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.

--------

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.

---------

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 .

                                                                  -30-

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.

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

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)

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

 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").

                                             ------------------------30--------------------------------

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".)

                                                                        -30-

          

CCC, 10/22. Secular Books, Quotes, COP 27, ELCA invitation

                                        October 2022 Creation Corner Column

   Environmental and Pandemic Books, Recent Quotes, COP 27, ELCA Climate Care Proposal

SECULAR BOOK TITLES ON THE ENVIRONMENT

At Home on an Unruly Planet: Finding Refuge on a Changed Earth.  Madeline Ostrander.

Border and Rules: Global Migration, Capitalism, and the Rise of Racist Nationalism.  Harsha Walia.

The Foundations of Glen Canyon Dam: Infrastructure of Dispossession on the Colorado Plateau.  Erika Marie Bsumek.

The Future Is Degrowth: A Guide fo a World Beyond Capitalism.  Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter, and Aaron Vansintjan.

The Green New Deal and the Future of Work.  Craig Calhoun and Benjamin Y. Fong, editors.

Greenhouse Planet: How Rising CO2 Changes Plants and Life As We Know It.  Lewis H. Ziska.

The Hidden Universe: Adventures in Biodiversity.  Alexandre Antonelli.

Methuselah's Zoo: What Nature Can Teach Us About Living Longer, Healthier Lives.  Steven Austad.

Mobilize Food!  Wartime Inspiration for Environmental Victory Today.  Eleanor Boyle.

National Parks Forever: Fifty Years of Fighting and a Case for Independence. Jonathan B. Jarvis and T. Destry Jarvis

The New Climate War: The Fight to Take Back Our Planet.  Michael Mann.

Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World.  Gaia Vince.

Nowhere Left to Go:  How Climate Change is Driving Species to the Ends of the Earth.  Benjamin von Brackel.

Planet in Peril: Humanity's Four Greatest Challenges and How We Can Overcome Them.  Michael D. Bess.

The Porch: Meditations on the Edge of Nature.  Charlie Hailey.

Portraits of Earth Justice: Americans Who Tell The Truth.  Robert Shetterly et al.

Regenesis:  Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet.  George Monbiot.

Tuzo: The Unlikely Revolutionary of Plate Tectonics.  Nick Eyles.

Underland: A Deep Time Journey.  Robert Macfarlane.

We Are All Whalers:  The Plight of Whales and Our Responsibility.  Michael J. Moore.

What Would Nature Do:  A Guide for Our Uncertain Times.  Ruth DeFries.

Writing Gaia: The Scientific Correspondence of James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis.  Edited by Bruce  Clarke and Sebastien Dutreuil.

PANDEMIC BOOK TITLES 

COVID and Gender in the Middle East.  Edited by Rita Stephan.

Preexisting Conditions: Recounting the Plague.  Samuel Weber.

The Social and Political Impact of COVID-19 in the United States.  Beth Redbird, Laurel Harbridge-Yong, and Rachel Davis Mersey, editors.

States of Plague: /Reading Albert Camus in a Pandemic.  Alice Kaplan and Laura Marris.

Victories Never Last: Reading and Caregiving in a Time of Plague.  Robert Zaretsky.

The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide.  Steven W. Thrasher.

What World Is This?  A Pandemic Phenomenology.   Judith Butler.

QUOTABLE BAD NEWS:  "UN chief: World is in 'life-or-death struggle' for survival."  Associated Press headline, Oct. 4, 2022.  (note: the reason or cause is that "climate chaos gallops ahead".).

QUOTABLE GOOD NEWS: "Biden administration launches environmental justice office."  Associated Press headline, September 26, 2022.

TWO UPCOMING EVENTS:

1.  NEXT  U.N. WORLD CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE:  Congress of Parties 27 (COP 27), November, in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh.

2.  AN ELCA INVITATION to participate in the drafting of a social statement on climate care has been issued.  To comment prior to December 2, go to elca.org/climatecare. 

                                                                        -30-

9/22 CCC: Books, Nature Therapy, Incineration, Quotes

                                           9/22 Creation Corner Column

                          Books, Nature Therapy, Incineration, Quotations

BOOK TITLES

Animalkind.  Ingrid Newkirk and Gene Stone.

The Book of Minds: How to Understand Ourselves and Other Beings, from Animals to AI to Aliens.  Philip Hall.

EcoActivist Testament: Explorations of Faith and Nature for Fellow Travelers.  H. Paul Santmire.

