Al Gore has worked with dedication to try to increase the rate of recruitment to the task of dealing with the “inconvenient truth” of the state of our global environment. The task is not easy.

A number of years ago, I was working as director of Field Studies for the Cathedral College of the Laity at the Washington National Cathedral. I received an announcement that the national office of the Episcopal Church intended to hire a staff officer for environmental affairs. I was very familiar with the workings of the national office and wondered how one mid-level church bureaucrat with a small budget could possibly do anything of significance with regard to our global environmental problems.

As I mused on this thought I began thinking about a man I had come to know in my work. This scientist was a very senior executive with an extremely large multi-national corporation whose products and services had an enormous impact on our globe. I knew that he was a life-long Episcopalian and a faithful and devout Christian. Pursuing the issue, I met and talked with the man, telling him of the pending new national staff acquisition and expressing my doubts regarding the effectiveness of this approach.

I then learned that the gentleman had his own experience with church bureaucracy having served for a time on a National Council of Church’s committee. We talked about alternative approaches the Episcopal Church might take. Would it be possible to gather top-level executives from major corporations, tap into their Christian motivation, and create a serious, on-going forum for trusted exploration of the impact of their corporations’ policies on the ecology of our planet? My friend said that while this might be possible and could be extremely valuable, he had serious doubts the Episcopal Church would ever sponsor such an effort because it was too easy just to write off the business world as an enemy of the environment.

I was more optimistic. I said that I had a speaking acquaintance with the Presiding Bishop, the executive head of the Episcopal Church’s national office, and that I believed we could get a hearing for this proposal so long as my friend would be involved. He agreed. Accordingly, I composed a lengthy letter carefully explaining the rationale and plan and offering to go to New York to explore the concept further. Many weeks went by until it gradually dawned on me that the letter was not going to be answered. It never was.

Was our proposal foolish or wise? I don’t know. I do trust that I am not wrong to believe that a great many people, with and without religious faith, are worried about the health of our world and would gladly respond to specific opportunities to use their gifts and talents in this cause.