All Material here is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

All Material here is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 United States License.

IS CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE MORALLY REQUIRED IN THIS TIME?

 Date and Time:   Friday, January 16, 2009, 7 pm

Location: First Unitarian Church of Salt Lake City, 569 South 1300 East, Salt Lake City, UT 84102 |Map It!

With Ken Sleight, The Original Monkey Wrencher

We hope you will join us in an interactive conversation that asks us to consider the extent of action required to forestall the destruction to the living systems that support us and to move in the direction of restoring a livable world for our children.  We will consider that question from the perspective of over-exploitation of the spectacular lands around us and the poisoning of the biosphere represented by global climate chaos.  We are eager for your thoughts and comments, particularly following the courageous act of Civil Disobedience initiated by Tim DeChristopher.  What is the extent of personal and collective action, including Civil Disobedience, that is required to change the fatal course that all of us are taking and that the Nobel Prize Winners are sternly warning us about? 

If we value the living world of which we are a part, if we care deeply for our children and theirs, if we are able to respond to the overwhelming destruction that we together are causing, then what is a constructive response?  A complete and immediate overhaul of our economic, social, and moral systems seems required.  Reality will have to trump virtual reality.  Our perspectives, conversations and expectations will need to match what Mother Nature can provide without destroying the “nurture” in her.  How do we do it?

For the doubters:  Even if there is only a 50% chance that the state of our planet is as dire as the leading climate scientist, James Hansen, and others clearly and urgently explain -- isn't consequential action to end Coal Fired Power Plants immediately required by those of us  who understand the flagrant immorality of continuing to burn these dirty fossils?   

Let's engage that dialogue.  And then, let’s see if we are prepared to act. Is action the central moral duty of our time?  And if we do actively engage, as Bill McKibben said in our own Salt Lake Unitarian pulpit, isn't action genuinely "loving our neighbors as ourselves?"

Scheduled speakers: Tim DeChristopher, Rocky Anderson, Tom Goldsmith, and David Chapman

* Context: Bill McKibben and Wendell Berry's Capitol Climate Action: http://climateprogress.org/2008/12/10/wendell-berry-bill-mckibben-civil-disobedience-washington-dc-coal-plant-march-2/

This event is co-sponsored by Environmental Ministry at First Unitarian Church , Utah Interfaith Power & Light, and Post Carbon Salt Lake.