, and community empowerment through base building and collaborations at the national, state, and local levels. Learn more about EHC’s specific campaigns in the San Diego and Tijuana regions, as well as their work as part of CEJA (see above).
Become a Climate Justice Congregational Ambassador!
Our new Climate Justice Action Team wants to partner with you and your congregation! Help us stay connected, share resources, and lift up your vital climate justice ministries by contacting us today! Want to know more about the team’s work and how we can create justice together?
Email climatejustice@chairs.uujmca.org or fill out the form below!
Contact our Climate Justice Action Team
This online community provides support to Unitarian Universalists in their spiritual grounding, movement building, and solidarity in climate justice.
Create Climate Justice is a partnership of the UU Ministry for Earth, the UUA, and the UU Green Sanctuary Program.
Take Action February 19th!
Join UUJMCA in Sacramento to demand an end to California's dependence on fossil fuel production!
Join UUJMCA as we show our support to end California's dependence on fossil fuels! Organized by Last Chance Alliance and their partners, Californians across the state will come to Sacramento to calling on Governor Newsom to address the following three actions in his State of the State address:
1) Stop new fossil fuel projects: Lead by issuing no new permits for oil and gas extraction, fossil fuel infrastructure, or petrochemical projects in California.
2) Drop existing oil production: Set a national and global precedent by becoming the first oil- producing state to announce a phase-out of existing production in line with the Paris climate goals, with a just and equitable transition that protects workers, communities and economies.
3) Roll out setback limits: Begin by first phasing out oil production in places that are suffering most from the impacts of fossil fuel extraction — by creating a 2,500-foot health-and-safety buffer zone between fossil-fuel infrastructure and homes, schools and other sensitive sites.
Register today and join your fellow UUs siding with love in our yellow shirts!
News: San Diego's climate change plan gets final OK
San Diego's climate change plan gets final OK
City Council approves blueprint for significantly reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by 2035
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California Misses the Mark on Water Restrictions
We can all do more: we can conserve grey water for other uses, we can shorten our showers, we can install water saving nozzles and high-efficiency appliances. We need to do as much as we can as individuals, congregations and communities to reduce our unnecessary use of water.
And industry can do more, too. The mandatory restrictions imposed are only on residential consumers -- they exempt big ag, the fracking industry and water bottling companies. These policies put profits over people and go against our UU values. Stay tuned for next steps...
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Bay Delta Conservation Plan
There has been an on-going controversy surrounding the Bay Delta Conservation Plan (BDCP). Since December 13, 2013, this plan has been under-going public scrutiny; alongside Governor Jerry Brown, who endorses it. The plan claims that the “BDCP would secure California’s water supply by building new water delivery infrastructure and operating the system to improve the ecological health of the Delta”, so as to transport water across the state.
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Farmworker Reality Tours
Human Agenda is a non-profit organization that reaches out to the Central California community, in an attempt to enlighten people about the injustices that migrant workers face on a daily basis. This organization is lead by Executive Director, Richard Hobbs; who is well known for his activism work, as well as his career as an immigration attorney; and Ann Lopez, the Director of the Center for Farmworker Families. On July 27th, The UUJMCA interns had the opportunity to attend one of the Human Agenda “Farmworker Reality Tours”. Here we met with migrant workers, and listened to their stories.
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