Yes, duh, davka: Climate change *does* endanger human health

Climate science was getting clear many decades ago.  A previous recalcitrant administration had chosen not to act, until the Court intervened -- which led to the 2009 "endangerment finding," undergirding a raft of actions to protect public and environmental health.  Now the current Administration no longer 'believes' in such basic and empirically supported facts, so Lee Zeldin's Environmental Protection Agency wants to stop protecting the environment.  It's a shame, a shonde -- and we should all be raising our voices.  

You can too, quite easily:  Write a short statement, saying that yes of course greenhouse gases endanger public health -- and submit it, ideally by 'priority deadline' of Labor Day weekend and in any case by final deadline of 9/22, viahttps://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/08/01/2025-14572/reconsideration-of-2009-endangerment-finding-and-greenhouse-gas-vehicle-standards. 

Or our friends at Dayenu have made it super-simple to enter your info, then send a prepared (ideally personalized) message, here:  https://dayenu.org/epa-comment-action/.  Similar resources exist for our Protestant peers and our Catholic cousins.  And for more, see the background and 'talking points' sections of NRPE (National Religious Partnership for the Environment)'s helpful multi-Faith Toolkit on Endangerment Finding.
Last night I joined others in giving short online testimony, as part as EPA's review process.  Though many indications suggest that we're tilting at windmills (in order to save windmills!), still, let's pray that they hear and heed the overwhelmingly concerned public feedback.  And let's all write in, to add our voices to the mix.  For the record, here are my remarks (as submitted, the original 4 to 5 minute version; the oral testimony was limited to 2.5 minutes) -- may they and similar messages land in open minds and hearts.
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Thank you all.  I’m Rabbi Fred Scherlinder Dobb, Rabbinic Advisor with the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life (COEJL, which is in turn part of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment); and a leader in Interfaith Power and Light.  You’re hearing from numerous citizens these four (long!) days, many bringing a faith perspective – for every spiritual tradition understands that we must care for all Creation, if we’re to truly love our Creator. 

Our only ‘special interest’ is in doing what’s yashar and tov (per Numbers 31 & Deuteronomy 6:18): “do the right, and the good”.  What’s right is what’s true – i.e., that anthropogenic greenhouse gases DO endanger human health.  And what’s good, is good for people well into the future.  Yes, their putative value may be obfuscated by lowering discount rates in cost-benefit analyses -- but really, we’re talking about our own grandchildren, and theirs.  Literally, “for God’s sake,” these are our progeny.

We’ve long known that greenhouse gases DO endanger us -- all of us, human and non-, present and future, especially marginalized and minority populations.  We've long known that carbon dioxide emitted today endures in the atmosphere for roughly a century.  (Methane of course is far more potent, but lasts ‘just’ a couple decades; on all of this, the science is only clearer now than it was when endangerment was first 'found'). 

In Exodus (34:6-7), God reveals the thirteen divine attributes of mercy, twelve of which are indeed merciful – but at the end of the list, Torah says lo yinakeh, no, God won’t wipe the slate completely clean, but will visit the sins of the parents onto the children and grandkids, “onto the 3rd and 4th generation”.  That’s a century.  In other words, this challenging Bible verse doesn’t describe a vengeful God, just karma, per climate science. 

Along similarly sacred lines, in the magisterial 2015 encyclical Laudato Si, the late Pope Francis called for “intergenerational solidarity”.  We call it l’dor va’dor, from generation to generation; the Iroquois and other first nations on these lands call it ‘considering the seventh generation’.  Religion, across the board, urges us to take the long view.

Finally, a relevant story of a friend and congregant. 

​The expert work of Dr. Dina Kruger, EPA chief of non-carbon gases in the Air and Radiation division, earned her place on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – which made her, along with 2000 other top scientists from around the globe, a Nobel laureate.  But two decades ago, she was frustratingly under-worked.  As a person of deep faith and commitment, Dina used some of her volunteer time to serve on our synagogue’s Religious Practices Committee, as the week-in-and-week-out coordinator for those chanting Torah on Shabbat at Adat Shalom. 

Then in spring 2007, the Supreme Court noted the obvious:  that anthropogenic greenhouse gases are a pernicious form of air pollution, and do fall within the purview of those charged with protecting the environment.  She called me the next day, almost apologetically, saying that she’d have to pass the Torah-reader-mantle to someone else – because work would now be busy, as she had to (more accurately, “got to”) assemble and confirm the research that would undergird the 2009 endangerment finding.  I responded that this was the best and holiest ‘excuse’ I’d ever heard – and we agreed that instead of working on reading Torah, she’d be putting it into action!

Indeed, actively protecting the environment – as in the EPA’s very name, purpose, and congressional charter – is avodat ha’kodesh, holy work.  By contrast, neither history nor theology tend to look kindly on those who would reverse known truths, worsen realities for vulnerable people, raise costs, threaten Creation, and endanger our collective future.  

Please: “do the right and the good,” and uphold the endangerment finding.  Thank you.