12/17 CCC: Advocacy for Sustainability & American Indian Wisdom

Creation Corner Column, December 2017

 

                             Advocacy for Sustainability and American Indian Wisdom

Advocacy:  supporting, recommending, promoting, championing, backing, pleading, arguing in favor of, defending a cause or proposal.

Sustainability: the endurance of systems and processes for long-term ecological balance; the quality of not being harmful, or permanently damaging, to the environment, or depleting natural resources.

Advocacy for sustainability takes many forms, as within the Lutheran (ELCA) and Episcopal churches, and with the "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" promoted by the United Nations.  The latter includes 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and both religious denominations share a similar vision.

Clean water and sanitation; affordable and clean energy; climate action, life below water and life on land are five UN examples (see others at www.globalgoals.org .  The Lutheran and Episcopal emphases encompass those of the UN, so as to create a "sustainable and sufficient world where there is enough for all to thrive."  These churches seek to do this by "working through their service, reconciliation and justice ministries."  The Lutheran effort may be seen at www.elca.org/prayfastact .

Those who lived on our soil of this USA nation prior to Europeans, and whose descendants live here still, were advocates of sustainability and from whom we can learn much, and we would be wise to pass along their wisdom to our children and grand-children, our descendants.

Consider the Iroquois:  "In our every deliberation we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations."

Chief Seattle:  "All things are connected.  Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the children of the Earth."

Chief Seattle:  "This we know.  The earth does not belong to man; man belongs to the earth."

Chief Seattle: "Humankind has not woven the web of life.  We are but one thread within it."

Shawnee Chief Tecumseh:  "No tribe as the right to sell, even to each other, much less to strangers.  Sell a country! Why not sell the air, the great sea, as well as the earth?  Didn't the Great Spirit make them all for the use of his children?" (in a speech to William Harrison, Governor of the Indiana Territory, on August 11, 1810).

Cree proverb:  When all the trees have been cut down, when all the animals have been hunted, when all the waters are polluted, when all the air is unsafe to breathe, only then will you discover you cannot eat money."

                                                                             -30-

11/17 CCC: Thankful Prayerful Responses for Creation's Blessings

Nov. 2017 Creation Corner Column (CCC)

Thankful Prayerful Responses for Creation's Blessings

Including prayers in church liturgy is one of many ways to express our care for creation, as we are instructed to by the "First Commandment" in Genesis 2:15, to "serve and protect" the creation.  Consider these:

Creator God, you provide daily for our nourishment.  Bless fields and orchards, oceans and lakes, birds and animals, insects and fish.  Sustain those who harvest your life-sustaining bounty.  Help us share the gifts you have freely given.  Hear us, O God.  Your mercy is great.

Reveal your will for your creation, mighty God.  Renew waters, lands, and skies that are threatened by our carelessness.  Teach us to honor and care for the works of your hand.  Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for the renewal of creation: for a shared, plentiful harvest, for lands unable to bear fruit, for what is neglected or destroyed by our hand, and for the earth's advocates.  Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

You rejoice in your good creation.  Provide moisture for parched places, wind and sun for flooded lands, and shelter and sustenance for creatures of every kind.  Hear us, O God.  Your mercy is great.

Restore what is broken in creation, gracious God.  Revive farmlands and vineyards, protect waters needed by all living things, and move us to care for this earthly home.  Hear us, O God.  Your mercy is great.

Give bountiful pastures, safety and health to herds, livestock, and all animals.  May our care for all of your creation reflect the shepherding love for all that you have made.  Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

We pray for parks and open spaces, for clean air and clear water.  Help us protect places where we are reminded of God's work in creation and find renewal.  Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.

Note:  The above Prayers of Intercession are derived from recent 2017 "Celebrate" bulletin inserts and are reproduced by permission of Augsburg Fortress.  No future reproduction is allowed without written permission.

                                                              

                                                                                    -30-

10/17 CCC: Faith Groups & St. Francis

October. 2017 Creation Corner Column

Faith Groups and Saint Francis

 

To follow last month's column re: religious leaders raising up climate justice concerns for the integrity of creation, one can glance at some examples from those in the "Keepers of the Faith" contingent at the April 29 People's Climate March in Washington D.C.

