CCC, 11/20: Quotes, Pandemic and Climate resources, Audio books, etc.

                               Creation Corner Column, November 2020

              Quotations, Pandemic and Climate Crisis titles, Audio Books, etc.

Opening Quotation

"Our worst response would be to plunge even more deeply into feverish consumerism"  Pope Francis, writing about a postpandemic world in his third papal encyclical, a letter addressed to Catholics, published Oct. 4.  Quote from Time magazine, Oct. 19, 2020, p. 8.  Note that Oct. 4 is the feast day of his namesake, St. Francis of Assisi. 

The social teachings document is entitled "Fratelli Tutti" (Brothers All); it follows his 2015 landmark environmental encyclical "Laudato Sii" (Praised Be), and the first major mission statement of his papacy, the 2013 "Evangelii Gaudium" (The Joy of the Gospel).

These documents also are critical of the "just war" theory, the nuclear arms race, the death penalty, and they urge all Catholics to divest from armament makers and fossil fuel companies. 

Religious Titles on Pandemic Issues

Coronaspection: World Religious Leaders Reflect on Covid-19.  Alon Goshen-Gottstein.

God and the Pandemic: A Christian Reflection on the Coronavirus and Its Aftermath.  N.T. Wright.

Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty.  Walter Brueggemann.

We Shall Be Changed: Questions for the Post-Pandemic Church.  Mark D. W. Edington, editor.

Secular Books on Pandemics, Epidemics, etc.

Air Mail: Letters of Politics, Pandemics, and Place.  Amy Irvine.

American Contagions: Epidemics and the Law, from Smallpox to COVID-19.  John Fabian Witt.

Anti-vaxxers: How to Challenge a Misinformed Movement.  Jonathan M. Berman.

The Pull of the Stars: A Novel.  Emma Donoghue.  Re: 1918 global flu epidemic.

Quarantine: East European Jewish Immigration and the New York City Epidemic of 1892.  Howard Markel.

Vulnerable: The Law, Policy and Ethics of COVID-19.  Edited by Colleen H. Flood, Vanessa Macdonnell, Jane Philpott, Sophie Theriault, and Sridhar Venkatapuram.

When Germs Travel: Six Major Epidemics That Have Invaded America Since 1900 and the Fears They Have Unleashed.  Howard Markel.

Books on Climate Crisis, the Environment, etc.

The Fragile Earth: Writing from The New Yorker on Climate Change.  Edited by David Remnick and Henry Finder, with an afterword by Elizabeth Kolbert.

An Introduction to Christian Environmentalism: Ecology, Virtue and Ethics.  Kathryn D. Blanchard and Kevin J. O'Brien.  This book examines seven contemporary environmental challenges through the lens of classical Christian virtues:

...care for other creatures prudently

...develop new energy sources courageously

...choose our food temperately

...manage toxic pollution justly

...respond to climate change faithfully

...consider humanity's future hopefully

...engage lovingly in advocacy for God's earth

The Most Radical Thing You Can Do: The Best Political Essays from Orion Magazine (People and Nature).  Essays by Rebecca Solnit, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Bill McKibben, Paul Kingsnorth, Glenis Redmond, Terry Tempest Williams, Winona La Duke and others.  With a foreword by Gretel Ehrlich.

Tales of Two Planets: Stories of Climate Change and Inequality in a Divided World.  John Freeman.

Vital Signs: The Environmental Trends That Are Shaping Our Future book series.  Worldwatch Institute.

AUDIO BOOKS

The Age of Wood: Our Most Useful Material and the Construction of Civilization.  Roland Ennos

Earth Keeper:  Reflections on the American Land.  N. Scott Momaday.

The Human Cosmos: A Secret History of the Stars.  Jo Marchant, read by the author.

The Language of Butterflies.  Wendy Williams; read by Angela Brazil.

Our Only Home: A Climate Appeal to the World.  His Holiness the Dalai Lama and Franz Alt.

Under the Open Skies: Finding Peace and Health Through Nature.  Markus and Frida Torgeby, translated by Christian Gullette; read by Steven Jay Cohen.

Closing Quotations

"If there is one thing we can learn from the gathering storm of zoonotic disease and the impending destruction of the natural world, it's that the harbinger of the end times is not God, but man."  John Merrick, an editor at Verso Books, on the way pestilence and pandemics have called into question the steady march of human progress, quoted in The Christian Century (10/7/2020), originating in the Boston Review of September 4).

"There is a fundamental shift taking place now, from 'What is business doing to the climate?' to 'What is climate doing to business?"  Joel Makower, chair and executive editor of GreenBiz Group. from the Sierra Magazine of May/June 2019, p. 19.

10/'20 CCC: Books, TIME's important people, etc.

 10/'20 CCC: Books, TIME's important people, etc.

Climate Crisis and other Environmental Issues Books

The Age of Hiroshima.  Michael D. Gordin and G. John Ikenberry, editors.

Animal Internet: Nature and the Digital Revolution.  Alexander Pschera, translated from the German by Elisabeth Lauffer; foreword by Martin Wikelski.

Animal Languages.  Eva Meijer, translated from the Dutch by Laura Watkinson.

As Far as the Eye Can See: Reflections of an Appalachian Trail Hiker.  David Brill.

The Citizen's Guide to Climate Success: Overcoming Myths That Hinder Progress.  Mark Jaccard.

Climate Courage: How Tracking Climate Change Can  Build Community, Transform the Economy, and Bridge the Political Divide in America.  Andreas Karelas.

Elsewhere: A Journey into Our Age of Islands.  Alastair Bonnett.

