5/23 CCC: Spring Titles, TIME honorees, note to readers

                                                 5/2023 Creation Corner Column

                          Spring Titles; TIME magazine honorees; note to readers

1. Religion and Ecology books

The Book of Nature: The Astonishing Beauty of God's First Sacred Text.  Barbara Mahany.

Following Jesus in a Warming World: A Christian Call to Climate Action.  Kyle Meyaard-Schaap.

2.  Books with Environmental Themes

Elderflora: A Modern History of Ancient Trees.  Jared Farmer.

Ethics In The Real World: 90 Essays on Things That Matter.  Peter Singer.   A fully updated and expanded edition.

Fen, Bog and Swamp: A Short History of Peatland Destruction and Its Role in the Climate Crisis.  Annie Proulx.

Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility.  Edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Young Lutunatabua.

The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions.  Neta C. Crawford.

Sea Changes: An Atlas of Islands in a Rising Ocean.  Christina Gerhardt.

Ten Birds That Changed the World.  Stephen Moss.

Wild by Design: The Rise of Ecological Restoration.  Laura J. Martin.

3.  TIME magazine 100/ The most influential people in the world (artists, titans, leaders, pioneers, innovators, icons) from the April 24/May 1, 2023 edition.  Those who champion environmental causes are Johan Rockstrom, Laurene Powell Jobs, Sherry Rehman, Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, Britney Schmidt and Peter Davis, Robin Zeng, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Andrea Kritcher, Catherine Coleman Flowers, Wanjira Mathai, Kate Orff, King Charles III, Yvon Chouinard.

4.  TIMECO2 EARTH AWARDS for 2023 in the May8/May 15 edition recognized five leaders in the battle against climate change.

Mark Ruffalo and Gloria Walton of the Solutions Project; Lisa P. Jackson, formerly with the US EPA now is the environmental director for Apple; Vanessa Nakate founded the Africa-based Rise Up Movement;  and Antonio Guterres is Secretary-General of the U.N. who asks "What did you do to save our planet and our future when you had the chance?"

5. Four picture books for children that celebrate the natural world.

The City Tree.  Shira Boss and Lorena Alvarez.

Maple and Rosemary.  Alison James and Jennifer K. Mann.

One World: 24 Hours on Planet Earth. Nicola Davies and Jenni Desmond.

This is the Planet Where I Live.  K.L. Going and Debra Frasier.

6. COVID-19 Pandemic Books

The Fault in Our SARS: COVID-19 in the Biden Era.  Rob Wallace.

The Pandemic Divide: How COVID Increased Inequality in America.  Gwendolyn L. Wright, Lucas Hubbard and William A. Darity Jr., editors.

Who We Are Now: Stories of What Americans Lost and Found during the COVID-19 Pandemic.  Michelle Fishburne.

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Note to readers:  Due to aging issues of this blogger (I am 80), it is unclear as to how long this column can be sustained on a regular basis.  I deeply appreciate the invitation to post on the LRC site since 2011.

Michael Ochs, Lutheran Layman, St. Mark's Lutheran Church, 142 Market St., Williamsport PA 17701

Website: www.stmarkswilliamsport.org

Email: stmarks@stmarkswilliamsport.org 

4/2023 CCC: L. Rasmussen in Sojourners Magazine, etc.

                                     Creation Corner Column for April 2023

                            Larry Rasmussen in Sojourners Magazine, et cetera

1.  Sojourners Magazine for April 2023 features an article by Larry Rasmussen adapted from his 2022 presentation at the Society of Christian Ethics, entitled "The Times They Are A-Changin'".  Rasmussen is the Reinhold Niebuhr Professor Emeritus of Social Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and author of The Planet You Inherit: Letters to My Grandchildren When Uncertainty's a Sure Thing.  sojo.net 

2. In the Sojourners "Great Reads/Books to inform and inspire" section" are two titles of interest:

The Cross in the Midst of Creation: Following Jesus, Engaging the Powers, Transforming the World, by Sharon Delgado.

Love Your Mother: 50 States, 50 Stories, and 50 Women United for Climate Justice, by Mallory McDuff.

3.  In The Upper Room (Where The World Meets to Pray) for March-April 2023, a Daily Devotional Guide, comes a two-page "Caring for Creation" article with an invitation to visit their web site for "Create a Green Team" at upperroom.org/resources/create-a-green-team. 