Presbyterians for Earth Care; United Methodists; United Church of Christ Environmental Justice Ministry and Creation Justice teams; state Inter-faith Power & Light offices; North Carolina Council of Churches; Unitarian-Universalists for Social Justice; American Jewish World Service; Adrian Dominican Sisters;  Sikh Environmental Day; Green Muslims; Indigenous Environmental Network Faith Leaders; and many others.

Other contingents were Protectors of Justice; Creators of Sanctuary; Builders of Democracy; Guardians of the Future; Defenders of Truth; Reshapers of Power; Many Struggles, One Home.

                                            "Rise  Up, O Saints of God!" hymn verses:

 "Speak out, O saints of God, Despair engulfs earth's frame...(v.2); Give heed, O saints of God! Creation cries in pain...(v.4); Redress sin's cruel consequence, Give justice larger place...(v.3).  Lutheran Book of Worship Hymn 383, Norman O. Forness (b. 1936), text.

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October 3 each year the church raises up St. Francis of Assisi Day.  Environmentalists often regard him as their patron saint.  Francis renounced materialism in living a life of humility, simplicity and dedicated his love to the whole divinely created world.

In his "sermon to the birds" he said "Your home is in the purity of the air."  Today, according to the United Nations Environmental Assembly each year roughly seven million people die prematurely because of poor air quality.

A slogan from the National Audubon Society is " Protect the birds and we protect the Earth."

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Note:  This begins the 21st year for this column by Michael Ochs, a Lutheran layman in Williamsport PA.  In addition to appearing in the monthly newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County, PA, it may also be found, since March of 2011, as a companion blog to the web site of Lutherans Restoring Creation.

9/17 CCC: Our Planet, Our Selves

Creation Corner Column, September 2017

Our Planet, Our Selves

Global Witness, an international NGO (non-governmental organization) reports that in 2016 there were 200 environmental defenders, wildlife rangers and indigenous leaders murdered as they defended natural resources, wildlife, or community land.  Thus nearly four a week.

Environmentalists are threatened by the interests representing mining and oil, illegal logging, agribusiness and dam building.  Conflicts persist over water and land, pollution and evictions.

Globalization of incentives for economic interests trumping ecological interests is often cited as the cause for this culture of impunity where environmental defenders can be eliminated without repercussions.  Assaults are attributed to corporations' private security guards, state forces and contract killers.

How might you and I, as a part of the ecumenical movement respond?  Investment portfolio divestment from offending companies is a start.  Or, as investors, we could vote to have the company report on how climate change, for example, will affect its "bottom line".  Recently ExxonMobil shareholders voted overwhelmingly to do this.

If our tradition seems to urge support of extremist theologies and politics that jettison human rights, disrespect the rule of law, or fail to take a stand against environmental destruction, perhaps you and I have cause to re-think, seeking values that are more life-affirming.

If political will is lacking, and corporations elude accountability, and if the hope of the environmental movement is challenged, and when science alone cannot solve environmental problems, we need to rely on the influence of spiritual leaders in the decision-making process by invoking their moral authority to frame the struggle for ecological integrity as a humanitarian one.

Each of us reading this column can make some contribution of helping.

-----------------------

Note:

This column began in October 1997 and thus now completes 20 years. It is issued mid-monthly, Sept.--May, by the six-decades-old ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County, based in Williamsport PA.  To see this column in that context, go to www.uclc.org and then search the newsletter for the "Creation Corner Column."

8/17 CCC: Enviro. Quotes, Dates, Books, Media, etc.

8/17 Creation Corner Column: Enviro. Quotes, Dates, Books, Media, etc.

Quote of the Month:

"The situation has become so bad it would not be ethical not to use strong language" says Prof. Gerardo Ceballos, lead researcher for the study concluding that billions of animal populations have been lost, a "biological annihilation", amounting to a sixth mass extinction.

This is a "frightening assault on the foundations of human civilization", according to the study in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Earth Overshoot Day of August 2, 2017

This is the estimated date humans have overdrawn the planet's natural resource budget this year.  It takes more than 20 months to regenerate what's depleted in a year.  Source: Global Footprint Network.  This USA Today Snapshot asks: "What will you do to #movethedate?  The date arrives earlier each year.

2017 marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision granting the US EPA the authority to regulate global warming pollution in the case of Massachusetts v. EPA (2007).

1967-2017 the 50th anniversary of the Environmental Defense Fund whose motto is "Finding the ways that work."

Documentary Film of the month:

An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power.  Al Gore.