The Environmental History of the Civil War.  Judkin Browning and Timothy Silver.

The Food Sharing Revolution:  How Start-Ups, Pop-Ups, and Co-Ops Are Changing The Way We Eat.  Michael Carolan.

The Great Indoors: The Surprising Science of How Buildings Shape Our Behaviors, Health, and Happiness.  Emily Anthes.

Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities.  Vaclav Smil.

How Bad Are Bananas?: The Carbon Footprint of Everything.  Mike Berners-Lee.

Impersonating Animals: Rhetoric, Ecofeminism, and Animal Rights Law.  S. Marek Muller.

The Labor of Lunch: Why We Need Real Food and Real Jobs in American Public Schools.  Gennifer E. Gaddis.

Land of Wondrous Cold: The Race to Discover Antarctica and Unlock the Secrets of Its Ice.  Gillen D'Arcy Wood.

Lead For The Planet.  Five Practices For Confronting Climate Change.  Rae Andre.

Migrations: A Novel.  Charlotte McConaghy (re: Arctic terns and climate).

Nightingales in Berlin: Searching for the Perfect Sound.  David Rothenberg.

Solved: How the World's Great Cities Are Fixing The Climate Crisis.  David Miller; foreword by Bill McKibben.

The Story of CO-2: Big Ideas For A Small Molecule.  Geoffrey A. Ozin and Mireille F. Ghoussoub.

The Story of More: How We Got to Climate Change and Where to Go from Here.  Hope Jahren.  This highly-acclaimed scientist is especially good bringing quantitative data to the issues, and provides "an environmental catechism."

Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World's Food System.  Raj Patel.

Superman's Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What WE THE PEOPLE Can Do About It.  Erin Brockovich.  Note that her Resources list suggests these national organizations working to help communities clean up their water: Americans Against Fracking; American Rivers; Citizens Concerned About Chloramines; Clean Water Action; The Clean Water Fund; Earth Justice; Environmental Working Group; Environment America; Environmental Integrity Project; Food and Water Watch; The Union of Concerned Scientists; National Association of Clean Water Agencies; The National Wildlife Federation; Waterkeeper Alliance.

Tales From the Ant World.  E.O. Wilson.

Talking Animals.  Joni Murphy novel re: a city in climate collapse.

Ten Global Trends Every Smart Person Should Know.  Ronald Bailey and Marian L. Tupy.

Tree Story: The History of the World Written in Rings.  Valerie Trouet.

Unnatural Companions: Rethinking Our Love of Pets in an Age of Wildlife Extinction.  Peter Christie.

Vesper Flights.  Helen Macdonald (40 nature essays).

Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret.  Coleman Flowers (founder of the Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice).

What Can I Do?  My Path from Climate Despair to Action.  Jane Fonda.  With the help of Annie Leonard of Greenpeace USA, Fonda narrates her journey to "Fire Drill Fridays" and the many issues that are threats to the integrity of our environment.

What I Stand On: The Collected Essays of Wendell Berry, 1969-2017.  Wendell Berry.

When Animals Speak: Toward an Interspecies Democracy.  Eva Meijer.

Why Trust Science?  Naomi Oreskes.

Why Vegan?  Eating Ethically.  Peter Singer.

Wilted: Pathogens, Chemicals, and the Fragile Future of the Strawberry Industry.  Julie Guthman.

   

Epidemic, Pandemic, etc. Books

COVID-19: The Pandemic That Never Should Have Happened, and How to Stop the Next One.  Debora Mackenzie.

Dead Epidemiologists: On the Origins of COVID-19.  Rob Wallace.

Death in Venice.  Thomas Mann 1912 novella, cholera epidemic.

The Epidemic: A Collision of Power, Privilege and Public Health.  David DeKok (re: 1903 typhoid epidemic at Cornell University and Ithaca NY).

Epidemics and Society: Frank M. Snowden.

Plague Years: A Doctor's Journey through the AIDS Crisis.  Ross A. Slotten, M.D.

Plagues and Peoples.  William McNeill.

Poisoned Nation: Pollution, Greed, and the Rise of Deadly Epidemics.  Loretta Schwartz-Nobel.

Television Series

Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) series on "The New Environmentalists" profiles grassroots activists awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize.

The National Parks: America's Best Idea. A Film by Ken Burns.

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

From TIME Magazine's "The 100 Most Influential People in the World" double issue of October 5 and 12, are these various icons, leaders, titans and pioneers in the fields of the environment and responders to COVID-19, etc.

ENVIRONMENT

David Hill, Protecting Indigenous Sovereignty 

Nemonte Nenquimo, Defending the Amazon

Anne Hidalgo, Urban Climate Visionary

Cecilia Martinez, Advocating for Environmental Justice

RESPONDERS TO PANDEMICS, EPIDEMICS

Amy O'Sullivan, Frontline Hero

Ady Barkan, Healthcare Warrior

Anthony Fauci, Public Servant

Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, The World's Doctor

Bonnie Castillo, Protecting Nurses

Ursula von der Leyen, Prescient Powerhouse

Tsai Ing-wen, Resolute Leader

Jean-Jacques Muyembe Tamfum, Ebola Fighter

Zhong Nanshan, Voice of Clarity

Tunji Funsho, Ending Polio

Claire Babineaux Fontenut, Food-bank Hero

Shi Zhengli, Tracking the Virus

Zhang Yongzhen, COVID-19 genome mapper

Ravindra Gupta, Hope for a HIV Cure

Lauren Gardner, Democratizing Pandemic Data

Camilla Rothe, Raising the Alarm

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

Mike Ochs finds common ground between religion and politics in his concern for the environment.