4.  Mindful that for Earth Day on April 22 many communities sponsor park, streambank, or neighborhood clean-up events, a link has been shown to be a factor between poor neighborhood cleanliness and human longevity.  According to a study by the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) that appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, poor neighborhood cleanliness was one of 8 social factors that can forecast longevity (help predict early mortality).  A summary of this is in the MGH "Mind, Mood & Memory" newsletter for Mary 2023 (vol. 19, number 5).

5.  Compare and Contrast "a" here with "b" .

    a. from the 2008 issue 37 of Creation Care: A Christian Environmental Quarterly article by Scott Sabin:  Environmental Emigration: The World on Our Doorstep.  Poor families worldwide are already on the move to escape environmental degradation.  What's our responsibility?

    b. 2023 book The Great Displacement: Climate Change and the Next American Migration, by Jake Bittle.

6.  IPCC March 20 Report.  Following the issuing of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report, a newspaper boldly quoted Antonio Guterres, the U.N. Secretary-General, with his stark conclusion that "Humanity is on thin ice---and that ice is melting fast".

It is the opinion of this blogger that Guterres is perhaps in the best position of anyone in the world to be aware of the dire potential consequences of global climate heating, given that he has the ability to receive the scientific community's assessments at his fingertips.  He has called for rich countries to quit coal, oil and natural gas by 2040, and for an end to new fossil fuel exploration.  His views are well worth researching.

7.  Climate Homicide.  Definition:  The theory that because climate research by fossil fuel companies showed its products caused harm, and they continued to fight to delay regulations, that this showed they had a "culpable mental state" as their continued extraction of oil, natural gas and coal inflicted harm on people, including death.  "Google" this subject for clarification.

8. To end this column on a hopeful note, this article appeared on March 24, 2023 as an Associate Press release by Isabella O'Malley.  "US renewable electricity surpassed coal in 2022" is the headline.  The article reads thusly:

The U.S. Energy Information Administration announced that electricity generated from renewables surpassed coal electricity production in the United States for the first time in 2022.  The growth of wind and solar significantly drove the increase in renewable energy and experts say these two resources will be the "backbone" of  clean energy growth  in the U.S. because of their reliability and affordability.  Renewables passed nuclear electricity production for the first time in 2012 and continued to outpace it.

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50th anniv. of THE SUN magazine

                                             March 2, 2023 Creation Corner Column

                                            50th Anniversary of "THE SUN" magazine

Endeavoring to "look at a sad, confused world and see it as holy," in the words of the founder and editor of the reader-supported (no advertisements!) magazine known simply as The Sun, Sy Safransky has often focused on the natural world in the published monthly periodical now in its 50th year.

Interviews with persons with a variety of perspectives have included those with the following, as a sample.

Robert Bilott, recipient of the Right Livelihood Award for his work on PFAS contamination.

Matthew Fox, author of Original Blessing. among other titles.

Barbara Kingslover, co-author of Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life; et cetera.

Bernie Krause, who has released more than fifty albums of natural landscapes and authored four books (Notes from the Wild, Into a Wild Sanctuary, Wild Soundscapes, and The Great Animal Orchestra: Finding the Origins of Music in the World's Wild Places).

Kathleen Dean Moore, co-author of Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril.

Jack Turner was interviewed "on our lost intimacy with the natural world". He is a retired mountain guide.

Other interview subjects (such as Julia Butterfly Hill, Peter Matthiessen, et cetera)  may be found by searching under the "natural world" heading for themes of agriculture, biology, climate change, ecology, plants, pollution and wildlife, at the magazine website "thesunmagazine.org". 

Additionally often on the final page of each 50-page issue of the magazine can be found "Sunbeams", a list of quotations that dovetail with the theme of the interview. 

The balance of the magazine includes photography, poetry, fiction, essays, memoirs, true stories, correspondence, and a section devoted to readers writing on themes related to their experiences having to do with a variety of topics, one per month, such as anniversaries, idols, privacy, in-laws, first love, appetites, holding on, doors, leaving home, breasts, the refrigerator, making ends meet, being stubborn, learning the hard way, tools, breakfast, the sofa, bosses, the backyard, swimming, high school, being alone, fire, right and wrong, danger, family vacations, clothes, acts of kindness, breaking the rules, bullies, in the dark, honesty, trying again, cars, noise, saying no, flying, being single, trying too hard, running late, keepsakes, the mall, fear, boyfriends and girlfriends, changing your mind, coffee, houses, at the last minute, trash, the bus, teeth, speaking up, security, never again, television, the phone, etc.

One might say there is something in "The Sun" to interest everyone "under the sun".  Also see Ecclesiastes.