Religious book of the month:

Eco-Reformation: Grace and Hope for a Planet in Peril.  edited by Lisa E. Dahill and Jim B. Martin-Schramm.  Foreword by Bill McKibben.

"The" Books of the Month:

The 50 Greatest Walks of the World.  Barry Stone.

The Ancestor's Tale: A Pilgrimage to the Dawn of Life. Richard Dawkins & Yan Wong.

The Boatman: Henry David Thoreau's River Years.  Robert M. Thorson.

The Canada 150 Collection (many titles, Univ. of Toronto press).

The Chimps of Fauna Sanctuary: A True Story of Resilience and Recovery.  Andrew Westoll.

The Dog by the Cradle, the Serpent Beneath: Some Paradoxes of Human-Animal Relationships. Erika Ritter.

The Enigma of the Owl: An Illustrated Natural History. Mike Unwin and David Tipling.

The Fruit Hunters: A Story of Nature, Adventure, Commerce and Obsession. Adam Leith Gollner.

The Human Eros: Eco-Ontology and the Aesthetics of Existence.  Thomas M. Alexander.

The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us.  Alice Roberts.

The Living Shore: Rediscovering a Lost World.  Rowan Jacobsen.

The New Food Activism: Opposition, Cooperation, and Collective Action. edited by Alison Alkon and Julie Guthman.

The Paper Zoo: 500 Years of Animals in Art. Charlotte Sleigh.

The Poetic Species: A Conversation.  Edward O. Wilson & Robert Hass.

The Rhinoceros and the Megatherium: An Essay in Natural History.  Juan Pimentel, translated by Peter Mason.

The Roof at the Bottom of the World: Discovering the Transantarctic Mountains.  Edmund Stump.

The Secret Language of Animals: A Guide to Remarkable Behavior.  Janine M. Benyus, Juan Carlos Barberis, illus.

The Songs of Trees: Stories from Nature's Great Connectors.  David George Haskell.

The Water Book: The Extraordinary Story of Our Most Ordinary Substance. Alok Jha.

The Water Kingdom: A Secret History of China.  Philip Ball.

The Way of the Hare.  Marianne Taylor.

The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology.  Thich Nhat Hanh.

Coloring Books: To inspire creation-consciousness while at the beach, lakeside, shorelines.

The Brilliant Colouring Book.  Arcturus.

The Kew Gardens Exotic Plants Coloring Book: Over 40 Beautiful Illustrations Plus Color Guides. Arcturus.

Floral Coloring Book: Beautiful Pictures from the Garden of Nature.  Arcturus.

Sacred Geometry Coloring Book.  Francene Hart.

Stained Glass Coloring Book: Luminous Designs to Personalize and Treasure.  Arcturus.

Vintage Coloring Book: Gorgeous Retro Patterns to Personalize and Keep.  Arcturus.

Other Media:

The Bird Collection (4 11x14-inch color prints and book).  Kathryn Hennessy & Victoria Wiggins, eds.

The Plants and Flowers Collection (4 11x14-inch color prints and book).  Kathryn Hennessy & Victoria Wiggins, eds.

Food Chains (DVD). Eric Schlosser & Eva Longoria.

Ocean Waves: 100% Pure Nature, Soothing, Pure.  (CD) Compass Productions.

Concluding Quote: "What a country chooses to save is what a country chooses to say about itself.  Mollie Beattie.

Earlier columns may be found at http://lutheransrestoringcreationblog.blogspot.com .

                                                                       -30-

7/17 CCC: Books, Media, Events, Quotes, Links

July 2017 Creation Corner Column: Books and other media, events, quotes, links

 

Books of potential interest to the reader:

The Age of Spiritual Machines. Ray Kurzweil.

The Art of Loading Brush (forthcoming).  Wendell Berry.

Chesapeake Country.  Eugene L. Meyer (author), Lucian Niemeyer (photographer).

Creating An Ecological Society: Toward a Revolutionary Transformation. Fred Magdoff and Chris Williams.

Defiant Earth: The Fate of Humans in the Anthropocene.  Clive Hamilton.

Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe.  Antony Loewenstein.

Dronescapes: The New Aerial Photography from Dronestragram.  Ayperi Karabuda Ecer, editor.

Earth Eats: Real Food, Green Living. Annie Corrigan with Daniel Orr.

Ecology or Catastrophe: The Life of Murray Bookchin.  Janet Biehl.

