We help faith communities navigate the opportunities, resources and expertise needed to care for creation – our common home and the environment all life needs to thrive.

Wisconsin Creation Care Ambassadors’ Mission Statement

The Problem

Global warming is an urgent problem. And like many problems, it has an ethical aspect. The earth’s warming is already affecting millions of people, often those least responsible for climate change and most susceptible to its risks. According to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, “As is always the case, the poor and vulnerable are the first to suffer and the worst hit.” We’re already seeing many climate change effects today: raging wildfires, more frequent and stronger hurricanes, greater flooding, and longer droughts. Sea levels are rising. Glaciers are shrinking. Plant and animal ranges are shifting. And the planet is suffering from all of these impacts. As Desmond Tutu has said, “Twenty-five years ago people could be excused for not knowing much, or doing much, about climate change. Today we have no excuse.”

 

Carbon dioxide, the major heat-trapping gas generating global warming, stays in the atmosphere hundreds of years. And it takes some time for the planet to respond to this warming. So even if we stopped producing greenhouse gases tomorrow, we would continue to feel the repercussions of climate change for years to come. But we can alleviate the worst catastrophes by reducing our carbon emissions and planning for the changes ahead.

Our History

In the summer of 2020, the Dane County Office of Energy and Climate Change assembled representatives from several dozen faith communities to discuss how we could respond to the climate crisis. After that meeting, a few of us decided that we wanted to accelerate climate progress by helping faith organizations in Wisconsin reduce their energy usage and make their buildings more sustainable (by installing solar power, heat pumps, etc.). We also wanted to help faith organizations educate their faith communities about climate change, and create green teams (also known as creation care teams, or sustainability committees). To bring that about, we came together in the fall of 2020 to form the Wisconsin Creation Care Ambassadors. 

Since the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change gives us less than ten years to decrease our carbon footprint substantially, we realized that we need to respond to the climate crisis as rapidly as possible. As ambassadors for earth and for her many peoples, one of our goals is to speed up our transformation to a greener world. Another goal is to be a moral voice for climate justice. To those ends, we come alongside faith communities to help them on their path to sustainability.

What We Do

If you are seeking to become greener, we provide no-cost guidance and expertise to assist you through the many questions and decisions you will have. If you would like to spread the word about the climate crisis, we offer public speakers from scientific backgrounds and a variety faith perspectives, at no cost to you.

Our group “Faiths Connect for Climate Action” connects faith-based green teams and sustainability committees across Dane County, so that we can all learn from each other, and can speak with the combined wisdom of our many faiths about the climate crisis we are experiencing. We invite you to join us!

As Greta Thunberg has said, “I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire, because it is.”