All across the country, members of our State Carbon Pricing Network (SCPN) are fighting to make an impact on climate change in their communities. We have individuals in our Network from all 50 states, each experiencing climate change differently in their local areas and finding unique solutions to build resiliency efforts. 

This week, we interviewed husband and wife, Rev’d Dr. Anita Schell and Stephen MacAusland. Rev’d Schell is currently serving as the Provisional Priest-in-Charge at St. Anne’s Parish in Connecticut, after working as the President of Rhode Island’s Interfaith Power and Light for 4 years. After co-founding Interfaith Power and Light, MacAusland is now working with the community of faith nationwide to reduce consumption of polluting energy through the creation of an independent energy service.

Thank you so much for making the time to speak with me today! I’m really looking forward to learning more about the work you both do. If you each could start by giving me a brief background on yourselves and your experiences; that would be perfect. 

Sure! Right now, I work at a church in Connecticut, after being in Rhode Island for 9 years, where I was the President of Rhode Island Interfaith Power and Light. I have been working in parishes all my life, and I’ve been a priest for 36 years. But for the last 10, after I completed my doctorate thesis in environmental justice in 2009, I started being very deliberate in working in churches through a three-pronged approach to environmental justice. 

The first part of the approach is through worship — how we show care for creation and environmental work through our worship services. The second pillar is our education, and the third prong is how we show care in our ongoing action. We just started an environmental committee here and we’re doing these three prongs well. The really cool thing is that all three prongs can overlap. You could have a meditative walk to clean up the shoreline with a guide giving you education about sea-level rise, and that would include all three. Obviously we’re working particularly at the very local level, but what we’re doing has ripple effects out. It’s all about thinking globally, acting locally.

If I can jump in on that one, one of the items that we are beginning to develop some focus and programs in is in job training, so that when you’re doing shoreline walks, for example, there might be opportunities for work, as opposed to just volunteering, as important as volunteering is. 

Yeah, absolutely. I think in every way, environmental impacts are hitting environmental justice communities first. We see that with disasters, and we see that even with the placement of toxic sites and power plants in this country. And in turn, these communities are far more likely to be affected by COVID-19, which is a really terrible cycle. So, I’m wondering what inspired you to start working on climate change in the beginning, and what made you first get involved in environmental justice work? 

For me, fresh out of college in 1971, I took a canoe trip to Northern Québec and moved in with an indigenous tribe. I spent a few years living there, hunting and trapping. Eventually, I tried to help them defend their river against Hydro-Québec, whose plants have resulted in devastating effects to native cultural-biological ecosystems. The river that I lived on was taken, but a few years later I had the opportunity to be part of a group that very aggressively took our fight to Hydro-Québec and we shut that project down. This was on the Great Whale River in Northern Québec, where we stopped a $20 billion dollar hydro project. It was really an amazing story. 

One of the things I do as a storyteller is to produce videos, and I have a couple of videos pertaining to native communities and energy. You’ll find my heart there. But what am I going to do about it? I am convinced that we have to take this ministry into the marketplace, and to make an ambitious and long plan short, it means basically starting our own energy company within the community of faith. That was the original idea for Interfaith Power and Light that Sally Bingham and I founded. It never really happened; there was a lot of typical political work going on. We spent a lot of time lobbying in Washington, and efforts are being made to help sell solar, but creating our own energy utility is really something that requires numbers and business-mindsets, so that’s where I am spending most of my time these days. I’m convinced that it can happen and that it has to happen. 

That’s great, how has the progress on that work been? 

Well, I’ve been around long enough to know some of the best folks in the world, and one of them is Amory Lovins, who was the founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute. He and I have gotten to be very close, and he has been very generous to me with his time, and has helped me figure out how we’re going to make this work from a business standpoint. 

That’s great. I’m also very interested in the connection both of you have between the environment and religion. I went to a religious high school, and grew up in that community, and I never heard or was taught about any connection between faith and the environment. Where do either of you see that connection in your community, and in your personal lives? 

Well Carlie, I grew up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in a very religious household. All of us in my household grew up with a great love of the land, and both my parents grew up on farms. But it wasn’t until I was teaching at Episcopal Academy that I started doing some interdisciplinary work with the religion department and the biology department, and started to see connections between ecology and religion further. I then met up with people at Bucknell who were conducting a study on religion and ecology, and were putting the two together in a really academic and practical way. They were studying ancient texts, scriptures and histories of all different religions — from Shintoism, to Buddhism, to Daoism, to Hinduism, to Islam, Judiaism and Christianity, and Indigenous religions. In examining that, you could see how each of those religions have a lot to say about how we care for creation. 