Energy Without Conscience: Oil, Climate Change, and Complicity.  David McDermott Hughes.

The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwin's Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal World---And Us.  Richard O. Prum.

Gifford Pinchot: Selected Writings.  Edited by Char Miller

Global Environmental Politics.  Kate O'Neill and Stacy D. VanDeveer, Editors.

Henry David Thoreau: A Life.  Laura Dassow Walls.

The Hour of the Land.  Terry Tempest Williams.

Ice Blink: Navigating Northern Environmental History.  Edited by Stephen Bocking and Brad Martin.

Is Birdsong Music?: Outback Encounters with an Australian Songbird.  Hollis Taylor.

Land!  The Case for an Agrarian Economy (John Crowe Ransom).  Edited by Jason Peters.

Late Victorian Holocausts: El Nino Famines and the Making of the Third World.  Mike Davis.

Living Through the End of Nature: The Future of American Environmentalism.  Paul Wapner.

The New Agrarian Mind. Allan C. Carlson.

Other Minds: The Octopus, the Sea, and the Deep Origins of Consciousness.  Peter Godfrey Smith.

Patterns in Nature: Why the Natural World Looks the Way it Does.  Philip Ball.

Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirits: Inside the Fight to Reclaim America's Native Culture. Chip Colwell.

Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Life.  Adam Greenfield.

Read, Listen, Tell: Indigenous Stories From Turtle Island.  Edited by Sophie McCall, Deanna Reder, David Gaertner, and Gabrielle L'Hirondelle Hall.

Reality Check: How Science Deniers Threaten Our Future. Donald R. Prothero.

Rising Tides: Climate Refugees in the Twenty-First Century.  John R. Wennersten and Denise Robbins.

Science and Religion: A Historical Introduction, 2nd edition.  Edited by Gary B. Ferngren.

Selling Local: Why Local Food Movements Matter. Jennifer Meta Robinson and James Robert Farmer.

Song of Increase: Listening to the Wisdom of Honeybees for Kinder Beekeeping and a Better World. Jacqueline Freeman.

Sustainable Food Systems: The Role of the City.  Robert Biel (free PDF Download).

Tales of an Ecotourist:  What Travel to Wild Places Can Teach Us about Climate Change.  Mike Gunter, Jr.

Thank You Fossil Fuels & Good Night: The Twenty-First Century's Energy Transition.  Gregory Meehan.

Thoreau and the Language of Trees.  Richard Higgins.

The Transhumanist Wager.  Zoltan Istvan

Watershed Discipleship: Reinhabiting Bioregional Faith and Practice.  Ched Myers, ed.; foreword by Denise M. Nadeau.

When the Hills Are Gone: Frac Sand Mining and the Struggle for Community (forthcoming).  Thomas Pearson.

Why Birds Sing.  David Rothenberg.

Wilderness Forever: Howard Zahniser and the Path to the Wilderness Act.  Mark Harvey.

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Books on the theme of The Brave New World of Gene Editing:

A Crack in Creation: Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution.  Jennifer A. Doudna and Samuel H. Sternberg.

DNA Is Not Destiny: The Remarkable, Completely Misunderstood Relationship Between You and Your Genes.  Steven J. Heine.

The Gene Machine: How Genetic Technologies Are Changing the Way We Have Kids---and the Kids We Have.  Bonnie Rochman.

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Books by the same author:

David Helvarg:

50 Ways to Save the Ocean

Blue Frontier: Dispatches from America's Ocean Wilderness

The Golden Shore: California's Love Affair with the Sea

The Ocean and Coastal Conservation Guide: The Blue Movement Directory

Rescue Warriors: The U.S. Coast Guard, America's Forgotten Heroes

Saved the Seas: Hope, Heartbreak and Wonder in the Blue World

Other Media: 

Blue Frontier, and ocean conservation and policy group at www.bluefront.org .

Celebrating Wendell Berry in Music two-volume audio cd

Vol. 1, disc one: In Song and Shade (poetry readings by Wendell Berry; choral music/art songs composed by Andrew Mayfield.

Vol. 1, disc two: On Wendell's Farm (Berry poetry and Eric Bibb music)

Vol. 2, All the Earth Shall Sing (18 tracks of poetry readings and music)

Chasing Coral.  Documentary appearing on Netflix.

Christians and the Environment.  An eBook from Sojourners.  www.sojo.net also available at amazon.com .