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2/'23 CCC: Six Hopeful Titles

2/23 Creation Corner Column: Six Hopeful Titles

Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity (A Report to the Club of Rome).  Sandrine Dixson-Decieve, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Ghosh, Jorgen Randers, Johan Rockstrom, and Per Espen Stoknes.

Fighting In A World On Fire: The Next Generation's Guide to Protecting the Climate and Saving Our Future.  Andreas Malm.  Adapted by Jimmy Whipps, Llewyn Whipps.

Moral Ground: Ethical Action for a Planet in Peril.  Kathleen Dean Moore and Michael P. Nelson.

No Miracles Needed: How Today's Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air.  Mark Z. Jacobson. 

Not Too Late: Changing the Climate Story from Despair to Possibility.  Edited by Rebecca Solnit and Thelma Lutunatabua.

Responding to Climate Climate Change: A free conversation guide for personal reflection and group discussion from The Christian Century when you sign up at christiancentury.org/climate .

1/2023 CCC: Calvin B. DeWitt's EARTHWISE book

 1/2023 CCC: Calvin DeWitt's EARTHWISE book

A Guide to Eight Principles on Hopeful Creation Care are briefly summarized from Calvin B. DeWitt's book EARTHWISE by Allen Johnson, coordinator of Christians for the Mountains, publisher for The Mountain Vision (a free print publication).

1. The Earthkeeping Principle

As the Lord keeps and sustains us, so we must keep and sustain our Lord's creation

2. The Fruitfulness Principle

We should enjoy but not destroy creation's fruitfulness.

3. The Sabbath Principle

We must provide for creation's sabbath rests.

4. The Discipleship Principle

We must be disciples of Jesus Christ, the Creator, Sustainer, and Reconciler of all things.

5. The Kingdom Principle

We must seek first the kingdom of God.

6. The Contentment Principle

We must see true contentment.

7. The Praxis Principle

We must practice what we believe.

8. The Con-Servancy Principle

We must return creation's service to us with service of our own.

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Johnson also summarizes DeWitt's analysis of what the Creator provides in the creation.  These seven provisions are:

Energy exchange with sun and space; soil building; cycling and recycling in the biosphere (the carbon cycle and the hydrologic cycle); water purification and detoxification; fruitfulness and abundant life; global circulations of water and air; and human ability to learn from creation.

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The full two pages of these summaries may be found on pages 4 and 5 of the Fall 2022 issue  of The Mountain Vision, 12664 Frost Road, Dunmore WV 24934.  It is a free print publication issued by Christians For The Mountains (CFTM), one of 13 programs of World Stewardship Institute (WSI), a 501-c-3 nonprofit corporation at 3840 Finley Avenue, Building 33, Suite 202 (P,O, Box 7348), Santa Rosa, CA 95407.  The contact for the WSI is Frederick Krueger and the website is https:ecostewards.org .

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12/22 CCC: Anniversaries and Readings, old and new

 12/1/22 Creation Corner Column

                                                 New Readings and Old Anniversaries

ANNIVERSARIES

50th anniversary of the USA Clean Water Act

50th anniversary of The Club of Rome's influential, and controversial, environmental report The Limits to Growth, by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III..

READINGS

Breathless: The Scientific Race to Defeat a Deadly Virus.  David Quammen.

Chasing Plants: Journeys with a Botanist through Rainforests, Swamps, and Mountains.  Chris Thorogood.

The Creative Lives of Animals.  Carol Gigliotti.

Darwin's Love of Life: A Singular Case of Biophilia.  Kay Harel.

Hothouse Earth: An Inhabitant's Guide.  Bill McGuire.

The Huxleys: An Intimate History of Evolution.  Alison Bashford.

In the Name of Plants: From Attenborough to Washington, the People behind Plant Names.  Sandra Knapp.

Justice for Animals: Our Collective Responsibility.  Martha Nussbaum.

Trees: From Root to Leaf.  Paul Smith.  Foreword by Robert Macfarlane.

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Children's titles from the winter 2022 issue of the Nature Conservancy magazine;

Alexander von Humboldt (age range: 4-7 years)

A Bird Will Soar (age range: 8-12 years)

A World Full of Nature Stories (age range 5-8 years)

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 Recent periodicals with environmental themes featured:

Time magazine of October 10/October 17, 2022 provided a list of their "TIME100 Next" artists, advocates, leaders, innovators, and phenoms, many of whom include environmental aspirations as their motivations.

Sojourners for December 2022 has as its cover story "Is Climate Change a 'White' Issue?" Climate activist Vanessa Nakate, author of A Bigger Picture: My Fight to Bring a New African Voice to the Climate Crisis, is interviewed.

