FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, UCC, WILLIAMSTOWN WILL RING BELLS 350 TIMES JUNE 22 AT NOON

Williamstown, MA - Church bells normally ring early on Sunday mornings to alert the neighborhood that God is calling the faithful to worship. But at noon on June 22, First Congregational Church, UCC in Williamstown will ring its bell 350 times—joining UCC churches across the Commonwealth in a campaign to call the community to urgent action in solving the global warming crisis by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

“In the early days of this nation church bells were often sounded as a community alarm,” said the Rev. Carrie Bail, pastor of the church. “This number 350 is one way of saying that our solutions must match the scale and the urgency of this impending catastrophe. We don’t need to look any further than the interior region of our own nation to know there is an epidemic of wild weather-related suffering: tornados and floods and cyclones. We toll the bells asking all people to wake up and begin the urgent action needed to avert a disaster which will disproportionately plague the poorest and most vulnerable people of our planet.”

The number 350 comes from the latest scientific estimates of how much carbon dioxide is a safe level in the atmosphere. At the moment, burning coal, oil, and gas have taken that number too high—the atmosphere currently holds about 385 parts per million of carbon dioxide. Since the failure of the Kyoto protocol and subsequent inertia in Washington, the clock is ticking fast.  “As a result, the planet is heating up too fast,” said Bill McKibben, environmental author and coordinator of the worldwide 350.org campaign.

“In December of 2009, the world’s leaders will meet in Copenhagen to forge an international agreement on global warming,” McKibben said. “So people in every country on earth are mobilizing to make sure that they don’t bend to the special interests and instead meet the targets science has laid out. African villages are planting 350 trees at the edge of town; we’ve even had people planning 350 mile marches to bear witness to this message.”

The Rev. Dr. Jim Antal, Minister and President for the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ called the bell-ringing, which is taking place in churches across the state,  “more than symbolic.”

“As the largest Protestant denomination in the Commonwealth, as each congregation decides to ring its bell 350 times, more and more of our 82,000 members will learn why the number 350 is so important.  And when Christians learn that our choices threaten the most vulnerable people on earth and all future generations, they will change their behavior and demand that governments change everyone’s behavior.”

Antal has issued a challenge to the 400 United Church of Christ congregations in the state, asking that 350 of them ring their bells 350 times by the end of the year.  First Congregational Church, UCC is one of the first four – representing the four corners of the state.

For more information on the 350 campaign, please visit http://www.350.org/4/.

For additional information on the science behind the number 350, contact The Sustainability Institute at http://www.sustainer.org/ or (802) 436-1277.