Surf Your Watershed site by entering your zip code at www.epa.gov/surf

 

Events:

The 28th Annual Energy Fair: Clean Energy + Sustainable Living.  St. Paul, MN Sept. 9-10, 2017. 

www.TheEnergyFair.org .

Fate of the Earth Lecture Series, Oct. 11, 2017, Elizabeth Kolbert speaker (author of The Sixth Extinction), NYC.  Prior event, lecture by Bill McKibben, can be seen www.fateoftheearth.org .

Quotations:

More Americans now work in solar power than in all of America's coal mines, oil fields, and gas extraction operations combined."  Harvey Wasserman; he wrote Solartopia!: Our Green-Powered Earth, edits www.nukefree.org and his "Green Power & Wellness" radio show is at prn.fm.

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"Global warming is the biggest thing humans have ever done."  Bill McKibben of http://www.350.org .

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"Neither liberals nor conservatives have stood up to the ravaging of farmland by the industrial economy."  Wendell Berry.

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"In order to achieve the sort of limitlessness of the living world that we have begun to call 'sustainability,' strict limits must be observed."  Wendell Berry.

Wendell Berry's rewording of the Golden Rule: "Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you."

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Read

Think

Do

Repeat

....advice from The Christian Century magazine (subtitle is "Thinking Critically, Living Faithfully")

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The Works of Mercy                                The Works of War

Feed the Hungry                                        Destroy Crops and Land

Give Drink to the Thirsty                            Seize Food Supplies

Clothe the Naked                                       Destroy Homes and Villages

Visit the Sick                                              Scatter Families

Shelter the Homeless                                Contaminate Water

To Visit the Prisoners                                 Imprison Dissenters

To Bury the Dead                                       Inflict Wounds and Burns

Pray for the Living and the Dead               Kill the Living

....calligraphy graphic from The Catholic Worker monthly newspaper

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Religion that is pure and faultless (undefiled, genuine, acceptable) in the sight of God the Father means to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself from being polluted (unstained, unspotted) by the world.  James 1:27

Note for discussion:  If we might use a modern understanding of pollution in this regard, we might very well begin with where we live: in our built environment and the pollution that ensues from within such.

For a recent summary of indoor air quality, derived from a summit between The Atlantic Magazine and the Dyson Corporation, see 

http://www.theatlantic.com/sponsored/dyson/think-before-you-breathe/1311/   

Of course if we consider the admonition as "refusing to let the world corrupt us", "remain uncorrupted by this world", or to "keep one's soul without defilement from the world", such an interpretation would lead us into a different discussion, beyond the scope intended here.

                                                                               -30-

6/17 CCC Summer Readings

June 2017 Creation Corner Column

Summer June Readings

God, Send forth your Spirit and renew the face of all the earth.  from Psalm 104

 

After Nature: A Politics for the Anthropocene.  Jedediah Purdy.

Archaeology's Footprints in the Modern World: Michael Brian Schiffer.

Audubon, On the Wings of the World.  Fabien Grolleau and Jeremie Royer.

Continental Divide: A History of American Mountaineering.  Maurice Isserman.

The Crystal Reef: How Climate Change is Affecting Our Oceans (video). Cody Karutz.

Dictionary of Christianity and Science: The Definitive Reference for the Intersection of Christian Faith and Contemporary Science.  Edited by Paul Copan, Tremper Longman III, Christopher L. Reese, and Michael G. Strauss.

Denying to the Grave: Why We Ignore the Facts that Will Save Us.  Sara E. Gorman and Jack M. Gorman.

Diet for a Dead Planet: Big Business and the Coming Food Crisis.  Christopher D. Cook.

Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming.  Paul Hawken, ed.

Earth in Human Hands: Shaping Our Planet's Future.  David Grinspoon.

The Elements of Power: Gadgets, Guns, and the Struggle for a Sustainable Future in the Rare Metal Age.  David S. Abraham.

For the Love of All Creatures: The Story of Grace in Genesis.  William Greenway.

The Forest Unseen:  A Year's Watch in Nature.  David Haskell.

A Gathering of Larks: Letters to Saint Francis from a Modern-day Pilgrim.  Abigail Carroll.

George Washington Carver:  A Life.  Christina Vella.

The Golden Shore: California's Love Affair with the Sea.  David Helvarg.

