1/16 Creation Corner Col.: Moving the Needle on Environmental Matters

                           MOVING THE NEEDLE ON ENVIRONMENTAL MATTERS

 If you could move the needle on one environmental issue, what would it be?  Consider the following short list of study guides and books, most written from a religious perspective for a reader of faith.  Among them you may find some to inspire you.

                                                 STUDY GUIDES

The Papal Encyclical Letter from Pope Francis, Laudato Si', On Care for Our Common Home, includes a study guide in the published paperback version from The Word Among Us Press (wau.org), that is not provided anywhere else.  "Addressed not only to Catholics but to 'every person living on this planet,' Pope Francis' second encyclical is a challenging call for a 'bold cultural revolution' in how we think about technological progress and economic growth.  The degradation of our environment, he says, is a symptom of deeper problems: rapid change, unsustainable overconsumption, indifference to the poor, and the decay of social values.  He offers a variety of solutions, including a change in lifestyles away from 'extreme consumerism' and toward a greater sense of social responsibility.  For Christians, an 'ecological spirituality'--- one that is grounded in the convictions of our faith--- is not 'an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience.'

A second study guide, for Creation-Crisis Preaching: Ecology, Theology and the Pulpit, by Leah Schade, a Lutheran pastor in northcentral PA, is free and available from the web site of Chalice Press.com, where a discounted version of the book is available in such digital formats as EPUB and EPDF.

 

                              A SAMPLE LIST OF BOOKS FOR THE READER

75 Masterpieces Every Christian Should Know: The Fascinating Stories Behind Great Works of Art, Literature, Music and Film.  Terry Glaspey.

About Earth's Child: An Ecological Listening to the Gospel of Luke.  Michael Trainor.

Backpacking With the Saints: Wilderness Hiking as Spiritual Practice.  Belden C. Lane.

Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi.  Richard Rohr.

The Ecological Thought.  Timothy Morton.

Ecology Without Nature: Rethinking Environmental Aesthetics.  Timothy Morton.

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

From Nature to Creation: A Christian Vision for Understanding and Loving Our World.  Norman Wirzba.

Gardening Eden: How Creation Care Will Change Your Faith, Your Life, and Our World.  Michael Abbate. (includes 15 pages of resources)

Grounded: Finding God in the World/A Spiritual Revolution.  Diana Butler Bass.

Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety.  Richard Rohr.

Inherit the Holy Mountain: Religion and the Rise of American Environmentalism.  Mark Stoll.

Islam Statement on the Environment: see IslamicClimateDeclaration.org

Methodism in the American Forest.  Russell E. Richey.

A New Climate for Theology: God, The World, and Global Warming.  Sallie McFague.

Our Only World: Ten Essays, by Wendell Berry.

Sallie McFague: Collected Readings.  Sallie McFague and David B Lott, editors.

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12/15 Creation Corner: Support Env. Groups and New Year's Resolutions

Supporting Environmental Groups and New Year’s Resolutions

From the hymn "Come, Lord and Tarry Not" is this verse:  Come and make all things new, Come, save this longing earth; Transform all creatures in your love, Creation’s second birth.)

You consider yourself a responsible steward of the environment.  In your household you have installed CFLs or LEDs, insulated, reduced your car trips, etc.  Your church has done an energy efficiency audit and implemented clean energy technologies as part of its “bottom line ministry.”

The investments you have made are reducing your energy costs and greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.  Your consciousness and concern for climate stabilization has increased, and you appreciate the Pope’s environmental encyclical and the U.S. Clean Power Plan proposals.

As the U.N. Conference of the Parties 21 (COP21) climate change talks take place near Paris, you are asking yourself :  “What else might I do?”  You realize that to change everything, it takes everyone.

Consider supporting the following groups and their endeavors, perhaps as part of your end-of-the-year charitable giving, or as New Year resolutions for 2016.

Audubon Society seeks to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, focusing on birds, other wildlife, and their habitats for the benefit of humanity and the earth’s biological diversity.

Defenders of Wildlife protects imperiled species from extinction, such as sage grouse, bison, wolves, desert  bighorns, polar bears, sea turtles, Florida panthers, manatees, shorebirds, sea otters, etc.  It also protects wildlife refuges and defends wild plants in their native communities.

Environmental Defense Fund encourages legal strategies for less fertilizer pollution, higher standards in chemical safety laws, a reduction in fugitive methane emissions, stricter regulations of CO2 emissions in the aviation industry, and more ways for wild milkweed to be protected.

Food and Water Watch raises concerns for water and other dangers due to fracking, seeks legislation to ban fracking on public land, strives to ensure that food is rigorously tested to keep contaminants off our tables, and seeks to ban the misuse of antibiotics in livestock.

Friends of the Earth acts to have integrity in our food system by saving crucial pollinators  (bees and butterflies), calls for curtailing bee-toxic, neonicotinoid pesticides (neonics), promotes awareness of genetic engineering (GMOs), has published a Cruise Ship Report Card rating cruise lines on their environmental practices, and examines the corporate polluters’ money trail in government.