Politically he self-published the first "Greens Bibliography" of the English-language literature on the international Green Party movement (1989), the project for his Master of Liberal Arts in International Studies degree at Lock Haven (PA) University. He also helped plant the seeds for the Green Party of PA at that time, and remains a cyber-activist with it.

For a monthly newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County (PA), he has written the "Creation Corner Column" since 1997.  It became a blog in 2011 at 

http://lutheransrestoringcreationblog.blogspot.com/

He received a B.A. degree from Gettysburg College in 1965.

CCC 9/20: Christian Ecological Action History; Webinars, Pandemic Lit., etc

 

                                      Creation Corner Column, September 2020

                 Christian Ecological Action History; Webinars; Pandemic Lit., etc.

Christian Ecological Action History:

"The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof; Thou shalt not destroy the earth nor despoil the life thereon."   The Eleventh Commandment Fellowship, 1970s era, noted in "A Brief History of Christian Ecological Action" by Frederick W. Kruger, in the summer 2020 issue of The Mountain Vision published by Christians for the Mountains in West Virginia.

For this summer story on the history of Christian Ecological Action site, go to pgs. 14-15.

https://www.christiansforthemountains.org/site/Topics/Resources/Newsletter/CFTM_Newsletter_Summer_2020-Web.pdf 

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

New from the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN)

Creation Defenders at EEN (creationcare.org) have produced a six-part webinar series on these topics:

1. Energy Solutions For A Healthy Tomorrow: How Your Church Can Lead The Way.

2. Defend Life: How Is Climate Change Hurting Your Children?

3. What Is God's Creation Telling Us?  Climate Science 101.

4. Young Evangelicals Leading The Way: Meet 3 Young Christians Taking Climate Action.

5. How To Protect Your Family, Community, And God's Creation: Harnessing Natural Resources For A Healthy Tomorrow.

6. Our Greatest Moral Challenge: Biblical Perspectives On The Climate Crisis.

for the Evangelical Environmental Network Creation Care webinar site, go to

Climate Solutions Webinar Series

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

Covid Pandemic Literature (fiction and non-fiction)

1666: Plague, War and Hellfire.  Rebecca Rideal.

And We Came Outside and Saw the Stars Again.  Ilan Stavans, editor.

Cholera: The Victorian Plague.  Amanda J. Thomas.

The Covid-19 Catastrophe: What's Gone Wrong and How to Stop It Happening Again.  Richard Horton.

The Fate of Rome: Climate, Disease, and the End of an Empire.  Kyle Harper.

Intimations: Six Essays.  Zadie Smith.

Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate.  William F. Ruddiman.

Wuhan Diary. Dispatches From a Quarantined City.  Fang Fang.

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

Climate Change Reading (see prior columns for other entries)

Desert Notebooks: A Roadmap for the End of Time.  Ben Ehrenreich.

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

Inspiring Quotations

"A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community.  It is wrong when it tends otherwise."  Aldo Leopold.

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

The following from the work of Scott Russell Sanders:

"Justice to future generations requires us to pass along the beauty of Earth undiminished."

"There is no such thing as 'sustainable growth.'  There is only sustainable use."

"Only by caring for particular places, in every watershed, can we take care of the planet.  Every place needs people who will dig in, keep watch, explore the terrain, learn the animals and plants, and take responsibility for the welfare of their home ground."

"Loyalty to place arises from our need to be at home on the Earth.  We marry ourselves to the creation by knowing and cherishing a particular place..."

"Global corporations, wielding resources that dwarf those of all but a few nations, pursue growth as feverishly as bacteria multiplying in a Petri dish.  Nearly all politicians, regardless of party or nationality, call for perpetual economic expansion---a vote-winning refrain, for it promises us to deliver more and more of everything we crave, or have been coaxed and bamboozled into craving."

Among the books of Scott Russell Sanders are:  The Way of Imagination; Essays (2020); Earth Works (2012); and A Conservationist Manifesto (2009).  

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

From James Gustave Speth (b. 1942):  

"I used to think the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse and climate change.  I thought that with thirty years of good science, we could address those problems.

But I was wrong.  The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed and apathy....And to deal with those we need a spiritual and cultural transformation.  And we scientists don't know how to do that."

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

Headline "Rich Americans spew more carbon pollution at home than poor" story by Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein, Williamsport (PA) Sun-Gazette, July 22, 2020, p. A-10.

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

Quotations raised up by the Arbor Day Foundation:

"In every walk with nature, one receives far more than one seeks."  John Muir

"In nature, nothing exists alone."  Rachel Carson.

"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn."  Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. Albert Einstein.

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

Mike Ochs finds common ground between religion and politics in his concern for the environment.

Politically he self-published the first "Greens Bibliography" of the English-language literature on the international Green Party movement (1989), the project for his Master of Liberal Arts in International Studies degree at Lock Haven (PA) University. He also helped plant the seeds for the Green Party of PA at that time, and remains a cyber-activist with it.

For a monthly newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County (PA), he has written the "Creation Corner Column" since 1997.  It became a blog in 2011 at 

http://lutheransrestoringcreationblog.blogspot.com/

He received a B.A. degree from Gettysburg College in 1965.

8/20 CCC: Pandemic & Climate Issues, and General Reading

                             Creation Corner Column for August 2020

                           Pandemic & Climate Issue, and General Reading

Pandemic Issues

"Coronavirus infections require what Japan calls the three Cs: confined spaces, crowded places, and close contact."  (source:  Heather Mac Donald's article in the May/June 2020 issue of Imprimis: a publication of Hillsdale College).