A Good That Transforms: How U.S. Culture Undermines Environmental Reform.  Eric T. Freyfogle.

The Great Derangement: Climate Change and the Unthinkable.  Amitav Ghosh.

The Great Disruption: Why the Climate Crisis Will Bring On the End of Shopping and the Birth of a New World.  Paul Gilding.

Green Growth: A U.S. Program for Controlling Climate Change and Expanding Job Opportunities.  Robert Pollin.

How God Changes Your Brain: Breakthrough Findings from a Leading Neuroscientist.  Andrew Newberg.

Grizzly West: A Failed Attempt to Reintroduce Grizzly Bers in the Mountain West.  Michael J. Dax.

Journey of the Universe.  Brian Thomas Swimme and Mary Evelyn Tucker.

Lighting the World: Transforming Our Energy Future by Bringing Electricity to Everyone.  Jim Rogers.

Living With Lead: An Environmental History of the Coeur d'Alenes, 1885-2011.  Bradley D. Snow.

Making a Good Life: An Ethnography of Nature, Ethics, and Reproduction.  Katharine Dow.

My City Highrise Garden.  Susan Brownmiller.

The Nature Fix: Why Nature Makes Us Happier, Healthier, and More Creative.  Florence Williams.

The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies. Richard Heinberg.

Plentitude: The New Economics of True Wealth.  Juliet Schor.

Run, Spot, Run: The Ethics of Keeping Pets.  Jessica Pierce.

Rust: The Longest War.  Jonathan Waldman.

Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition.  Charles Eisenstein.

A Safe and Sustainable World: The Promise of Ecological Design.  Nancy Jack Todd.

Science For Seminaries Video series (Am. Assoc. for the Advancement of Science dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion).

Seed: The Untold Story (dvd documentary on importance of seed diversity). Vandana Shiva, Jane Goodall.

Solartopia: Our Green-Powered Earth.  Harvey Wasserman.

Stewart L. Udall: Steward of the Land.  Thomas G. Smith.

Thirst for Power: Energy, Water, and Human Survival.  Michael E. Webber.

Unstoppable: Harnessing Science to Change the World.  Bill Nye.

The Vice of Luxury: Economic Excess in a Consumer Age.  David Cloutier.

What Stands in a Storm: Three Days in the Worst Superstorm to Hit the South's Tornado Alley.  Kim Cross.

The Winona LaDuke Chronicles: Stories from the Front Lines in the Battle for Environmental Justice.  Winona LaDuke.

Two books re: Beauty are

Dorothy Day: The World Will Be Saved By Beauty---An Intimate Portrait of My Grandmother.  Kate Hennessy.

The Fight for Beauty:  Our Path to a Better Future.  Fiona Reynolds.

Titles by Antonia Juhasz:

Black Tide: The Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill

The Tyranny of Oil: The World's Most Powerful Industry

Titles by George Monbiot:

Feral: Rewilding the Land, Sea, and Human Life.

Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning.

How Did We Get into This Mess?: Politics, Equality, Nature.

Titles by Jack Spencer:

This Land: An American Portrait (Photography). .

Native Soil (Photography).

From the archive:

1968 Man and Nature: The Spiritual Crisis of Modern Man.  Seyyed Hossein Nasr.

1969 The Chasm Ahead.  Aurelio Peccei.

1972 The Limits to Growth.  Dennis Meadows et al.

1988 The Collapse of Complex Societies.  Joseph Tainter.

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Reflection for discussion:  Some people seek to have "power over" nature (domination, exploitation), and some others are seen as loving nature ("nature worship", "tree huggers").  May we adapt the following quote from Martin Luther King, Jr., taken from his work In Search of Integrity, and reprinted in the recent issue of Annals of Earth (a publication of Ocean Arks International, vol. XXXV, number 1, 2017), to better understand the relationships of power and love as they apply to nature, the environment, God's creation.  Thus the result is an emphasis on environmental justice.  As has been remarked, we will save what we love, and we will not save what we do not love.

"Power without love

is reckless and abusive,

and love without power

is sentimental and anemic.

Power at its best is love

implementing the demands of justice,

and justice at its best

is power

correcting everything

that stands against love."

This final quotation from The Great Partnership: Science, Religion, and the Search for Meaning, by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:  "Science is about explanation.  Religion is about meaning.  Science analyses, religion integrates."

