By simply protecting God’s creation, we can get up to 37% of the way needed to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. Conserving and restoring blue carbon ecosystems, such as wetlands, estuaries, and tidal marshes, is particularly critical for keeping communities resilient in the face of extreme weather and ensuring a healthy, safe, and stable future for our children. Blue carbon ecosystems not only remove significant amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide from the atmosphere but also protect our communities from harmful storm surge and flooding and keep our water clean and fisheries robust for our enjoyment, health, and economy. These beautiful and vital places in God’s creation, however, are disappearing at an alarming rate due to sea level rise and habitat destruction and degradation. 

The bipartisan Blue Carbon for Our Planet Act will create a national strategy to protect and restore these critical coastal ecosystems and develop innovative approaches harnessing the power of God’s creation to remove carbon from the atmosphere and combat the harmful impacts of climate change. The Evangelical Environmental Network applauds Senators Murkowski (R-AL) and Whitehouse (D-RI) for introducing this important bipartisan legislation in the Senate and thanks Representatives Bonamici (D-OR), Posey (R-FL), Beyer (D-VA), and Mast (R-FL) for their leadership on this bill in the House.