The three Ws advice for avoiding the virus:  Wear a mask, wash your hands, watch your distance.

----------

Oxfam America is calling for "The People's Vaccine: Available to All, In every country, free of charge."  Their petition reads as follows:

"To deliver a COVID-19 vaccine to all will require unprecedented global cooperation.  That means ripping up the rule book that gives exclusive rights to pharmaceutical corporations and guarantees their huge profits.  I am joining in the public outcry calling on US pharmaceutical companies to make all COVID-19 vaccines and treatments a global public good by:

...Committing not to profit from the COVID-19 pandemic.

...Cooperating with governments to make all COVID-19 vaccines and treatments free to all who need them, here and around the world.

...Forgoing monopoly control over all COVID-19 vaccines and treatments to allow for worldwide, low-cost production to meet the unprecedented demand.

...Committing to support fair global distribution based on need, not price or nationality.

----------

Books re: the Pandemic (also see prior monthly columns)

Pandemic: Tracking Contagions From Cholera to Ebola and Beyond.  Sonia Shah.

The Pull of the Stars.  Emma Donoghue (novel of the flu epidemic of 1918).

----------

Connecting the  World Virus Pandemic to the Planetary Climate Crisis

"The current moment is demonstrating just how far away we are from being able to come together to solve a planetary crisis.  The pandemic is a test, and we're failing it.  If the federal government reacts to the greatest public health crisis in a century with half measures, what could possibly convince it to react sufficiently to climate change?  If governors won't demand their citizens wear masks to save lives, will they be willing to get people to reduce their carbon footprints?  If so many authoritarian and authoritarian-adjacent governments react to a pandemic with denial, what can we expect as the climate crisis worsens?"   Harry Cheadle in NewRepublic.com, reprinted as "Viewpoint" in The Week magazine of July 10/July 17, 2020, p. 14.

Recommended Reading re: Climate Crisis

1.  "One Last Chance: The Defining Year for the Planet" double issue cover story of TIME magazine, July 20, July 27, 2020.

Features include

This is the year, by Justin Worland

America's four-year plan, by Jeffrey Kluger

How to Save the Oceans, by Aryn Baker

Q & A with activist Vanessa Nakate, by Angelina Jolie

XR ("Extinction Rebellion") comes of age, by Ciara Nugent

Equalizing the environment, by Justin Worland

The meat trap, by Emily Barone

The Paris plan, by Vivienne Walt 

and Viewpoints by

Asmeret Asefaw Berhe

Stacey Abrams

Mark Ruffalo and Rahwa Ghirmatzion

Sebastian Kurz

Greta Thunberg

Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

The Dalai Lama

Oliver Jeffers

2.  Blll McKibben's book review of Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency by Mark Lynas, may be found as "130 Degrees" in The New York Review of Books for August 20, 2020, pgs. 8 and 10.

3.  Elizabeth Kolbert's article profiling James Hansen, entitled "The Catastrophist: A climate expert's unheeded warnings" in The New Yorker of July 27, special "Voices of American Dissent: An Archival Issue", reprinted from June 29, 2009.

4.  "Care for Creation" is the cover story theme of the August 2020 issue of Living Lutheran magazine.  Eight articles include

"A call to heal creation" lead piece of 5 pages.

"Congregations go green."

"A sustainable campus."

"Stewards of creation:family farm sustainability."

"An innovative approach: Climate commitment fund bolsters ELCA World Hunger."

"The spirituality of natural burials."

"A most precious resource" re: water in Senegal.

"Highly recommended" books on creation care.

Global Weirding Books (see former monthly columns for more).

Lead for the Planet: Five Practices for Confronting Climate Change.  Rae Andre. (forthcoming),

Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency.  Mark Lynas (2020).

Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet. Mark Lynas (2007).

Books on Nuclear Environmental Holocaust, on occasion of the 75th anniversary of August 6-9, 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

See the four books reviewed by Jessica T. Mathews article "The New Nuclear Threat" in The New York Review of Books for August 20, 2020, pgs. 19-21.  (Note bottom line: "A nuclear war cannot  be won and must never be fought.")

General Reading

50 Things to See in the Sky.  Sarah Barker.

100 Parks, 5000 Ideas.  Joe Yogerst.

America's Best Day Hikes.  Derek Dellinger.

The Animal's Companion: People and Their Pets, a 26,000-Year Love Story.  Jacky Collis Harvey.

Around the World in 80 Trees.  Jonathan Drori; illustrated by Lucille Clerc.

Atlas Obscura: Second Edition.  Joshua Foer, Dylan Thuras, and Ella Morton.

Audubon's Birds of America Giant Coloring Book.

Birdsong for the Curious Naturalist: Your Guide to Listening.  Donald Kroodsma.  With links to to audio clips.

Bird Songs: 250 North American birds in song.  Les Beletsky.  Includes audio recording of each.

A Cloud a Day.  Gavin Pretor-Pinney.

Greenwood: A Novel.  Michael Christie (forthcoming re: environmental stewardship).

Feeding the People:  The Politics of the Potato.  Rebecca Earle.

Flora: A Botanical Pop-Up Book.  Nicole Yen et al.  For ages 5 and up.

The Hidden World of the Fox.  Adele Brand.

Indoor Jungle: The Leaf Supply Guide to Creating Your Indoor Jungle.  Lauren Camilleri and Sophia Kaplan.

Inside Animal Hearts and Minds.  Belinda Recio.