                                                                            -30-

5/17 CCC: World Environment Day, Archives, Advocacy

Creation Corner Column

May 2017 Potpourri: World Environment Day (WED),  Archives and Advocacy

 "Sing with all the people of God, and join in the hymn of all creation."  Verse from the Hymn of Praise/Canticle. Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978 Augsburg-Fortress Publishers, p. 61.

1.  "Connecting People to Nature" is the theme for the June 5th World Environment Day (WED), encouraging us to personally adopt a motto of "I'm With Nature".  Since the 1970s this global platform, and its different yearly theme, has helped raise awareness for taking action on urgent environmental issues, thus safeguarding nature.  The question for us is this:  Is our natural heritage at the heart of our identity, as a nation, state, county, city, municipality, bioregion, etc. 

The WED website www.worldenvironmentday.global provides toolkits, multimedia, news, theme information, etc.  The international Environmental  Sabbath initiative ("Give Earth a Rest") began in 1985, and was launched by a World Conference of Women.  It is raised up yearly the first Sunday of June (June 4, 2017).

 

2.  From the Archives:  In 2007 the Reader's Digest published a $30.00, 320 pg. book, entitled Global Warning: The Last Chance for Change about climate change (warming), prepared by Paul Brown.  It noted that the main cause of global warming was excessive emissions of Green House Gases (GHS) due to human activities.  During his year of research the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere went up 4 ppm.  Such continues to increase, and to avoid the worst effects we must keep the global warming increase down.

Regrettably, ten years later, some reports now say the December 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change seems outdated, for even if the emission limits goals of nations are achieved (and they are voluntary, lacking any binding enforcement mechanisms), climatologists expect a global warming of more than double the goal limit of the agreement.

The Reader's Digest book concludes with 30 pages of "What Can Be Done" suggestions.  You, the reader, are aware of such.  So if you are in awe of the power of the earth's climate and weather systems, be inspired to do something for climate change, and do it today.

As naturalist and veteran broadcaster Sir David Attenborough is quoted as saying at the beginning of the book: "How could I look my grandchildren in the eye and say I knew about this and I did nothing."

3.  Advocacy Advice comes from many sources.  One from The Wilderness Society newsletter offers 8 ways of making your voice heard on issues that matter to you. Contact your members of Congress frequently, and at key times; attend town hall meetings and public forums; meet directly with your lawmakers; say thank you and applaud good actions; help rallies and protests succeed; organize your own event; use your social networks (FaceBook, Google+, Instagram, Linkedin, SnapChat, Twitter, WhatsApp, Youtube, etc.); and contribute to media coverage, such as newspaper letter-to-editor opportunities and urging coverage of an issue.

                                                                              -30-

4/17 CCC: Earth Month Rogation Readings

4/17 Creation Corner Column

Rogation Readings for Earth Month

April 2017 includes many opportunities for people to express their concern for the Earth.  In the 5th century a religious practice began, known as Rogation Days, prior to Ascension Day, that raised up prayers asking God to bless agricultural practices to insure later crop harvests would be free from lightning, blight, plagues, pestilence, etc. so that there would be no famine.

Consider the following books for Earth Day (Apr. 22, with a March for Science in the nation's capitol); Soil and Water Stewardship Week and Sunday, sponsored yearly by the National Association of Conservation Districts; Arbor Day; and a 4/29  people's climate rally in Washington DC, with a major contingent by people of faith, see https://faith.peoplesclimate.org/

A recent bibliography of books selected at the BelovedPlanet web site can be found at http://belovedplanet.com/resources/ .  Also consider:

Adam and the Genome:  Reading Scripture after Genetic Science.  Dennis R. Venema and Scot McKnight.

All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings.  Gayle Boss; illus. by David G. Klein.

Baptized with the Soil: Christian Agrarians and the Crusade for Rural America.  Kevin M. Lowe.

The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality.  Richard Heinberg.

Endangered Economies: How the Neglect of Nature Threatens Our Prosperity.  Geoffrey Heal.

The First 1,000 Days: A Crucial Time for Mothers and Children---and the World.  Roger Thurow.

The First World Oil War.  Timothy Winegard.

Food and Faith.  Norman Wirzba.

The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate.  Peter Wohlleben.

The Last Beach.  Orrin H. Pilkey and J. Andrew G. Cooper.

More than Enough: Living Abundantly in a Culture of Excess.  Lee Hull Moses.

