Clinton and Obama on environment and faith

Recently there was an interfaith forum called the “Compassion Forum” run by Oxfam, Faith in Public Life, Messiah College, and the One campaign on religion in which Obama and Clinton were asked questions on their faith and morality.  They were asked about faith impetuses to dealing with poverty, suffering and the like, as well as environmental problems.  The complete transcript is available here from CNN.com, and is well-worth the read.   Below are clips about the environment from both candidates.

QUESTION: My name is Eboo Patel. I’m an American Muslim, and I lead an organization called the Interfaith Youth Core. And it’s my privilege to watch a range of faith communities come together around the common value of compassion.  Americans of all faiths and no faith at all genuinely believe in compassion and want to apply that in addressing global poverty and climate change. Can we do that without changing our standard of living?

CLINTON: Well, I believe there is so much we can do that we’re not doing that would not change our standard of living as an imposition from the outside, but which would inspire us to take action that would impact how we live.  And I don’t think we would notice it demonstrably undermining our standard of living, but it would give us the opportunity to set an example and to be a model.  When I think about the simple steps any one of us can take — you know, turning off lights when one leaves a room, unplugging appliances, changing to compact florescent bulbs — you know, my husband and I have done that — I don’t think it’s impacted our standard of living, but we feel like we’re making a small contribution to limiting the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, you know, being more mindful of our purchases.

I hope that, as president, I can model that and lead that effort so that people don’t feel so threatened by the changes we’re talking about when it comes to dealing with global warming.
In preparation for the pope’s visit, I was reading that the Vatican is the first carbon-neutral state in the world now. Well, that shows leadership. And I don’t think it has impacted the work or the living. You know, Ambassador Flynn, who was our ambassador to the Vatican, might know. But it was a great statement.

And we can do more. And I think that, with leadership, people will find ways to take those first steps. And then we can take even more.  Now there’s so much that I have to do as president with the cap in trade system, with moving away from our dependence on foreign oil, but I’m going to look for ways that will cushion the costs on middle class and working and poor people. Because I don’t believe that they should have to bear more than what they are bearing right now as we make this transition. And I believe we can accomplish that.

So the simple answer to the question would have been no, she does not believe that it would impact standard-of-living.  I like what she said about being a model for change and mentioning the Vatican showed careful analysis of her audience as well.

Another thing she said I liked:

MEACHAM: Senator, this is our last question for you. To return to faith, do you believe God wants you to be president?

CLINTON: Well, I could be glib and say we’ll find out, but I — I don’t presume anything about God. I believe, you know, Abraham Lincoln was right in admonishing us not to act as though we knew God was on our side. In fact, our mission should be on God’s side. And I have tried to take my beliefs, my faith and put it to work my entire life. And it has been gratifying to do the little I’ve done to try to help other people, which is really what motivates me.

Now onto Obama.

OBAMA: So, look, the — one of the things I draw from the Genesis story is the importance of us being good stewards of the land, of this incredible gift. And I think there have been times where we haven’t been and this is one of those times where we’ve got to take the warning seriously. I know that Al Gore was mentioned earlier. By the way, I have to say, I think Al Gore won. And… And has done terrific work since. But I think that we are seeing enough warning signs for us to take this seriously. And part of what my religious faith teaches me is to take an intergenerational view, to recognize that we are borrowing this planet from our children and our grandchildren.

And so we’ve got this obligation to them, which means that we’ve got to make some uncomfortable choices. And where I think potentially religious faith and the science of global warming converge is precisely because it’s going to be hard to deal with.  We have to find resources in ourselves that allow us to make those sacrifices where we say, you know what? We’re not going to leave it to the next generation. We’re not going to wait.

We are going to put in place a cap-and-trade system that controls the amount of greenhouse gases that are going into the atmosphere. And we know that that requires us to make adjustments in terms of how we use energy. We’ve got to be less wasteful, both as a society and in our own individual lives.  And having faith, believing that this planet and this world extends beyond us, it’s not just here for us, but it’s here for, you know, more generations to come. I think religion can actually bolster our desire to make those sacrifices now. And that’s why, as president, I hope to be able to rally the entire world around the importance of us being good stewards of the land.

I definitely agree with the sentiment of we’re borrowing the land from our descendants.  The Biblical basis for this sentiment would be the Jewish emphasis on genealogies and generations, sustainable agriculture (allowing the land to lay fallow to recoup every 7 years), and how sins and blessings could be revisited on descendants.   And of course, we see which side of the dominion vs. stewards debate Obama is on, by his use of stewards.  Here’s another quote:

OBAMA:  We’re going to have to, I think, invest heavily in clean energy. And if we have a cap in trade system, we can generate $150 billion over 10 years to invest in solar and wind and biodiesel and train people to build windmills and solar panels and make buildings more energy efficient — and make alternative fuels.

Nothing I like better than clean energy… But I do believe Obama supports ethanol (I’ll have to check this otu) and that is not a clean energy.  It’s another subsidy to agribusiness which is inefficient, uses a lot of oil (for growing and trucking corn/ethanol), drives up food prices and increases pesticide and herbicide load on the land.

And another quote I appreciated for humility’s sake:

MEACHAM: Senator, do you believe that God intervenes in history and rewards or punishes people or nations in real time for their behavior?

OBAMA: You know, what I believe is that God intervenes, but that his plans are a little too mysterious for me to grasp. And so what I try to do is, as best I can, be an instrument of his will. To act in what I think is accordance to the precepts of my faith.  And, you know, if I’m acting in an ethical way, if I am working to make sure that I am applying what I consider to be a core value of Christianity, but also a core value of all great religions, and that is that I am my brother’s keeper and I am my sister’s keeper, then I will be doing my part to move his agenda forward.  I don’t know what that master plan is. And I don’t presume to know. And I think that none of us know. But what we do — what I think we can do is to act in ways that are consummate with the values that we cherish.

Definitely take a look at the transcript – it’s interesting, if nothing else.  It does ease my heart a little bit because it does seem like both Obama and Clinton are guided by some sort of faith which turns them to social justice action.  I might not agree with how they try to enable social justice from a federal standpoint (I probably won’t, as naturally suspicious of large government) but I respect that base.  It appears that both have connected faith to environmental action, which is excellent.