The Little Books of Bird Songs.  Andrea Pinnington and Caz Buckingham (with 12 push-button audio recordings---choose Backyard or Woodland Bird Songs).  For children and their families.

The Meaning of Birds.  Simon Barnes.

Natural: How Faith in Nature's Goodness Leads to Harmful Fads, Unjust Laws, and Flawed Science.  Alan Levinovitz (a professor of religion).

A Nature Poem for Every Day of the Year.  edited by Jane McMorland Hunter.

Never Home Alone: From Microbes to Millipedes, Camel Crickets, and Honeybees, the Natural History of Where We Live.  Rob dunn.

Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond.  Alexandra Horowitz.

Poems About Trees.  Edited by Harry Thomas.

Scenic Science of the National Parks.  Emily Hoff and Maygen Keller.

Superlative: The Biology of Extremes.  Matthew D. LaPlante.

Vintage Wildflowers Puzzle.

Where in the World?  Global Dream Destinations.  Edited by Monaco Books.

A Wild Child's Guide to Endangered Animals.  Millie Marotta.  For ages 8 and up.

Wonders of the World.  By the editors of Lonely Planet.

Quotations

"Adopt the pace of nature.  Her secret is patience."  Ralph Waldo Emerson.

"A truly good book is something as natural, and as unexpectedly and unaccountably fair and perfect, as a wild flower."  Henry David Thoreau.

"One tree is like another tree, but not too much.  One tulip is like the next tulip, but not altogether.  More or less like people---a general outline, then the stunning individual strokes."  Mary Oliver, from her book Upstream:Selected Essays.

"It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment."  Ansel Adams

"The sky isn't the limit---the sky has no limit."

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

Mike Ochs finds common ground between religion and politics in his concern for the environment.

Politically he self-published the first "Greens Bibliography" of the English-language literature on the international Green Party movement (1989), the project for his Master of Liberal Arts in International Studies degree at Lock Haven (PA) University. He also helped plant the seeds for the Green Party of PA at that time, and remains a cyber-activist with it.

For a monthly newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County (PA), he has written the "Creation Corner Column" since 1997.  It became a blog in 2011 at 

http://lutheransrestoringcreationblog.blogspot.com/

He received a B.A. degree from Gettysburg College in 1965

July CCC: Pandemic and Climate Crisis resources

Creation Corner Column for July 2020: Pandemic and Climate Crisis resources

Reading Lists on "Navigating the Threat of Pandemic", "Care in Uncertain Times", "Environmentalism and Climate Change", etc. (14 in all) from 

dukeupress.edu/syllabi

Pandemic Book Resources

The Fever: How Malaria Has Ruled Mankind for 500,000 years.  Sonia Shah.

A Journal of the Plague Year.  Daniel Defoe (1722).

Pandemic 1918: Eyewitness Accounts from the Greatest Medical Holocaust in Modern History. Catharine Arnold.

Pandemic! Covid-19 Shakes the World.  Slavoj Zizek.

Plague Years: A Doctor's Journey through the AIDS Crisis.  Ross A. Slotten, M.D.

Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic.  David Quammen.

Understanding Coronavirus.  Raul Rabadan.

Vaccinated: One Man's Quest to Defeat the World's Deadliest Diseases.  Paul A. Offit.

Virus as a Summons to Faith: Biblical Reflections in a Time of Loss, Grief, and Uncertainty.  Walter Brueggmann.

Climate Crisis Books

Common Sense for the 21st Century: Only Nonviolent Rebellion Can Now Stop Climate Breakdown and Social Collapse.  Roger Hallam.

Disaster By Choice: How Our Actions turn Natural Hazards into Catastrophes.  Ilan Kelman.

The Green New Deal and Beyond.  Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can.  Stan Cox; foreword by Noam Chomsky.

How Everything Can Collapse: A Manual for our Times.  Pablo Sevigne and Raphael Stevens.

Irreplaceable: The Fight to Save Our Wild Places.  Julian Hoffman.

Learning To Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis.   Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky.

The Library of Ice: Readings from a Cold Climate.  Nancy Campbell.

Nature's Broken Clocks: Reimagining Time in the Face of the Environmental Crisis.  Paul Huebener.

Oilcraft: The Myths of Scarcity and Security That Haunt U.S. Energy Policy.  Robert Vitalis.

Slowdown: The End of the Great Acceleration---and Why It's Good for the Planet, the Economy, and Our Lives.  Danny Dorling.

Through Post-Atomic Eyes.  Claudette Lauzon and John O"Brian, editors.

Uncertain Harvest: The Future of Food on a Warming Planet.  Ian Mosby, Sarah Rotz, and Evan D.G. Fraser.

Vexed: Ethics Beyond Political Tribes.  James Mumford (environment is one subject).

Of Note

During the recent Global Catholic Climate Movement, a Living Chapel was unveiled at the Botanical Garden of Rome.  Its formal unveiling via streaming video was scheduled for June 5, U.N. World Environment Day.

It will eventually have a permanent home in Assisi, Italy, the birthplace of St. Francis, the patron saint of ecology.

Construction was done with assistance from students and faculty from the Pennsylvania College of Technology, based in Williamsport PA.  

This Creation Corner Column also originates from Williamsport.

See Penn College welding faculty, students build ‘Living Chapel’

Penn College welding faculty, students build ‘Living Chapel’ A massive structure meant to encourage the “ecological awakening of humanity” can trace its foundation across th...