The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible.  Charles Eisenstein.

My Life with Things: The Consumer Diaries.  Elizabeth Chin.

A New Basis for Animal Ethics: Telos and Common Sense.  Bernard E. Rollin.

A Peaceable Kingdom.  Drawings by Ripley Whiteside.

Personalities on the Plate: The Lives and Minds of Animals We Eat.  Barbara J. King.

The Real Cost of Fracking: How America's Shale Gas Boom is Threatening Our Families, Pets, and Food.  Michelle Bamberger and Robert Oswald.

The Sense of Wonder.  Rachel Carson.

The Thinking Person's Guide to Climate Change.  Robert Henson.

Water in Plain Sight: Hope for a Thirsty World.  Judith D. Schwartz.

Writing America: Literary Landmarks From Walden Pond to Wounded Knee.  Shelley Fisher Fishkin.

Quote:  "If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, recreated from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: '"God gave Noah the rainbow sign, No more water, the fire next time.'"  James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time, (New York: Dial, 1963), 105-06.

3/17 CCC: Climate Caretakers: Biblical, Scientific, Business

March 2017 Creation Corner Column

Climate Caretakers: Biblical, Scientific, Business

"The Good News is a 'lamp shining in a dark place.'"

John Elwood, of Climate Caretakers, combines biblical, scientific, and business approaches in his monthly Evangelical blog, www.BelovedPlanet.com , now in its 7th year.  It reflects his "hearing the gospel's call to care for an injured planet" as an elder in the Presbyterian Church in America.

Covering such themes of faith, science, and justice, his resources list includes 24 on-line, 42 books and 5 videos.

Tracking CO2, now at over 400 ppm, is Earth's CO2 home page, https://www.co2.earth.

 

The https://www.desmogblog.com  is about the global warming misinformation campaign, and tries to clear the public relations pollution that clouds climate science.

Other recommended sites include Climate Progress, Skeptical Science, the U.S. Drought Monitor, EcoWatch, 350.org, etc.

Following Elwood's "Action" suggestions, one finds www.theRE100.org.  It notes what corporations do to reduce carbon emissions by pledging to use 100% renewable energy resources.  The private sector uses 1/2 of the world's electric consumption, and some of the most influential companies' pledges come from Walmart, P&G, Nike, Nestle, Microsoft, GM, Google, FB, Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks, etc.

www.TheRE100.org is brought to us by www.TheClimateGroup.org.   It works with businesses, governments, NGOs, etc., and the Carbon Disclosure Project (https://www.cdp.net/en) that motivates companies and cities to disclose their environmental impact, thus helping to drive sustainable economics.

Both of these are members on the www.wemeanbusinesscoalition.org, urging 100s of investors and businesses to create a low carbon revolution.

One Coalition member, The B Team, goes beyond Plan A ("business as usual") to Plan B, for transparency and anti-corruption.  "B" corporations are conscientious, not just for sustainability and minimizing harm, but also for maximizing their positive impact.  Thus, people using business as a force for good. 

There is a news-stand magazine, "B", www.bthechange.com and BestForTheWorld  http://bftw.bthechange.com/ web sites.

Another Coalition member, www.ceres.org, works with advocates, investors and companies to integrate environmental and social considerations into business decision-making, the goal being sustainable prosperity.

"All of my creation is an effort to weave a web of connection with the world.  I am always weaving it because it was once broken."  Anais Nin 

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This blog, seen at www.LutheransRestoringCreation.org began in March 2011, 6 years ago.  It originates with the newsletter of the Williamsport PA based United Churches of Lycoming County (UCLC) (www.uclc.org), where it began in 1997.  

The UCLC is a 70-year old ecumenical body partnering with 180 congregations, engaged in ministries such as the Shepherd of the Street, Food Pantry, Campus Ministry, Fuel Bank, Devotion Line, newspaper sermons, broadcasting,  institutional worship services (825+), social concerns advocacy, monthly print and on-line newsletter, interfaith outreach dialogue network, community ministeriums cooperative services, etc.

Its director is Baptist minister Rev. Gwen N. Bernstine.  The late Lutheran pastor Rev. Dr. Alton Motter (d. Aug. 5, 2003 at age 95), author of Ecumenism 101: A Handbook about the Ecumenical Movement, and other titles, was her predecessor.

This column blogger, Michael Ochs, may be reached at billtownmike@yahoo.com