Natural Resources Defense Council helped raise questions about the “tar sands invasion” (pipeline menace, explosive risk, dangerous cargo, mountains of waste), and helps protect monarch butterflies and bees, wolves, grizzlies, marine animals, and helps to ban the import and sale of ivory in the U.S.

Ocean Conservancy wants to save habitat (sea ice) for polar bears, arctic seals, bowhead whales, walruses; searches for measures to protect sea turtles, dolphins,  and the ocean health by reducing carbon emissions and acidification; promotes sustainable fishing policies and practices.  It urges its members to adhere to 15 ways of living responsibly in considering the land-sea connection, remembering that everything flows downstream, and by not recklessly engaging in shoreline recreation.

Union of Concerned Scientists has a current project to urge the reduction of heavy-duty truck global warming emissions by 40% by 2025.  Currently tractor trailers go only about six miles on a gallon of diesel.

The Wilderness Society mission is to ensure that future generations will enjoy the clean air and water, wildlife, beauty and opportunities for recreation and renewal provided by pristine forest, rivers, deserts and mountains.

Other efforts:

350.org, ASPCA, American Farmland Trust, American Rivers, Center for Biological Diversity, Earth Island Institute, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, Energy Justice Network, Greenpeace, Humane Society, League of Conservation Voters, National Wildlife Federation, Nature Conservancy, PETA,  Rainforest Action Network, Sierra Club, Student Conservation Association, Waterkeeper Alliance, World Wildlife Fund, Xerces Society, and your local bioregional watershed groups.

Educate yourself, do your research. Be wary of the so-called "Big Green" groups about whom many questions have been raised. Do any groups receive government, corporate, or private philanthropy money?  How are they rated by non-profit charity scorecards on how their money is spent?   Of the foundations supporting an environmental group, have their fortunes been derived from stock investments with fossil fuel companies?  Does any group invest its endowment money with fossil fuel companies?  Might the financial ties of funders to environmental groups have any unwise influence on the group's mission, for example, in the questions asked, the kind of research done, the policies and solutions proposed, etc.? Does their work include practical technology and science-based solutions?  Be wary of efforts to suppress or distort science for political purposes.  Be an advocate and inform, inspire and empower others to speak and act for the earth.

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11/15 Creation Corner: Inspiring Quotations for Environmental Stewardship

11-15 Creation Corner Column: Inspiring Quotations for Environmental Stewardship

If you have men who will exclude any of God’s creatures from the shelter of compassion and pity, you will have men who will deal likewise with their fellow men.     St. Francis of Assisi

Each religion has given to us a definite acknowledgement of God as creator.  Each religion also discusses divine qualities that mankind can utilize to be co-creators with God.  When individual souls use God’s energy in a positive way to create good, we are part of God in action.  God is then working through us.   G. David Lundberg

                                                                              

 If a chimney is full of smoke, how can the light be seen?  If the mind is full of dirt, how can the soul shine?                        Yogaswami

The care of the Earth is our most ancient and most worthy, and after all, our most pleasing responsibility.  To cherish what remains of it and to foster its renewal, is our only legitimate hope.            Wendell Berry

Now in the people that were meant to be green there is no more life of any kind.  There is only shriveled barrenness.  The winds are burdened by the utterly awful stink of evil, selfish goings-on.  Thunderstorms menace.  The air belches out the filthy uncleanliness of the peoples.  The earth should not be injured!  The earth must not be destroyed!!                    Hildegard von Bingen

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a world that honors the servant, but has forgotten the gift.    Albert Einstein
                                                                                                    

We are talking only to ourselves.  We are not talking to the rivers, we are not listening to the wind and the stars.  We have broken the great conversation.  By breaking that conversation we have shattered the universe.  All the disasters that are happening now are a consequence of that spiritual ‘autism.’  Thomas Berry

The Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh was once asked what we need to do to save our world.  ‘What we most need to do,’ he replied, ‘is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth dying.’       Quoted by Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee 

God’s first intention for heaven and earth was that they be one.  The polluting corruption of evil has caused them to flee one another, but this division will not last.  God’s original intention has now become God’s mission… (a) journey toward restoration.               G. Robert Paauw

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans.     Jacques Cousteau

There’s no polite way of saying this: your body is a landfill, a dumping ground for a mind-boggling array of toxic chemicals.  So is mine.  So is your child’s.

                                                                                Sloan Barnett

You will find something far greater in the woods than you will find in books.  Stone and trees will teach you that which you will never learn from masters.

                                                       St. Bernard of Clairvaux, French Cistercian monk

The Old Lakota was wise.  He knew that man’s heart away from nature becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too.     Chief Luther Standing Bear

Biblical orthodoxy without compassion is surely the ugliest thing in the world.

                                                                                        Francis Schaeffer

We are looking forward to a new heaven and new earth, the home of righteousness.            2 Peter 3:13

Note:  The web site of the home church for the columnist is www.stmarkswilliamsport.org .