6/20 CCC: World Env. Day, Pandemic & Climate Crisis, Dates

                                                 Creation Corner Column, June 2020

                World Environment Day, Resources on Pandemics and Climate Crisis,  Notable Dates

June 5, World Environment Day theme is Time for Nature, sponsored by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).  The site provides:

practical guides, action toolkits for a variety of audiences

a biodiversity quiz

download visual materials for sharing on your own platform

explore nature around iconic spots 

web site is WorldEnvironmentDay.global

#worldenvironmentday 

#fornature 

Faith leaders are encouraged to observe an Environmental Sabbath close to June 5. 

The UNEP has a Faith for Earth Initiative.

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

Resources re: Pandemics

Ailing in Place: Environmental Inequities and Health Disparities in Appalachia.  Michele Morrone.

Broken Boy: A Memoir of Growing Up With Polio in Ireland.  Patrick Cockburn.

Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs.  Michael Osterholm. 

Dirt and Disease:  Polio Before FDR.  Naomi Rogers.

Epidemics: The Story of South Africa's Five Most Lethal Human Diseases.  Howard Phillips. (smallpox, bubonic plaque, Spanish influenza, polio, HIV/AIDS).

Expelling the Plague: The Health Office and the Implementation of Quarantine in Dubrovnik, 1377-1533.  Zlagta Blazina Tomic and Vesna Blazina.

Influenza: The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History.  Dr. Jeremy Brown.

Megacatastrophes! Nine Strange Ways the World Could End.  David Darling & Dirk Schulze-Makuch. (one way is via contagious diseases).

The Mosquito: A Human History of Our Deadliest Predator.  Timothy C. Winegard.

New Views: The World Mapped Like Never Before.  Alastair Bonnett. (includes tropical diseases map) 

The Next Pandemic: On the Front Lines Against Humankind's Gravest Danger.  Ali Kahn with William Patrick.

Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World.  Laura Spinney.

Rationalizing Epidemics: Meanings and Uses of American Indian Mortality Since 1600.  David Jones.

Polio Across the Iron Curtain: Hungary's Cold War on an Epidemic.  Dora Vargha.

Polio Wars: Sister Kenny and the Golden Age of American Medicine.  Naomi Rogers.

The Political Determinants of Health: Daniel E. Dawes; foreword by David R. Williams.

SARS in Context: Memory, History, and Policy.  Edited by Jacalyn Duffin and Arthur Sweetman.

The Vaccine Race: Science, Politics, and the Human Costs of Defeating Disease.  Meredith Wadman.

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Resources re: Climate Crisis

Adapt: How We Can Learn From Nature's Strangest Inventions.  Amina Kahn.

The Birds of Pandemonium: Life Among the Exotic and the Endangered.  Michelle Raffin.

A Brief History of the End of the World: From Revelation to Eco-Disaster.  Simon Pearson.

Last Chance to See.  Douglas Adams & Mark Carwardine.  (Companion to BBC radio series).

Lead for the Planet: Five Practices for Confronting Climate Change.  Rae Andre.

Moving to the Earth's Beat: The Road Back from Eco-Despair.  A.J. Chopra.

Our Planet.  Alistair Fothergill & Keith Scholey. David Attenborough, foreword.  (Companion to the 2019 Netflix documentary series).

Reason for Hope: A Spiritual Journey.  Jane Goodall with Phillip Berman.

Seaweed Chronicles: A World at the Water's Edge.  Susan Hand Shetterly.

Solved: How the World's Great Cities Are Fixing the Climate Crisis.  David Miller.

Still Waters: The Secret World of Lakes.  Curt Stager.

The Story of CO2: Big Ideas for a Small Molecule:  Geoffrey A. Ozin and Mireille F. Ghoussoub.

Techno-Fixers: Origins and Implications of Technological Faith.  Sean F. Johnston.

We Resist: Defending the Common Good in Hostile Times.  Edited by Cynthia Levine-Basky and Lisa Kowalchuk (environment one among many subjects).

Wrenched From the Land: Activists Inspired by Edward Abbey.  Interviews with ML Lincoln.

Youth to Power: Your Voice and How to Use It.  Jamie Margolin (climate justice activist).

Note:  See prior monthly Creation Corner Columns for more books on pandemics and climate crisis.

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Dates Worth Noting:

May 9 World Migratory Bird Day

May 15 Endangered Species Day

June 8 World Oceans Day 

June 12, 1982 NYC Nuclear Disarmament Rally draws 1 million

July 12, 1817 Henry David Thoreau born

July 16, 1945 1st atomic bomb tested at Trinity site, New Mexico

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Mike Ochs finds common ground between religion and politics in his concern for the environment.

Politically he self-published the first "Greens Bibliography" of the English-language literature on the international Green Party movement (1989), the project for his Master of Liberal Arts in International Studies degree at Lock Haven (PA) University. He also helped plant the seeds for the Green Party of PA at that time, and remains a cyber-activist with it.

For a monthly newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County (PA), he has written the "Creation Corner Column" since 1997.  It became a blog in 2011 at 

http://lutheransrestoringcreationblog.blogspot.com/

He received a B.A. degree from Gettysburg College in 1965.

5/'20 CCC: Earth Day Reflections, Pandemic & Climate Change Books, June event, Anniversaries

                                               Creation Corner Column, May 2020

  Earth Day Reflections, Books on the Pandemic and Climate
                  Change, June event, Anniversaries.

