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Jewish Orgs. Join Call to Slow Greenhouse Emissions

Statement directed at U.N. meeting in Copenhagen

by
Marc Tracy
December 08, 2009
A Copenhagen church today.(Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)
A Copenhagen church today.(Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)

As the United Nations-sponsored meetings on climate change begin in Copenhagen, 22 prominent U.S. Jewish groups signed a joint statement supporting substantial change in how the world’s countries deal with greenhouse gas emissions and calling on participants to agree on aggressive action to combat global warming. Among the signers were the Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative movements; the American Jewish Committee; B’nai Brith; Hadassah; and the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. Something tells us that their statement was released in a different spirit than the recent arguments from the Municipal Environmental Associations of Judea and Samaria that the West Bank construction freeze, by halting the building of certain infrastructure, is anti-green.

Oh, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attend the Copenhagen summit, along with his Environment Minister.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.