July 2024 Webinar Series

COMPLETED July Webinar I: Review of GA 226 Biennial Meeting and Impacts on PCUSA Earth Care

The national meeting of our Presbyterian Church (USA) that met June 25 – July 4, 2024, discussed a number of important environmental concerns.  First was an overture by PEC members that was approved by 13 presbyteries, asking the church to divest from fossil fuels.  Another PEC-sponsored overture dealt with reducing plastic pollution.  A third overture dealt with protecting Utah Wilderness. Other environmental overtures we also supported by PEC.  Those who were involved in developing these overtures and testifying at the General Assembly included Fred Milligan (co-chair of PEC Advocacy committee), Mark Eakin (PEC Steering Committee), Bruce Gillette (PEC Moderator), Jenny Holmes (co-chair of PEC Advocacy Committee), and Pam Mc Vety (PEC Advocacy Committee), amongst many others.  Please join us for discussion of how to interpret and implement these actions and an opportunity for questions and answers. 

Fred Milligan is a PC(USA) minister member of Highlands Presbytery in North Central New Jersey in the territory of the Turtle tribe of the Ramapo people and the Ramapo mountains but resides in New York City in the historic land of the Linape people along the Hudson River. Fred has been sensitive to ecological issues since his youth when he was recruited by the mayor of Strawberry, Arkansas to become his town’s first “garbage man” and only later was confronted with the dilemma of where to put it. He has been involved with PEC since 2005 when he served on the General Assembly staff as Associate for Stewardship Education and supported the start-up of the Eco-Stewards program. He then served on our steering committee until 2014 when he moved to Chile as pastor of a congregation there for 6 years. In 2021 and 2022, Fred represented PEC at COP26 in Glasgow and the follow-up meetings in Bonn, Germany and supervised the writing and editing of our overture to the last General Assembly entitled “The time is now . . . “ Fred is currently serving as co-facilitator, with Jenny Holmes, of the PEC Advocacy Team.

Mark Eakin, Ph.D. worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for over 25 years and directed Coral Reef Watch, a program that monitors coral reef ecosystems through satellite and in water observations. He formerly co-chaired the US Coral Reef Task Force’s Climate Change Working Group, has testified before Congress on the impacts of climate change, was a contributing author on the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Assessment Report, and a Chief Scientific Advisor for the 2017 Sundance-winning film Chasing Coral. Mark currently serves on the PEC Steering Committee as the Mid-Atlantic Regional Representative.

Bruce Gillette, Moderator for Presbyterians for Earth Care, wrote the overture approved by the 2016 PC(USA) General Assembly and Presbyteries that amended the Book of Order by adding the phrase “caring for God’s creation” as a responsibility for all church members.  He also wrote the original draft of “Creation and Unity” report approved by the World Communion of Reformed Churches’ 2017 General Council meeting in Germany. He earlier served on the Executive Committee for the Consultation for Church Union as it became Churches United in in Christ.  Bruce helped found Delaware Interfaith Power & Light,   Bruce and his wife, Carolyn Winfrey Gillette, were the co-pastors of Limestone Presbyterian Church in Delaware when it installed 180 solar panels on its sanctuary roof and built community and rain gardens.  They earlier served the First Presbyterian Church in Pitman, NJ, a community that was once the number one clean-up site for the EPA Superfund.  Bruce & Carolyn are the pastors of the First Presbyterian Union Church in Owego, NY.  Tropical Storm Lee flooded 95% of the Village of Owego several years before the Gillettes began to serve there.