2/21 CCC: Enviro. Group Goals, Part One
Opening Quotation:
"I do not believe that our relationship with the earth is liable to change for the better until it gets catastrophically worse. Our record indicates that we can walk with our eyes wide open straight into sheer destruction if there is a profit on the way---and that seems to me to be what we are doing now. I have no great expectation that human cussedness will somehow be quickly modified and turned into generosity or that humanity's care of the earth will improve much. But I do go around planting trees on the campus." Lutheran theologian Joseph A. Sitler, Grace Notes and Other Fragments, 1981.***
2021 Secular Environmental Group Effort Goals, Part One
Replant our national forests, improve communities, save threatened rain forests, nurture children so that they might become our earth's future tree planters. Arbor Day Foundation
Be a voice in uniting people to protect America's wild places, especially from destruction by fossil fuel companies, so that people and wild nature can flourish together, engage in repairing environmental damage, and help meet the challenges of a rapidly changing planet. The Wilderness Society.
Preserve wildlife protection laws, protect landscapes and habitats that keep wildlife safe, protect wildlife from climate change, keep ESA (Endangered Species Act) protections intact, help guide our nation toward a clean energy future that also conserves wildlife, protect animals from habitat loss and prevent conflicts with people, protect native pollinators like bees and bats from deadly chemicals, urge solutions to help policy makers better protect species and habitats. Defenders of Wildlife.
Continue to protect and restore our nation's rivers so that Americans have access to clean drinking water, fishable and swimmable rivers and lakes, and prevent the extinction of North America's freshwater plants, fish and other wildlife that are now at risk (an alarming 40 percent). American Rivers: Rivers Connect Us.
Partner with low-income neighborhoods and communities of color to combat environmental threats to community health, such as by providing access to free high-quality air monitors and training to use them to collect air quality data to persuade government officials to address pollution in their communities, also help log complaints about dangerous dumping and pollution from fires at scrap metal shops, and the buildout of petrochemical facilities that can jeopardize local air and water quality while dumping significant greenhouse gas emission pollution into the air. Clean Air Council.
Support legislative goals for progress on climate solutions and environmental justice, restore rolled-back regulatory rules that protect our air, land and water, restore federal environmental agencies to their former strength, recommit the USA to the Paris Climate Agreement, and take immediate national executive action on climate change. League of Conservation Voters.
Use the court system lawsuits and mobilize public opposition opinion as a firewall defense against attacks on the environment, such as oil development in fragile Arctic habitats, to save national monuments from fossil fuel polluters, to conserve the climate-saving Clean Power Plan of the Obama administration, to restrict the use of dozens of "neonic" pesticides products that are toxic to endangered bees, etc. Natural Resources Defense Council.
Fighting to save the bees, promoting clean energy and a healthier food system, defend our oceans and forest from the worst effects of the climate crisis, hold governments and corporations around the world accountable for their policies that endanger the health of people and our planet, campaign for a healthier and more just world. Friends of the Earth.
Ensure birds in crisis can survive and thrive, fight climate change (by providing incentives to capture and store greenhouse gases), safeguard wild spaces, advance environmental justice, support the Growing Climate Solutions Act, the Endangered Species Act, and the National Environmental Policy Act, defend wild spaces such as the Alaska's Tongass National Forest and the sagebrush ecosystem in the USA West, help address the disproportionate impact climate change has on marginalized communities and advance anti-racist solutions to ensure that every American has equal access to clean air, clean water, and outdoor spaces. National Audubon Society (there may be a local affiliate near you).
Help people stand up against hydraulic fracturing (fracking), oil and gas pipelines and dirty and dangerous fossil fuel energy infrastructure at local, state and the national level inasmuch as fracking pollutes the air we breathe, contaminates our drinking water and worsens climate change. Promote a path to 100% renewable energy. Food and Water Action Fund.
Help fight plastic pollution by banning the discharge of it and related toxins into our waterways, so that our water can be kept clean, drinkable, fishable and swimmable for everyone. Promote the use of plastic-free alternatives and keeping fossil fuels in the ground. The Waterkeeper Alliance, (with a global network of local waterkeeper groups).
