Upon creating the first human beings, God guided them around the Garden of Eden, saying: “Look at my creations! See how beautiful and perfect they are! For your sake I created them all. Make sure you don’t ruin or devastate My world. If you do, there will be no-one else to repair it.” — Ecclesiastes Rabbah
We want to encourage Jews groups to call for a comprehensive deal on climate change in international negotiations, disassociate with the fossil fuel industry and raise awareness on environmental issues.
Jewish teaching places a strong emphases on the duty to the protect the world. Genesis places a responsibility on humans to cultivate and guard the earth Genesis (2.15).
Additionally modern Jewish teaching places a strong emphases on the sanctity of life.
Research by the Carbon tracker foundation has suggested that to have an 80% chance of avoiding global climate change in excess of 2 degrees census we must leave most of the remaining fossil fuels that we know of in the ground.
Instead fossil fuel firms continue to invest in extraction, constructing facilities to process oil for the next decade and close down green energy investments. Operation Noah have laid out conditions for investment in the industry.
We believe that is contrary for Jewish teaching to invest in firms that are destroying the planet for profit wherever the money is going to.
The fossil fuel industry plays a unique role in promoting man made climate change, which is one of the reasons that as part the Jewish community campaign before the Paris conference we are calling on Jewish groups to implement a ethical investment policy and wind down any investments in fossil fuel industry