Faith Demands Action, Not Delay, on Methane Pollution

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At New Mexico Interfaith Power & Light, we believe that caring for creation is a moral and spiritual responsibility. That’s why we lift up the voices of people of faith who speak truth to power, calling for urgent action to protect our communities, our sacred lands, and our future.

This week, our Board Chair Ruth Striegel delivered a powerful public comment before the EPA regarding its decision to delay implementation of methane emission standards for oil and gas operations. Ruth shared both the lived reality of climate change in New Mexico—the Rio Grande drying up, record heat, worsening health impacts—and the staggering consequences of allowing millions of tons of methane and other pollutants to enter our atmosphere.

Her testimony is a reminder that delaying climate action comes with devastating costs—economic, environmental, and moral.

Below, we share her full comment.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this important issue. My name is Ruth Striegel and I live in Albuquerque, New Mexico. I chair the board of directors of New Mexico/El Paso Region Interfaith Power and Light. We believe that care of creation is integral to spiritual life and service.

I am deeply concerned about our warming world. I live just a few miles from the Rio Grande, the river that Spanish explorers called “the great river,” which dried out entirely in the Albuquerque stretch this summer for the second time. I can’t adequately express what it feels like to see that dry river bed, to understand that we are now entirely dependent on our shrinking supply of groundwater, that the fish in the river have died, and that the plants and animals that depend on the river’s water are in danger of dying, too. Our summers are longer and hotter, our winters are shorter and warmer, temperature swings more erratic and damaging.

The Interim Final Rule Fact Sheet includes an economic impact statement that highlights the cost savings to industry. It also states that by delaying compliance deadlines the oil and gas industry will release an extra 3.8 million tons of methane, nine hundred sixty thousand tons of volatile organic compounds, and 36,000 tons of toxic air pollutant. That’s a staggering amount! 3.8 million tons of methane, which is 80 times more effective at warming our planet and causing planetary collapse than carbon dioxide. Nine hundred sixty thousand tons of volatile organic compounds, which react with sunlight to form ozone pollution. You know, in most parts of the country, smog is caused by vehicle emissions. In New Mexico, it’s caused primarily by the oil and gas industry.

The EPA fact sheet economic impact statement leaves out a lot of really important economic impacts. People living in areas where natural gas is being released get sick a lot more frequently. That toxic mix causes thyroid cancer, lung cancer, COPD and asthma. People miss work, their health care costs go up, their quality-of-life decreases. What is the economic impact of that?

Methane released into the atmosphere contributes to climate change. What is the economic impact of coastal cities dealing with repeated urban flooding? Of communities dealing with the damage and loss of life from hurricanes, floods, and fires? The impact of releasing these gases into our atmosphere is much broader than the fact sheet would suggest. The EPA needs to widen the lens through which impact is measured.

The cost of delaying the implementation of these standards is just too great. It makes no sense, economically or morally. I urge you to move forward with the standards as originally planned.

Climate Crisis, Human Journey: A Faithful Response to Migration

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As people who care deeply about the climate crisis and our sacred creation, we cannot ignore the connections between human migration and what is happening to the earth. Our country is the largest historical contributor to climate-changing emissions globally. As such, we are profoundly shaping the instability of ecologies and economies that displace people all over the world – only to then reject and vilify those who are displaced and seeking livable and workable conditions in our midst.

Rev. Dr. Lorraine Cineceros speaks poignantly of our country’s present crisis of migration in a public prayer, excerpted below:

Holy Creator of the Unbordered Sky—

We come to you today not in peace,
but in protest.

We come carrying names they won’t say on the news,
wrists red from zip ties,
hearts scarred from history,
and prayers thick with the sound of our ancestors
saying “Again?” (full prayer here)

With new and ancient eyes, we see that the collision of the current adminstration’s immigration policies with the already present realities of climate change are creating conditions for an unprecedented humanitarian crisis of global migration – especially for our siblings in the global south.

As people of faith and conscience, we are called to continually connect the dots between climate and migration. We are called to resist the normalization of taking too much from each other and from the earth. We are called witness to the truth of unbordered skies, unbordered rivers, and unbordered hearts.

We are called to ground ourselves in what is real: migration has always been a holy expression of creaturely existence. Migration is the shape of the monarch butterfly, generation upon generation journeying back and forth from the Rocky Mountain West to the alpine forests of Mexico and everything in between. Migration is the song of the sandhill crane dancing in our fields each winter, departing in the rush of spring – each way, they are following the direction home. Migration is the creative, restless, adaptive impulse of the human family – ever pushed and pulled into new horizons, longing to exchange stories, art, music, food, culture, life, and love amidst the dignity of our differences.

As we lament and resist the conditions that force people from their homelands, may we also recognize and celebrate the gifts of beauty, creativity, insight, connection, healing and community that are meant to flow freely across our so called borders and between our holy and ever-merging lives.

As a part of our moral calling to protect Mother Earth, may we seek to create the conditions in which people are welcomed to the places we call home with the depths of dignity and love expressed at the core of all our spiritual and faith traditions.

Rev. Clara Sims
Assistant Executive Director, NM and El Paso Interfaith Power and Light

“They Thought They Could Bury Us…” The Church and the Climate Crisis

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“They thought they could bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds.”

These words were on the front cover of a small publication someone had left behind at the coffee shop where I was engaged in conversation. The words became sweeter than the latte I was sipping. They are about resilience, yes, but even more—they speak the language of resurrection.

“It’s the story of Jesus—buried and rising. It’s the call of the Church—resilient and rising.” And if ever there was a time to be called out—to be the ekklesia—it’s now.

The Greek word ekklesia doesn’t mean a building or a denomination. It means a people called out from wherever they are into public assembly—to talk about a crisis in the community, or even the cosmos. That’s what the early church did. That’s what we are supposed to do.

And what could be more of a cosmic crisis than climate change?

Now I know—I can hear the objection: “The church shouldn’t get political.” But honestly, when has the church not been involved in the crises of its time, at least when it’s been at its best? Abolition. Civil rights. Peace movements. The call to care for the poor. These weren’t distractions from the gospel. They were the gospel, lived out loud.

So here we are again. The planet is groaning, quite literally. Wildfires, floods, rising seas, vanishing species—not warnings of some distant apocalypse, but signs of one already unfolding. This is not a drill. And yet, this is not a moment without hope.

I want to be clear: the church is still here. Even if people don’t hear about us much anymore. Even if our voice has been drowned out by louder ones that claim Jesus for their own political agenda. Even if some days we wonder if our voice matters at all.

It does. It must.

This is not just a scientific issue, though science is crucial. This is a moral issue. A justice issue. A spiritual issue. The people harmed first and worst by climate disruption are the poor, the young, the marginalized, the voiceless—just the ones Jesus always seemed to be drawn to. And we must not forget the non-human species with whom we share the planet.

If we believe in love of neighbor,
we cannot ignore this.
If we believe the earth is God’s creation,
we cannot treat it like a landfill.
If we believe resurrection is real,
then we must believe that even now, new life can rise from the ash.

The church still gathers every week. We still sing, and pray, and listen. What if we listened to the cries of the earth? What if our prayers included the forests, the coral reefs, the farmers in drought, the children yet unborn? What if we looked at our budgets, our buildings, our energy use—and asked, “What would love do here?”

It’s time to reclaim our voice—not in fear or anger, but in courage and faith.

Let us be the seeds.
Let us be the saints.
Let us be the ekklesia the world needs right now. We’ve been buried long enough.

Let’s rise.

– Rev. Harry Eberts