Going back to my own roots as a Christian from the Old Testament, in Genesis Chapter 1, there’s a passage where human beings are told to “take care for and till the Earth”, and also to have “dominion over” it. I think that word has been overused. It doesn’t mean to strip everything, take charge, and do whatever you want, but rather it gives us responsibility, quoting now Genesis Chapter 4, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” How do we bring in our brothers and sisters, and in the words of St. Francis, “our brother and sister are not just human beings.” So I began to look at my own background as a Christian, and look at my traditions. The history and writings have a lot to say about how we can live in harmony with all that’s created. The Episcopal Church continues to move in a good direction, and we see care for all human beings and all creation. When we say we should love our neighbor as ourselves, neighbor does not just mean human being. We’re moving in a better direction, but we have a lot more work to do, because we’ve so abused the creation that we were told to take care of under scripture. Because humans are particularly blessed with reason, memory and skill, we have a particular responsibility to take care of things. The more you’ve been given, the more you have responsibility. 

For me, it becomes not just an ethical and moral, but also a religious imperative. I don’t have a choice to care for my brother and sister; I don’t have a choice to care for creation. That adds a level of immediacy and urgency to doing it. So that’s where I come from. It’s part of my religious obligation as a Christian. We don’t want to think of the Church as a self-perpetuating institution. We want to think, “what would Jesus do?” He would be out there in the streets caring for those in need, and caring for the environment. 

Absolutely. I’m actually surprised that more religious institutions don’t make those connections; maybe they do and I haven’t been exposed to that, but the connection makes a lot of sense. 

One thing I will say about the community of faith is that often, not always, people are not as concerned about justice as we should be. The environment is fine, because where we are in Dedham, we’ve got the Charles River and golf courses and things like that, but we have a long way to go. A lot of it is about money, because a lot of people, and religious groups, are much more interested in making money than in saving the planet, because we think that is going to cost us too much money. That, of course, is not the case. It’s an excuse. 

Definitely. I’m wondering, if you could pick one thing you’ve done, or one action you’ve taken throughout your career, what do you think has made the biggest impact on the lives of others?

That’s a great question. I spent 13 years as a chaplain at Episcopal Academy — I had thousands of students throughout my 13 years — and I would say, as an Episcopal Priest, I would try to be a good role model in every way, including through my stewardship of the Earth. As a teacher, that had a huge impact for those students. I would also say that I had a positive impact working in communal relations with regard to the 4 years I was President of Rhode Island Interfaith Power and Light. I think some of the work I did there, including the committees I created, as well as the community partnerships I built, were a huge asset in our processes. I think we made a big difference, particularly in a state like Rhode Island, which is small, where we knew both of our Senators very well, both of our Congressmen well. We were down in Providence all the time pushing for legislation, and that is the advantage of a small state, you can have a very nimble, close relationship with legislators and leaders at the state house. I was also part of a Rhode Island Council of Churches, and we often had advocacy days at the state house; we did a lot of advocacy of our own as well. We also worked with environmental groups at the state level, and I would say that made a really big impact. 

Absolutely, that’s incredible. I’ll just ask one last question; I know that a lot of times working in the climate space can be a little difficult or discouraging because there is still so much work to do and we’re farther behind in policy than where we should be right now.  I’m wondering if you’re still optimistic about the future, and if so, why? 

I am hopeful about the future. Speaking as an optimistic person, I am deeply concerned about the future. I think we need to see, at all levels of government, a commitment to caring more about saving the planet than about making money. That has to do with everything starting with how we invest our money. I know that historically, organizations, including the Episcopal Church, have invested heavily in fossil fuels, because it was about how much money they could make. That is never my operating motive. Ever. It’s how much justice can we wield, how much love and kindness can we bring into the world? Which will mean sacrifice. And that’s the challenge, Carlie, I don’t see a collective sacrifice. It’s certainly not happening at the national level. 

Everything else, including COVID-19 and racism, is impacted by the climate in a negative way. I want to be hopeful that the triple pandemic that we’re experiencing, of COVID-19, racial injustice, and climate change, will be a permanent wake up call. But what will have to change is leadership at the national level, and people willing to make a collective sacrifice. I’m worried about the future of this country, and am discouraged by the polarization. Even climate change has become a political issue. Caring for the neediest has become a political issue. If Jesus was living in this time, he would be called pretty political, because he had a preference. He favored the poor and those who were being persecuted. If that’s political, then Jesus was political. That’s the reality. 

I want to jump in here — I think, what gives me some hope, is that women are stepping up and taking over. I’m very serious about that. The male gender has had the controls too long, and we have too little to show for it, at least in a positive way. I am delighted to stand behind Anita and support her and what she does. I’m glad to see you there, Carlie, and I hope you stick with it. 

Thank you so much, Steve, and Anita, for sharing your stories with me today. 

Of course. I think we need to empower the community of faith, and get them off their pews. Now is the perfect moment to do it. 

Featured Image: Courtesy of Anita Schell and Stephen MacAusland