Dear Mayor Durkan and Seattle City Council Members,

Religious leaders know that reversing climate change is the greatest challenge we face in caring for creation, for ourselves, and for all living things.  Faith communities are doing our part to reduce energy consumption in our houses of worship and to support clean, renewable sources of energy.  We look to you to amplify our efforts with a city-wide commitment to A Green New Deal for Seattle.

People of faith are adding our voices to the call for a transformative Green New Deal for Seattle that will eliminate our city's climate pollution by 2030, address historical injustices, and create thousands of good unionized jobs.

We urge our city leaders to immediately work toward a Green New Deal for Seattle and commit to doing the following:

•  Create a Green New Deal Task Force and a Green New Deal Fund, and seed the GND Fund by implementing at least one revenue-raising mechanism
•  Define “Green Zones” that represent neighborhoods most impacted by environmental injustice as priority investment areas for Seattle's Green New Deal
•  Pass a moratorium on all new fossil fuel infrastructure, including gas hookups to new buildings
•  Hold the fossil fuel industry accountable by taking legal action to ensure that we make the corporate polluters pay for the damage they have done

Thank you for transitioning Seattle from an economy built on exploitation and fossil fuels to one driven by dignified work and clean energy!