Welcoming Statement to White House Fasters
David Merrill, Executive Director of GlobalWarmingSolution.org
White House
Sundown, July 5, 2005

Good evening.

My name is David Merrill and I am here on behalf of the member groups of GlobalWarmingSolution.org, a national coalition, and it is with joy, gratitude and anticipation that I welcome you to this Fast to Slow Global Warming.

It is fitting that we start this fast as darkness falls, because darkness is certainly falling on humanity. A few short steps away lies the seat of the leader of the most powerful country the world has ever seen. For fifteen years humanity has gazed expectantly in this direction, hungering and thirsting for forthright action to address global warming, only to be disappointed. We are learning with painful clarity on the eve of this historic G8 meeting that power wielded without morality is a curse.

But out of life’s mysterious haze fists of fire have cut blazing arcs through the darkening skies of this troubled planet and landed here on the front lawn of our nation’s consciousness, where they smolder with life and lovely defiance. Your are those fists of fire and you should know that other fires are igniting in hearts tonight in Texas, California, Alaska, Montana, Massachusetts, Washington state, Idaho, South Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Delaware, New York, Ohio, Nebraska, Missouri, Connecticut, Georgia, Colorado, Kentucky, Maine and elsewhere.

It is my prayer that by forgoing bread we will become spiritual yeast and that in three days a new spirit of determination shall rise among the American people, and from the man who holds the sacred office of the Presidency, moral responsibility for how this nation uses energy will pass into the hands of the American people, the ultimate guardians of our nation’s dreams and ideals.
And as our feet press this sacred earth may we also sink into the depths of our own hearts and find our way out of this dark valley and dispel the foreboding clouds of ecological peril hanging over this world tonight.

Let us hereby resolve to fast together, to love together, to work together, to dream together, to create a new world together, as long as our feet tread the paths of this garden called Earth.