Choose Life: Was Moses the First Climate Advocate?

This Saturday, Jews around the world will read Moses' challenge in Deuteronomy: "I place before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity. … Choose life that you and your descendants shall live."  (Deut. 30:15-20) These words are both our Biblical mandate to respond to the climate crisis – and instructions for the nature of that response.

People will die because of climate change.  Last year, the IPCC predicted declining rainfall could reduce agricultural yields in parts of Africa by 50% by 2020.  One third of the world is already considered "water scarce" – and the World Resources Institute projects that this number will double by 2040.  Indeed, the crisis in Darfur can be largely attributed to conflicts over scarce water resources - resources made scarcer because of climate change. As Jews, we must "choose life" to avert these dangers.

But how?

The answer is in the same remarks.  A commentary in a well-known translation of the text notes that "life" actually refers to "livelihood."  Thus, Moses exhorts the Jewish people to find employment so that they can sustain life.  But what if that employment itself both saved life – by averting the climate crisis – and sustained life by providing a livelihood?  Green jobs do exactly that.  By training American workers to retrofit buildings to make them more energy efficient, expand out transit system, and support an emerging system of wind, solar and advanced biofuels, we can build a green economy and lift millions of Americans out of poverty.

Last month, the Center for American Progress (in partnership with the University of Massachusetts-Amherst) released a report entitled “Green Recovery: A Program to Create Good Jobs and Start Building a Low-Carbon Economy,” finding that the United States could create two million jobs in only two years by investing in a rapid green economic recovery program. This green stimulus plan would create nearly four times more jobs than spending the same amount of money within the oil industry and 300,000 more jobs than a similar amount of spending directed toward household consumption. Last week, in testimony before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, Bracken Hendricks of CAP testified that August unemployment was at a five-year high, new housing construction continues to slow, and housing values have plummeted by nearly a third from the same time last year.  Clearly, the time couldn't be better for investment in green technology. 

More than 3,000 years ago, Moses implored the Jewish people to "choose life."  Today, we must make the same request of our government: help the American people choose a green, sustainable livelihood – so that we and our descendants may live.

[This weekend – on the very day when Jews around the world read Moses' command to "choose life," 1Sky, Green for All, the We Campaign, and tens of thousands of Americans are mobilizing for Green Jobs Now. People of all backgrounds will organize Green Jobs Now events, with a special focus on low-income communities and communities of color.  Click here to find an event in your community and to download an organizers toolkit. For more information, contact Josh Lynch (josh@greenforall.org/ 510-663-6500 x314) or Adi Nochur (adi@1sky.org/ 301-270-4550 x22)].