Apply our knowledge and experience in water, sanitation, and hygiene promotion to try to stop the spread of COVID-19 in vulnerable communities, and center attention on the need to address the deep systemic inequalities that the pandemic has both exposed and deepened. Respond to emergencies while advancing long-term solutions in the fight against inequality and injustice to every corner of the globe. Provide humanitarian assistance to make vaccines free, fair, and accessible. Help save lives and prevent an escalating hunger crisis from driving more people into long-term poverty. Strengthen the role of women as local humanitarian leaders, peace builders and human rights defenders. Oxfam America.
Help reduce climate pollution, speed the transition to a clean energy economy, promote the renewal of our country's role as a global leader by our Paris Climate Agreement participation, and advance the goals of 100% clean electric power by 2035, having all new cars be zero polluting by 2035, and have all new trucks and buses by zero polluting by 2040. Environmental Defense Fund (Finding the ways that work).
Protect endangered species (examples include tigers, orangutans, polar bears, pandas, marine turtles), save regions that contain the world's largest and most intact tropical rain forests, the most diverse freshwater systems, the most varied coral reefs, most biologically significant deserts and most productive fishing grounds, urgently respond to climate change, promote planet-healthy choices in everyday life, engage members in an action network to promote environmental legislation. World Wildlife Fund.
Do scientific research on ocean plastic pollution and promote the International Coastal Cleanup, Trash Free Sea Alliance, Beyond the Bag initiative, as part of the Consortium to Reinvent the Retail (plastic) Bag, raise up the Global Ghost Gear Initiative (abandoned, lost and discarded fishing gear), save the Hawaiian Monk Seal, sea turtles, whale sharks, etc., and highlight the role of oceans in climate change solutions. Ocean Conservancy.
Ensure big polluters are not part of climate policymaking, and pay for the damage they've knowingly caused while fueling the climate crisis, call out corporations for the destruction they cause through the Corporate Hall of Shame, help mobilize people to challenge corporate power's role in lead contamination of water systems, hold "Big Tobacco" responsible for the harm it causes and the lives it destroys, expose the political influence of food and beverage industry and demand more transparency and accountability to the people, and advance the human right to water. Corporate Accountability: Join the Global Campaign.
Defend science and scientists from political and corporate attacks, reduce the threat of nuclear war and the risk posed by nuclear weapons, advance vehicle and fuel technologies to reduce US oil use and transportation emissions, build support for climate preparedness measures and rein in dangerous emissions that cause global warming, work to ensure environmentally-friendly US agriculture practices, promote a modern electricity grid that maximizes energy storage and runs on 100 percent clean energy, fight for science and evidence-based decision-making as essential for a healthy democracy, reducing racial and economic inequity, and defending people's right to vote. Union of Concerned Scientists.
Highlight lands and waters facing mounting pressures in places around the world, such as in Florida, saving critical habitat for the endangered Florida panther, rebuild the decimated spruce and spruce-hardwood forests by planting 1 million trees in the central Appalachians, in Indonesia's Bornean rainforest help to prevent the disappearance of the orangutan due to the industrial logging and mining operations. The Nature Conservancy (member's gifts can be matched by their employer).
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Closing Quotation
"To be glad of life because it gives you the chance to love and to work and to play and to look up to the stars---to be satisfied with your possessions but not contented with yourself until you have made the best of them---to despise nothing in the world except falsehood and meanness, and to fear nothing except cowardice---to be governed by your admirations rather than by your disgusts; to covet nothing that is your neighbor's except his kindness of heart and gentleness of manners---to think seldom of your enemies, often of your friends, and every day of Christ; and to spend as much time as you can, with body and spirit, in God's out-of-doors---these are little guide-posts of the foot-path to peace." Henry Van Dyke, My Heart Sings, ca. 1900. ***
***Note: The opening and closing quotations are derived from 100 Voices: Words That Shaped Our Souls/Wisdom to Guide Our Future, compiled by Anne Christian Buchanan and Debra K. Klingsporn, with special comments by Martin Marty. 1999.
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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
He received a B.A. degree from Gettysburg College in 1965.
