Building a Movement & Changing the World

by | Nov 29, 2021 | Featured, Instagram, News

Iowa IPL’s board president, John Stender-Custer with his husband Tom and their two children at their farm in Cass county.

We are making progress! Thank you for being among the Iowans of faith and conscience investing in a future sustained by the gifts of creation and powered by nature. The solutions to the climate crisis are also our pathway to hope and abundance. 

The global pandemic has continued to make clear the need to connect the economic, racial, and environmental movements for justice. “We are in this together.” And as important as our own actions are, the solutions cannot be just the addition of individual actions. We must work together to change systems at all levels of life and do it with a lens of intersectionality, knowing that all areas of justice are connected.

We continue to need faith-based solutions to bring people together. Your support emboldens Iowans to help solve the climate crisis and change the politics of environmental justice. This is the work we do. Together, we’re building a movement and changing the world as we invite more Iowans to take climate action. 

Claira Miller is a sophomore at Iowa State University studying animal science. She participated in 2021 Called to Climate Action, our leadership program that helps young Iowans connect their faith to climate action. We’re investing in these emerging environmental leaders. In an editorial piece printed in the Des Moines Register last month, she sums up what it means to identify as someone called to climate action:

My faith helps me understand the role my career can play in finding solutions to the climate crisis. In researching programs that pay farmers for ecosystem services, I learned how important my rural community can be in healing the environment. While some Americans remain angry and divided, I’m finding a new sense of hope.

-Claira Miller

A group of farmers watch a drone plant a cover crop at the Hora family farm in Washington county.

Our network is growing as we add more voices sharing our vision. Faith Farms and Climate is set to expand in 2022. We’ll have new meetings with farmers and start meeting with our rural clergy in each of our four new congressional districts. Our farmers have developed a simple but compelling message: Climate change is a problem. Farmers solve problems. When Iowa farmers lead, they can deliver solutions to the climate crisis. We are excited to add the voices of rural clergy to our program and how that will encourage faith communities around our state to be more engaged in advancing climate action. 

Your support enables us to advance bi-partisan solutions. We elevate environmental justice leadership, especially for climate action, working closely with Iowa’s denominational leaders. 

The Diocese of Davenport is about to enroll in the global Laudato Si’ Action Platform, a seven-year program aimed at increasing our energy sustainability. Other faith traditions are undertaking similar efforts. Iowa Interfaith Power & Light is uniquely situated in our state to bring together people of faith and all people of goodwill to care for creation in ways that benefit us now as well as future generations.

-The Most Reverend Thomas Zinkula, Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Davenport

Taking climate action by “fighting today for a better tomorrow”.

We have much work to do this coming year at the statehouse. Climate action is often seen as partisan. Looking ahead to our next legislative session, we are committed to uplifting faith voices in advocating for environmental solutions. Looking towards our federal government and climate action, we are hopeful that new legislation can help build a green and just economy. These upcoming challenges in 2022 are an invitation to lean into and draw strength from our faith and conscience. With that strength, we take effective, hopeful action. 

Please join us today in continuing your support by making a financial gift. Your financial support empowers Iowans of faith and conscience to take bold and just action on the climate crisis. Together we are changing the world for future generations. Who we are as people of faith and conscience is exactly who the world needs to implement the hopeful solutions to the challenges we face. Thank you for being a part of our work.

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