Rabbi Warren Stone to Sound Shofar at UN COP15 in Copenhagen: Jewish Leadership to Pave Way for Low Carbon World

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Rabbi Warren Stone of Temple Emanuel, Kensington, MD

Kensington, MD (PRWEB) November 19, 2009

Rabbi Warren Stone, an eco-activist and spiritual leader of Temple Emanuel in Kensington, Maryland, in the Greater Washington, D.C. area, will serve as a delegate at the UN Climate Change Conference (UN COP15) to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009. Rabbi Stone will represent the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the Earth Day Network, and the National Religious Coalition on Creation Care. Joining Rabbi Stone in Copenhagen will be Dr. Mirele Goldsmith, an activist on the national Jewish community scene and active with Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL). They will be bringing a statement on behalf of the North American Jewish Community about response to climate change. At the UN Climate Change Conference, world leaders will come together to write an environmental treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol due to expire in 2012.

Rabbi Stone will speak at a Forum of Religious Leaders, sponsored by the Global Peace Initiative of Women, an international network that provides a global platform to foster spiritual values of global unity. Rabbi Stone was chosen by the Global Peace Initiative of Women because he is a nationally recognized leader in promoting environmental stewardship in the Jewish community.

Rabbi Stone states, “We are called upon by our Jewish prophetic tradition to serve as a bold voice for justice. Climate change will have a dramatic impact on hundreds of millions of the poorest people on our planet who live along coastal areas. Judaism has a profound and strong mandate for caring for the Earth. In a world where matters of faith seem so often and so tragically to divide us, there is no issue which aligns us more deeply than our shared dependence upon and sacred responsibility to this tiny planet, enfolded within its fragile atmosphere, spinning in the vastness of time and space. As Hillel reminds us, now is the time to act to ease the impact of climate change upon our world community,” Rabbi Stone continues, “and to preserve our common future.” The Union for Reform Judaism, with its Religious Action Center, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis passed national resolutions on behalf of the moral need to respond to the challenges of Climate Change with bold international action. Rabbi Stone, who serves on the Global Advisory Board of Earth Day, promotes the Earth Day Network’s new campaign, “Taking the Baton from Copenhagen.” The spring of 2010 will mark the Fortieth Anniversary of Earth Day.

In 1997 at the UN talks in Kyoto, Rabbi Stone blew the shofar, or ram’s horn, as a wake-up call for all to take action and led a number of interfaith programs and prayer vigils. He hopes to blow the shofar again and to organize world religious leaders in Copenhagen for a daily prayer vigil to help bring the world's attention to the urgency of our climate issue and its potentially devastating impact upon the world's populations. "Our religious traditions compel us when faced with grave challenges to act boldly for justice; this is something we all share in common and it is a shared source of strength and inspiration upon which we must draw," states Rabbi Stone.

Rabbi Stone’s abstract, “Climate Change: Thinking Outside the Box,” written for the United Nations preparatory materials and presented at the International Congress of Scientists last March in Copenhagen, will be included in the United Nations Copenhagen climate material. In it Rabbi Stone posits: Climate debate cannot be left to diplomats, scientists, environmentalists and lobbyists. It is critical that the world’s religious community share its wisdom and bold voices. The world needs a shift in culture to foster the greening of government institutions, universities, religious communities and schools, and seek the passionate involvement of leaders from diverse disciplines. The media, the arts, journalism, medicine, academia, engineering, writers and poets all must play a part in moving us in the desired direction. Legislation will not be enough. In Copenhagen, a unilateral agreement is unlikely with the diverse needs of the developed and developing countries. Commitments and verifiable targets thus may need to be as diverse as our global community.

“There’s no one fix and no easy answer,” Rabbi Stone says, “but we need to shift the way we live and our mindset toward more sustainability. Judaism and other religious traditions affirm the priority of protecting life and our common futures. Responding to climate change has become the most significant moral and spiritual issue facing humanity. Hundreds of millions of the world’s most impoverished peoples will be directly impacted by climate change over the coming century. The world will see refugees in untold numbers that will challenge our global community.”

Rabbi Stone’s eco-activism began 30 years ago. He has led delegations on environmental issues to the Congress and White House and was honored with opening a session of the U.S. Congress in 1998. In 2002, he co-chaired a Senate meeting with Senator Joseph Lieberman and members of the native Gwinchin people, calling for a protection of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge. He spoke at rallies at the U.S. Capitol on environmental issues. He spoke at the British Embassy at its US Consulates gathering on Climate Security and gave the opening prayer to Earth Day in 2008 at the U.S. Capitol. He was interviewed on NBC's Today Show, where Temple Emanuel’s green initiatives were highlighted, and by Politico in Washington, D.C. Grist Internet Environmental Media source did an extensive interview with the Rabbi, and named Rabbi Stone as one of the world's top 15 green religious leaders. He received a distinguished merit award from the National Conference of Christians and Jews and a Merit award for his work on Judaism and the Environment from Shomre Adamah, a Jewish environmental organization in Washington, D.C.

For more information about Rabbi Stone and a copy of the Statement from Jewish Organizations of North America to the UN Delegation on Climate Change in Copenhagen please call Susan Neiman, Executive Director, Temple Emanuel at 301-942-2000.

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