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10/15 Creation Corner Col.: Divestment, Eco-shopping, Slogans, New Words, Walking Routes, Carbon Footprint Calculators

Online Campaign

Divestment from fossil fuels in the 200 publicly traded companies that hold the majority of coal, oil and gas reserves.  Meant for universities, religious institutions, local governments, etc. 700 divestment campaigns worldwide.  http://www.Gofossilfree.org 

Shopping For a Better World

1000 companies that give back 1% of their sales to nonprofits dedicated to protecting our environment: http//:www.onepercentfortheplanet.org 

 

Slogans

Divestment is the tactic, climate justice is the goal.  To reduce fossil fuel use "Keep the coal in the hole, the gas beneath the grass, and the oil below the soil."

New Words/Definitions

Anthropocene:  suggests that the Earth has now left its natural geological epoch, the present interglacial state called the Holocene.  Human activities have become so pervasive and profound that they rival the great forces of Nature and are pushing the Earth into planetary terra incognita.  The Earth is rapidly moving into a less biologically diverse, less forested, much warmer, and probably wetter and stormier state

Hockey stick-shaped trajectories, popularized by Prof. Michael Mann at Penn State Univ., as seen on graphs, (see example below) depict accelerations, such as for earth system trends of carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, stratospheric ozone, surface temperature, ocean acidification, marine fish capture, shrimp aquaculture, coastal nitrogen, tropical forest loss, domesticated land, terrestrial biosphere degradation. For socio-economic trends, the hockey stick shape occurs for world population, real GDP, foreign direct investment, urban population, primary energy use, fertilizer consumption, large dams, water use, paper production, transportation, telecommunications, international tourism.

                                                                                                    

                                                                                         

Green Exercise versus Mall Walking

While walking in nature has been shown to be especially restorative, helping reduce stress and lowering heart rate and blood pressure, more so than city walking, many people choose to seek out malls for a walking regimen, as they also provide many advantages. See http://www.cdc.gov/physicalactivity/downloads/mallwalking-guide.pdf

Carbon Footprint Calculators

Carbon footprints express the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as carbon dioxide equivalents.  Such gases contribute to climate change, with global agriculture and food production accounting for 25 to 30 percent of the emissions.  Other variables, besides your food consumption, include how you heat your home, how much electricity and gasoline you use, how often you fly, and how you handle your garbage.

To check out your carbon footprint, see such calculators at

http://www.nature.org/greenliving/carboncalculator 

http://www.carbonindependent.org

http://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-calculator 

http://www.coolclimate.berkeley.edu

  

Note:  This monthly column began in October 1997, in the newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County, PA (www.uclc.org) and is thus starting its 19th year.  It was "adopted" as a blog by the web site http:www.LutheransRestoringCreation.org in March of 2011.

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9/15 Creation Corner: Earth Consensus by State and Religion

Consensus on Fate of Earth at the corner of Church and State Streets:  Creation Corner Column, September 2015

Over the 2015 summer, with the issuing of the Papal Encyclical Letter on the environment (“On Care for Our Common Home”), and the “Clean Power Plan” by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, some agreement seems apparent that provides us further encouragement for our obligation to be hopeful.

Described as “game-changing,” the EPA regulations have a goal of reducing overall U.S. carbon emissions by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030, and provide states flexibility to achieve such (applauded by both some state and fossil fuel corporate leaders).

President Obama stressed the importance of the measures, saying “We are the first generation to feel the impact of climate change and the last generation that can do something about it” and “Climate change is no longer about protecting the world for our children and grandchildren, it is about the reality that we are living with right now.”

Pope Francis, in his 246 numbered paragraphs of the encyclical addressed to “every person living on this planet” offers many proposals to “help us escape the spiral of self-destruction which currently engulfs us” (¶ 163).  “Many things have to change course, but it is we human beings above all who need to change (¶ 202), so that we “hear both the cry of the environment and the cry of the poor” (¶ 49), for both are related.

Calling for each of us, especially Christians, to have an “ecological conversion”, we need to be “living our vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork” for that “is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience” (¶ 217).

One example of this emphasis on our original mandate of responsibility to the earth (from Genesis 2:15), to “till it keep it” (¶ 66, 67), in the Lutheran faith tradition, is the Offertory Prayer wherein “…we offer ourselves to your service and dedicate our lives to the care and redemption of all that you have made…” (Lutheran Book of Worship, 1978).

Of course, some naysayers will object to this convergence of thoughtful linkages between the political and religious sectors.  However, as the editor of The Christian Century wrote (Aug. 5, p. 3):  “Religion and politics do mix…we want better health and education for everyone because neighbor love is one of our deepest values and commitments.  We want safe food, safe automobiles, and a judicial system that guarantees equal treatment for all.  And we want a sustainable environment for our grandchildren.”

Note:  Lutherans interested in the “Restoring” aspect of our web site name may be interested in the autumn issue of Earth Island Journal: News of the World Environment whose theme is “Return to the Native: Inside the Indigenous Movement of Resistance and Restoration.”  http://www.earthisland.org .