"The Climate Issue" is the theme for the November 28, 2022 edition of The New Yorker magazine.  Articles include ones about the potential collapse of a Florida-size glacier ("Journey to Doomsday"); a low-lying Alaskan town reckoning with extinction ("The Coming Storm"); wind farms coming to coal country ("Blade Runners"); and, by Elizabeth Kolbert, an A to Z list of stories we tell ourselves about the Earth's future climate crisis ("A Vast Experiment").

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11/22 CCC Hopeful Books, Children's Titles, Eviro Titles, Pandemic Books,

                                       11/22 Creation Corner Column

 Hopeful Books, Children's Titles, Enviro Titles, Pandemic Books, a Headline, an Upcoming Event

HOPEFUL BOOKS

Better Than We Found It: Conversations to Help Save the World.  Frederick Joseph & Porsche Joseph.

Beyond Climate Breakdown: Envisioning New Stories of Radical Hope.  Peter Friedrici.  Foreword by Kathleen Dean Moore.

Bright Hope: Discovering Resilient, Sustainable Ways of Living Through Even the Darkest Times.  Ted Brackman.  Foreword by Jim Wallis.

Care-Centered Politics: From the Home to the Planet.  Robert Gottlieb.

Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith.  Philip Jenkins.

Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity (A Report to the Club of Rome).  Sandrine Dixson-Decleve, Owen Gaffney, Jayati Ghosh, Jorgen Randers, Johan Rockstrom, Per Espen Stoknes.

The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War: Charting the Rise and Fall of U.S. Military Emissions.  Neta C. Crawford.

Unsettling: Surviving Extinction Together.  Elizabeth Weinberg.

Zen and the Art of Saving the Planet.  Thich Nhat Hanh.

CHILDREN'S TITLES, suitable for elementary schoolers

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind.  William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer (picture book edition).

Climate Change, The Choice Is Ours: The Facts, Our Future, And Why There's Hope! David Miles with illustrations.

The Lorax.  Dr. Seuss.

Polar Bear, Why Is Your World Melting?  Robert E. Wells.

Thank You, Earth: A Love Letter To Our Planet.  April Pulley Sayre.

We Are Water Protectors.  Carole Lindstrom, illustrated.

Note: These titles are from an abridged list provided by TIME magazine on-line at their web site (TIME.com/kids-climate-books) as noted in their print edition of October 24/October 31, 2022.

OTHER ENVIRONMENTAL TITLES

The Chemistry of Fires at the Wildland-Urban Interface.  Committee on the Chemistry of Urban Wildfires; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Klimat: Russia In The Age of Climate Change.  Thane Gustafson.

Solomon Described Plants: A Botanical Guide to Plant Life in the Bible.  Lytton John Musselman.

Vanishing Sands: Losing Beaches to Mining.  Orrin H. Pilkey et al.

Women Who Invented the Sixties (includes a chapter on Rachel Carson).  Steve Golin.

EPIDEMIC/PANDEMIC TITLES

Beyond the Pandemic: Spiritual and Ecological Challenges.  Diarmuid O'Murchu.

The Church of the Dead: The Epidemic of 1576 and the Birth of Christianity in the Americas.  Jennifer Scheper Hughes.

Grounded: Perpetual Flight...and Then the Pandemic.  Christiopher Schaberg.

A Letter to Liberals (from Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.): Censorship and Covid: An Attack on Science and American Ideals.  Children's Health Defense, second edition revised and updated.

Postcolonial Practices of Care: A Project of Togetherness During COVID-19 and Racial Violence.  Edited by Hellena Moon and Emmanuel Y. Larty.

RECENT HEADLINE

"Climate Disasters all but inevitable".  THE WEEK magazine for Sept. 30, 2022, Health & Science, p. 22.

With that in mind, and also being mindful of the  broad definition of climate change being a result of "anthropogenic"  causes ("that which is caused by human action"), how might we be aware of what actions we can take to reduce our harmful impact on the earth and its climate?  How are we complicit and what can we do to offset such?

NEXT UPCOMING EVENT

December Conference of Parties 15 (COP15) Biodiversity Summit in Canada.

According to the World Wildlife Foundation and Zoological Society of London's biennial Living Planet Report, wildlife populations (birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles) have declined by two-thirds since 1970.  Many scientists think this is the largest loss of life on Earth since the time of the dinosaurs, and that it is being driven by humans.  (Source: The Guardian Weekly, 21 October 2022, "Scientists demand action on animal population decline".)

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