Mormon Views on Climate Change

Leika Patch

A little background about me. I’m my name is Patch. I’m senior at BYU. I’m graduating in April, if all goes well. And well, I won’t be walking or anything, so that’s kind of a bummer.

Leika Patch

Yeah, and I just wanted I’ve been working with Mormon Environmental Stewardship Alliance, otherwise known as MESA, for the last couple of months, and I’ve been able to work on a climate change climate action campaign with them. And so I wanted to share some of the research that I did and some of the things that I found. And a lot of it’s a lot of what we did was through social media and mainly Facebook and promoting posts and trying to get more information out there.

Leika Patch

So but to start off, I want to go through a couple of assumptions that I have and that I think are true since I looked them up. But just to ask this question, is climate change an important issue? I want to say yes. And I have a couple of sources here, some of my favorite ones that I like to go to when I’m talking about climate science or climate change. And I’m sure that most of you guys have seen these already, or have seen better ones. I think my favorite one on here is ExxonMobil’s page on energy and the environment and climate change. Just to show that this is established science, and we really need to be moving forward on a lot of these issues.

Leika Patch

We know that climate change has altered and will alter our world significantly because humans have already plowed, paved or burnt about three quarters of the land’s ice-free surface. and we alter over eighty percent of the marine environment as well. And our combined weight, like in mass of humanity, is tenfold greater than wildland invertebrates. And our Livestock weigh more than twice what we do. So basically, we take up ninety percent of the weight on Earth of all mammals, birds, reptiles and amphibians on Earth.

Leika Patch

I’m pulling this a little bit from my Professor Dr. Abbott’s research. And so he has all of the sources, and I can send those out as well.

Leika Patch

But I just wanted to give a little bit of background about I know that we talked earlier about how some people might not think that an SUV or their children’s living SUVs are really going to make a change, but We’ve seen that we do and that we alter the environment ten to one hundred times more than the natural processes do. And so because we’re about because we’re able to alter the risk this significantly, it’s definitely more than possible to push it towards a tipping point, which is what we’re seeing.

Leika Patch

And I wanted to add some of the LDS views on this as well. There’s actually been a couple of talks and symposiums where Members and general authorities of the Church have talked specifically about climate change and global warming. And this is one of my favorites from President Oaks. He talked in a WYU commencement speech in twenty seventeen, I believe, about He named global warming specifically. His talk was more about the moral imperative and moral how we need to fight back against the world. In terms of morality. But he did this quote is directly from his talk. And I think that it’s really relevant to those island nations and to all of us around the world. And so I hope that throughout this presentation we can see a little bit more about what general authorities and members of the church are saying about climate change.

Leika Patch

So the next question is Mormon theology pro environment? I want to say an astounding yes, it is. We’ve seen it in scriptures If you don’t know, LDS Earth Stewardship has a huge resource library of everything relating to the environment by different topics. It’s really wonderful, and I hope that everyone gets a chance to look at that. So there’s it’s been in scripture since scripture has been. And just recently in 2014, it became a gospel topic. In our church manual under environmental stewardship and conservation.

Leika Patch

And there’s also several Other articles. There’s the church newsroom, which has a lot of great resources for it as well. And then there’s articles in the Tribune and local news. and the church news as well. So these are some of my favorite links to these environmental topics.

Leika Patch

And then to top it all off, President Nelson himself has said that we are beneficiaries of the divine creation and we need to be vespers over it and preserve for future generations. So if that’s not enough, I think that a lot of members need to see this and that they should recognize Well, I hope to see more in the future that federal authorities talking about it more openly and that we can talk about it more in our individual church relationships.

Leika Patch

So lastly, do Mormons identify as conservative? This one, I’m sure, is obvious to you all as a yes. Here’s a Little graph from the Pew Research Center. And then you can see that Mormon here. I don’t know if you can see my mouse or not, but you can see that Mormon is the furthest right on conservative and Republican. ideologies and that also most of our yeah so you can see that 70% of Mormons lean Republican And we uphold many conservative values.

Leika Patch

And I think that that shouldn’t go against environmental issues To me, conservatism, we talk about property rights, a focus on family and our future generations, and conservative, in itself, the word we have, conserve, and we should be conserving and protecting our resources. So here’s the sources for those.