Religious Earth Day Reflections

1.  Climate Justice Ministries emphasized the theme "Fierce Urgency of Now".  climatejustice.org 

2.  Green Faith's "The Call for Climate Action" provided a "Climate in the Pulpit" Pledge (to elevate climate action as a moral, religious and justice issue), and provided many "Earth Day Live" videos.  See GreenFaith.org 

3. Eco-Justice Ministries provided pre-Earth Day commentary and links. eco-justice.org .

4. The PA-based Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN) urged speaking out to elected leaders about creation care in their ministry that educates, inspires, and mobilizes Christians in their effort to care for creation. creationcare.org 

5. LetAllCreationPraise.org urged a Faith Action Climate Week: theme of "Love Made Visible" as an interfaith Sunday celebration for "sacred activism" to achieve creation stewardship.  Many links here, for example, to various denominations.

6. A collaborative effort of Parliament of World Religions, EarthDay.org , 50YearsEarthDay2020, and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)/FaithforEarth initiative, included a 50th Earth Day observance with global inter-faith religious and indigenous leaders.  A Catholic-Buddhist dialogue webinar was included.

7.  A 2020 Faith Climate Action Kit is available from Interfaith Power and Light.

Secular Earth Day 2020 Reflections

1. The United States Postal Service (USPS) issued an "Earth Day Forever" first-class postage stamp.

2. The "official site" of Earth Day.org had "Climate Action" as its theme with digital conversation events (due to the global pandemic restrictions on public gatherings).

3. Earth Day Live 2020.org had a three-day event with hundreds of participants with live-streamed videos shown.  It was coordinated by the US Climate Strike Coalition and the Stop the Money Pipeline, that together are made up of over 500 organizations.  The Stop the Money Pipeline refers to the Bill McKibben assisted effort to curtail investments in the fossil fuel companies.

4.  Parade Magazine, nationally circulated, issued a cover story for Earth Day, Sunday April 19, 2020. It provided:

a. Planet-friendly tips from Al Roker, who helps to lead the NBC new Climate Unit, includes some suggestions for having on-the-go-smarts; BYOF (bring-your-own-fork); ditching the plastic bottle; leftover food wraps; sustainable sneakers; soap solutions; sip-smart-straws.

b. Examples of "Celebrities Going Green" include Leonardo Cicaprio whose foundation is now part of the Earth Alliance, Gisele Bundchen the supermodel named Best Green International Celebrity of the Year at London's 2011 Green Awards; environmental activist/actor Mark Ruffalo; Robert Redford with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC); Sting and wife Trudie Styler co-founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1988; and Bette Midler who founded the New York Restoration Project in 1995 to revitalize community gardens and thus improve the natural balance of life in NYC.

c. "50 Ideas From 50 States" for Earth Day include too many to mention here. Some highlights of resources to access include:

#WednesdaysForWater Twitter hashtag (Flint MI)

audubon.org (helping birds)

energy.gov (electric cars)

earthday.org (single-use plastic bans)

greentreeplastics.com

wildbook.org (Illinois bats endangered)

fws.gov/endangered (endangered species)

renewalworkshop.com (Oregon clothing recycling)

glavel.com (glass + gravel)

glassrecyclingfoundation.org

usatla.org (toy libraries)

greencirclesalons.com (earth-friendly salons)

arborday.org (tree planting)

pollinator-pathway.org (CT planting for pollinators)

nurdlepatrol.org (TX plastic pellets watchdog)

natgeophotoark.org (many species photo archive)

beckerhospitalreview.com (green hospitals)

Overviews of this Parade Earth Day issue:

Parade.com/earthday for complete 50 states ideas for Earth Day's 50th anniversary

Parade.com.roker (Al Roker advice)

Parade.com/copeny (donate to Flint MI clean drinking water effort)

5.  Ocean Conservancy provides re-usable straws with annual membership renewal.  Also provided is a "Take 5 for Turtles" small poster suggesting ways to help endangered turtles. OceanConsevancy.org  

6.  The "Solutions" newsletter for Spring 2020 from the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) included a one-page article "Five ways to break you plastic habit/Start using less plastic, today" with tips including where to start; food shopping and storage; personal care and cleaning products; buying less and buying it secondhand; and growing your impact.  The article is by Lexi Krupp, who I assume is related to the EDF President, Fred Krupp.  Two book suggestions are:

Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don't Know You Have, by Tatiana Schlossberg.

Green Gone Wrong: How Our Economy is Undermining the Environmental Revolution, by Heather Rogers.

7.  "Graying Green: Climate Action for an Aging World" web site is one man's effort to "connect the dots".  Dr. Michael "Mick" Smyer, of Lewisburg PA-based Bucknell University's Psychology Department offers some Earth Day advice and links it to the Covid-19 crisis. Dr. Smyer has been a presenter at the ten-year old Bucknell.edu/LifeLongLearning institute for community retirees and others.  Also see grayinggreen.org .

8.   A "Green Good Housekeeping Seal" of approval is issued by the Good Housekeeping magazine's Institute as an emblem of sustainability for products that have met a wide range of environmental criteria.  ghsealcom .  This will not be news to long-time readers of GH.

Pandemic Resources

The Beautiful Cure: The Revolution in Immunology and What It Means for Your Health.  Daniel M. Davis.

Big Farms Make Big Flu: Dispatches on Infectious Disease, Agribusiness, and the Nature of Science.  Rob Wallace.

Clear-Cutting Disease Control: Capital-Led Deforestation, Public Health Austerity, and Vector-Borne Infection.  Rodrick Wallace et al.

The Coming Plague: Newly Emerging Diseases in a World Out of Balance.  Laurie Garrett.

Contagion and the State in Europe, 1830-1930.  Peter Baldwin.

Darwinian Agriculture: How Understanding Evolution Can Improve Agriculture.  R. Ford Denison.

