We Are the Leaders We’ve Been Waiting For

An affable, unpretentious individual, the Reverend Dr. Robert W. "Bob" Edgar disarmingly began his address by paraphrasing Alcoholics Anonymous.

"Hello, my name is Bob and I am a recovering energy addict and a consumer addict and I am here as part of my twelve-step program."

Quoting another clergyman, Martin Luther King who spoke just five weeks before he was assassinated, Edgar said,

"We are now faced with the fact that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked and dejected with a lost opportunity. The 'tide in the affairs of men' does not remain at the flood; it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is deaf to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residue of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words: 'Too late.' There is an invisible book of life that faithfully records our vigilance or our neglect. 'The moving finger writes, and having writ moves on…' We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation.

"Why did I share that quote," he asked? "Because I believe the life issue of our time is global warming. I believe that God is calling us to attention on this issue. I can find no place in any of the scriptures, whether Christian, Jewish, Moslem or others where God is calling us to participate in destroying the planet. Everyplace I look, God says, 'Be stewards of the Earth.'"

He covered three key points during his 25-minute address at the NRDC Re-Energize America Town Hall meeting on the campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha; the first point being that "we are the leaders that we have been waiting for." He stressed that he's known presidents and dealt with the "egos" on Capitol Hill and that we must not wait on them to provide leadership on the important social and environmental issues of the day.

"I think to re-energize our nation, we need to re-energize ourselves and take back that leadership role. Dr. Martin Luther King did not become the leader of the civil rights movement by going to college… or seminar to be that. He simply had an attitude of being courageous in the midst of great civil violence."

Edgar told the audience of a meeting he attended with Prime Minister Tony Blair at the British embassy in Washington, D.C. at which a number of religious leaders were gathered to discuss global warming. To those who agree with the science and technology, Blair said, "You know the urgency… you know we must act, you know we're getting close to a tipping point."

Edgar continued, "And then he turned to some of my colleagues on the far religious right and said, for those of you who don't believe the science, who question whether we should act now, you have to act now in case you're wrong, because by the time you get it, it may be too late.

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