Leika Patch

And so I’m wondering or I’ve been wondering this whole time, why is there such a big disconnect? And you can see from this Facebook comment that I was going to blur out the names, but since it’s a public page and everyone can see it anyways, I decided not to take that time. But we can see that LDS concerned about the environment, to me, that is like mixing oil and water. And I didn’t write this response, but if you shake the oil and water, you can get the two to start mixing. So I’m hoping that through this campaign we’re able to shake things up a little bit and Yeah, hopefully get moving on some of these really important issues. And so I’ve here we go. Sorry. A little bit more about why. I’ve simmered it down to three things.

Leika Patch

So first would be politics, just the fact that right-leaning ideologies will tend to Push back against environmental issues and environmental moving towards sustainability.

Leika Patch

And next would be culture. In our church, I see a lot of In action, we don’t talk a lot about environmental issues and how they affect others and how we can be more charitable in those ways There’s not much talk in church lessons. It’s not in the not in Come Follow Me yet. Hopefully soon it will be included. And there’s just not a lot of discussion. And we also have, I’ve noticed in Utah, there’s a culture of driving to church, even though it’s only a five-minute walk. And coming from Michigan, that never made much sense to me because it was like a 20 to 30 minute drive. But So, I feel like it’s a blessing to be able to just walk to church, but that’s my own personal opinion.

Leika Patch

And then, lastly, of science. I found that a lot of People that do respond to us on Facebook have issues with the credibility of science. And overall, that’s been a huge issue for me as an environmental scientist is that people don’t trust peer reviewed articles. They don’t They’re having trouble distrusting news as well. And so it’s really difficult to get the clear, sound science and make it available to everyone.

Leika Patch

So I want to show a little bit some examples of the things I’ve been posting, the things I’ve been putting together. I’ve just been trying to mix all the different issues that we’re facing and some of the quotes from general authorities or members of the church, things that I’ve pulled from Thalius or Steward. Resource library and other research that I’ve done. And so if you guys all have time, feel free to read through them on Facebook. They’re kind of long because sort of wanted a lot of more information on each post in case people were curious about the issues. But I’ve compiled issues relating to air pollution, wildfires, as you can see here in this first picture. Just different quotes from British leadership, Greenland ice sheets and Arctic ice melting. Trying to incorporate children and a reverence for the creation of the earth. And also just different quotes. This one’s one of my favorites from Gordon B. Hinckley that says, This earth is his creation. When we make it ugly, we offend him. We got a lot of good responses on that one.

Leika Patch

So there’s many examples. We’ve been trying to cover issues such as permafrost, environmental disasters, influence on water supply and drought. And trying to tie it back into since most of our membership is based in Utah, we want to tie those issues into what they’re currently facing

Leika Patch

So I’ve posted a lot of these things, and a lot of them have a lot of articles and news articles, and I tried to make it as Easy to read and easy to understand as possible. We still run into some fun comments, which I’d like to share with you guys. So There’s been a couple of good ones and a couple of great reactions. Well, I don’t know if you’d call this great, but it’s a good one. And I’m glad that we’re able to represent that voice. But we also have a couple of fun ones like these. Well, I say fun in a light way. Some of them might not be as fun for others, but

Leika Patch

I think this one’s my favorite. I quoted the commencement address, and then someone commented that we are lying about what the leadership of the church is saying, even though it was a direct quote. And I’ll show some of the responses to these that we’ve done that were funnier.

Leika Patch

We saw a lot of issues with people just not accepting climate change and the science behind it, or they try and push it on to other countries such as China and Russia. Which I feel is just a absolvement of responsibility. But and I’ve seen this quote a lot about How climate change is made up of catastrophe, used to tax us and regulate our freedoms. And then we see it in a fancier version with a quote from Doctor and Covenants. As well. And this was on a post that was promoted. And so I think a couple thousand people saw it. And so we got. You can see that a lot of the people that are seeing this post agree with comments like this.

Leika Patch

Then we just get some crazier ones, but I won’t spend much time on those. Or just some funny memes that people have created on both sides.

Leika Patch

And so I’ve seen as looking through all of these comments and kind of regulating and promoting discussion about them, you see a lot of different ideas and what people are thinking about the environmental movement and as it relates to the LDS population. So I to me, I see a lot of fear in these comments and a lot of worry, but and you can see that on climate alarmism on the other side as well. But You can see that there’s a lot of fear and maybe a little bit of unwillingness to learn more about the subject, that some of these fears and ideas are very deeply entrenched.

Leika Patch

And so for me, this comment is kind of a low blow to me as an environmentalist because I don’t understand how plastic straws became one of the main platforms that we have, but when we’re still using plastic cups and everything else, plastic. So I’m hoping that the environmentalist movement can also try and expand the horizons on that.