Deadliest Enemy: Our War Against Killer Germs.  Michael Osterholm.

Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900 (2nd edition).  Alfred W. Crosby.

The Ecology of Agrosystems.  John H. Vandermeer.

Epidemics: The Impact of Germs and Their Power Over Humanity.  Joshua S. Loomis

Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present.  Frank M. Snowden.

The Great Influenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History (1918).  John M. Barry.

Influenza and Public Health: Learning from Past Pandemics.  Edited by Jennifer Gunn, Tamara Giles-Vernick and Susan Craddock.

The Monster at Our Door: The Global Threat of Avian Flu.  Mike Davis.

Neoliberal Ebola: Modeling Disease Emergence from Finance to Forest and Farm.  Robert G. Wallace and Rodrick Wallace, eds. 

Planet of Slums.  Mike Davis.

Political Ecology of Agriculture: Agroecology and Post-Development.  Omar Felipe Giraldo.

The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity.,  Toby Ord.

The Routledge Handbook of Biosecurity and Invasive Species.  Edited by Juliet Fall, Robert Francis, Martin A. Schlaepfer, and Kezia Barker (forthcoming).

The Rules of Contagion: Why Things Spread and Why They Stop..  Adam Kucharski.

Books on Climate Change

All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon's Perspective on Climate Change.  Michael T. Klare.

Being the Change: Live Well and Spark a Climate Revolution.  Peter Kalmus.

The Earth is Not for Sale: A Path out of Fossil Capitalism to the Other World that is Still Possible.  David and Peter Schwartzman.

Ecological Politics: For Survival and Democracy.  John Rensenbrink. 

The End of Ice: Bearing Witness and Finding Meaning in the Path of Climate Disruption.  Dahr Jamail.

The Future We Choose: Surviving the Climate Crisis.  Christina Figures and Tom Rivett-Carnac, co-authors.

Here: Poems for the Planet.  Elizabeth J. Coleman, ed., foreword by the Dalai Lama.

The Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment: Mountains, Climate Change, Sustainability and People.  International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development.  link.springer.com .

The Ice at the End of the World: An Epic Journey into Greenland's Buried Past and Our Perilous Future.  Jon Gertner.

Industrial-Strength Denial: Eight Stories of Corporations Defending the Indefensible, From the Slave Trade to Climate Change.  Barbara Freese.

Inhabitance: Ecological Religious Education.  Jennifer R. Ayres.

IPPC Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate.  Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.  available at ipcc.ch .

The Long Thaw: How Humans Are Changing the Next 100,000 Years of Earth's Climate.  David Archer.

The Political Economy of Global Warming: The Terminal Crisis.  Del Watson.

Powering Empire: How Coal Made the Middle East and Sparked Global Carbonization.  On Barak.

The Water Will Come: Rising Seas, Sinking Cities, and the Remaking of the Civilized World.  Jeff Goodell.

UPCOMING EVENT

World Environment Day, Friday June 5, theme is "Celebrating Biodiversity." 

Topics to be explored include

the role of coral reefs in sustaining all life on earth

climate emergencies and biodiversity

ecosystem restoration

poverty and wildlife

See especially the site on "Six Nature Facts Related To Coronaviruses."  60% of all infectious diseases in humans are zoonotic, as are 75% of all emerging infectious diseases.  In other words, they come to us via animals.  Examples include MERS, SARS, EBOLA, COVID-19, Avian flu,  etc.

An Environmental Sabbath is to be encouraged to be held June 7, the Sunday closest to June 5.

worldenvironmentday.global 

Anniversaries

30th Anniversary of CERES, 

 The Coalition for Environmentally Responsible EconomieS has:

... launched the Corporate Electric Vehicle Alliance to help reduce climate pollution inasmuch as transportation is the largest source of GHG emissions in the U.S.  Nearly 1.5 million EVs are on U.S. roads today, just under 2% of all vehicles on the road.

...met with some success in getting corporations and investors to join in taking action to take science-based climate action.  Members of the Ceres BICEP (Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy) Network include 827 companies pledging to align their practices with aggressive climate targets.

...with its Ceres Investor Network joined the Climate Action 100+ (CA100+), an investor led initiative challenging the world's biggest polluters to act on climate change.

...made progress with investors and corporations in reducing the risk associated with Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) issues in global supply chains (for example, food), especially as regards deforestation and illegal fishing.

...participated in the AgWater Challenge to help food and beverage companies reduce their impacts on water resources.  Animal agriculture is linked to nearly 15% of global GHG emissions and is a significant driver of both water scarcity and land-use change, including deforestation.

...joined with FAIRR (Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return) in launching a global investor coalition representing more than $6.5 trillion in assets calling on six of the world's largest fast food companies to set aggressive targets to reduce their GHG emissions and the water impacts of their meat and dairy supply chains.

Ten year anniversary since the 2001-2010 International Decade for a Culture of Peace and Nonviolence for the Children of the World, sponsored by the United Nations.

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

Mike Ochs finds common ground between religion and politics in his concern for the environment.

Politically he self-published the first "Greens Bibliography" of the English-language literature on the international Green Party movement (1989), the project for his Master of Liberal Arts in International Studies degree at Lock Haven (PA) University. He also helped plant the seeds for the Green Party of PA at that time, and remains a cyber-activist with it.

For a monthly newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County (PA), he has written the "Creation Corner Column" since 1997.  It became a blog in 2011 at 

http://lutheransrestoringcreationblog.blogspot.com/

He received a B.A. degree from Gettysburg College in 1965.