Leika Patch

So here are some of the fun responses that we’ve formulated. This one was funny because President Benson actually says a lot about the environment. And so I think Soren wrote this one. He put together a lot of quotes and All of these are links to different talks from President Benson and other general authorities of the Church talking about environmental stewardship.

Leika Patch

And this one was also interesting. We’ve had a couple of little keyboard warriors on our side as well that talk about So this one says climate change is not going to kill anyone ever, and the World Health Organization disagrees. I’m quoting, but it seems like With everything that we do post, there’s always a rebuttal. And so we’re just hoping that some of these conversations can change a couple of minds little by little. But I’m hoping to find more ways to communicate them. More clearly, and people can really engage in honest and open discussions.

Leika Patch

And so, after seeing all those comments, I get pretty bogged down easily from them, but maybe you guys are doing better. But I wanted to share some of the more hopeful ones and the good things that people are commenting. So this one just says thank you for showing leadership on an important issue of stewardship.

Leika Patch

I definitely agree with this one that the LDS Church needs to put aside some of its other controversial beliefs and get behind these environmental issues. Yeah, and then on a couple of them we just get a lot of amens, which is comforting, but also I hope that this becomes more than just something you say amen and move on from. I hope that people are able to really incorporate this into their lives.

Leika Patch

So, I’m really grateful for other organizations that are working on this and trying to change the church culture. And hopefully, these actions have good repercussions and that people can keep moving forward. So I want to not take too much time more, but I want to ask you guys, what do you think we can do better and offer some of the things that I’ve thought about.

Speaker 2

And like I’ve got like two to three, five minutes or so. You guys can chat. I know Lincoln had a question for you as well. Lincoln’s question was, what is your primary call to action? And I assume, Lincoln, you mean the organization of Mesa? Oh, he says sure. Well, feel free to unmute yourself and clarify if you want to expound.

Lincoln

Personally, what do you feel? People to do.

Leika Patch

As for Mesa, I’ll speak to them first. Our call to action is to join the organization, get more involved in public issues. But for me personally, I would say that I would agree with that and that we do need to get more involved and hear more voices and talk with each other. and foster that communication. But I think that some of the biggest things that we can do are acting politically, voting towards things that we believe in and that promote environmental stewardship as well as fostering that within Our church communities and talking about it more in our gospel discussions and just showing a reverence for the Creator. I think that For me personally, like going out in nature, I learned so much more about God, and that’s why I chose environmental science as a major. And so I hope that people can have those experiences and really recognize the importance of environmental science.

Speaker 4

Thank you.

Leika Patch

I’ll just put all of these up and then if you guys think of anything else that you’d like to talk about or have questions about. These are some of the things that I’ve thought about. Just connecting doctrines and teachings to policy and people. These are fantastic. My friends. Oh, thank you. One of my friends that works in the same lab as me, she’s working on a letter to church leadership, to the general authorities of the church, to talk more about environmental stewardship. environmental issues in general conference or just eventually and come follow me or some some something else in the church culture that we can do.

Lincoln

Are you able to share this presentation?

Leika Patch

I believe so. I however they’re sharing the The video of it, I guess I’ll talk with Michael Ann and see how we can send it out.

Speaker 2

We can maybe make like a Google Doc file or something to have everybody drop into.

Leika Patch

Yeah, that would be great.

Lincoln

Am I on mute? No, I can’t. Not anymore.

Lincoln

I don’t know how that happened, and I’m sorry if I had any background noise, but I’m just kind of. Poking my head in, but I’m the director for LDSR Stewardship. And I’ve been doing a ton of conversations with upper level members of the church. And I’m guessing most people in this group probably know that Sister Eubink spoke to our organization in the fall. And so we’ve got some really great content there. But I sat in a meeting a few weeks ago with Elder Renland. and he’s interested. So I have a feeling that this might come out this conference. That’s really been the goal all along is to get this over the pulpit in conference. Conference. And I think they’re on their way. The area authority in Salt Lake is really interested in trying to get solar panels on churches and con We’ve talked about possibly cutting some sod out of the design of the church buildings. Who knows what kind of state we’re in right now because there’s so much Upheaval. But there definitely is talk going on at upper levels. They are thinking about this. They know it’s important. And they especially know it’s important to reach out to the younger generations of the church that this will be the One of the key factors for keeping people in the church. So just some of my two cents on that. Thank you. Oh, that’s great.

Leika Patch

I was actually going to ask you, anyways. Okay. I’m glad you’re on this.

Lincoln

This is fantastic. I love what Misa’s doing and your studies especially.

Speaker 4

This has been really great. So thank you. Thank you.