How To Sell A Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT.  Elena Conis.

Is Science Enough?: Forty Critical Questions About Climate Justice.  Aviva Chomsky

The Next Apocalypse: The Art and Science of Survival.  Chris Begley.

Plagues in the Nation: How Epidemics Shaped America.  Polly J. Price.

Science for a Green New Deal: Connecting Climate, Economics and Social Justice.  Eric A. Davidson.

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

The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide.  Steven Thrasher.

Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge.  Erica Gies.

FREE E-BOOK FOR A GREENER, FAIRER FUTURE

Resilience Matters: Opportunities for Action to Strengthen Communities.  Laurie Mazur, editor.  Available on-line at no cost, visit Islandpress.org/progressive.  A publication from the Urban Resilience Project.

BOOKS re: EFFECTIVE ALTRUISM, see William MacAskill

BOOKS re: HISTORY OF FOSSIL FUEL USE, see Andreas Malm

NATURE THERAPY, AN "EVERGREEN SOLUTION".  Free passes for patients to visit national parks are provided by some healthcare providers in four Canadian provinces.  Prescribing nature to help people, the touted benefits include increased energy, decreased anxiety, pain reduction, reduced stress and improved heart health. Source: "This therapy is out there" article in  Aug/Sep issue of Men's Health magazine.

TOXIC BURN PITS AND BACKYARD BURNER  BARREL BURNING

A recently passed U.S. bill to aid veterans exposed to toxic burn pits might spur municipalities that permit backyard burner barrel burning to reconsider, and ban the practice. 

With burn pits and burner barrels  being used to dispose of trash, batteries, chemicals, cans, tires, petroleum products, plastics, human waste (used diapers), etc., and evidence linking the toxic chemical fume pollution and particulate matter from such incineration to some respiratory illnesses (asthma, bronchitis), certain cancers, skin and cardiovascular problems, migraines, some neurological conditions, etc., it could be argued that it is time for municipalities that permit the practice to "clear the air" and ban backyard burner barrel burning as an ounce of prevention to prevent any further exposure to such air-borne pollution.

QUOTABLE

"The distrust between faith and science is not just an unfortunate circumstance.  It's actually costing lives."  Francis Collins.

"The apocalypse is here, it's just not evenly distributed." Gregory Hays.

"Big climate bill: Spending green bucks to spur green energy." Associated Press headline, Aug. 12, 2022.

-------------------------------------------------30--------------------------------------------

Note: This column from Michael Ochs began 25 years ago, issued in the monthly print newsletter of the ecumenical United Churches of Lycoming County (UCLC), Williamsport, PA.  He is a member of the UCLC Christian Social Concerns Committee.

8/22 CCC: Summer Books, etc., II

 8/22 Creation Corner Column:  Summer Books, etc. II

BOOKS

The Anthropocene as a Geological Time.  Jan Zalasiewicz.

Carbon Democracy.  Timothy Mitchell.

Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith: How Changes in Climate Drive Religious Upheaval.  Philip Jenkins.

Engineering Vulnerability: In Pursuit of Climate Adaptation.  Sarah E. Vaughn.

Ever Green: Saving Big Forests to Save the Planet.  John W. Reid and Thomas E. Lovejoy.

Handbook of Environmental Sociology. Beth Schaefer Caniglia et al, editors

How Climate Change Affects Surgery.  Joseph Wayne Smith and Guy Maddern.

How the World Breaks: Life in Catastrophe's Path, from the Caribbean to Siberia.  Stan and Paul Cox.

IPCC, Climate Change 2022: Mitigation of Climate Change.  Working Group III Contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability.

Literature for a Changing Planet.  Martin Puchner.

Losing Earth: The Decade We Could Have Stopped Climate Change.  Nathaniel Rich.

The Ministry for the Future.  Kim Stanley Robinson.

The Nature of Tomorrow: A History of the Environmental Future.  Michael Rawson.

The Nutmeg's Curse: Parables for a Planet in Crisis.  Amitav Ghosh.

Oceans of Grain: How American Wheat Remade the World.  Scott Reynolds Nelson.

Profits and Power: Navigating the Politics and Geopolitics of Oil.  David Detomasi.

The Sociology of Survival: Social Problems of Growth.  Charles H. Anderson.

The Treeline: The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth.  Ben Rawlence.

The Understory: A Female Environmentalist In The Land Of The Midnight Sun.  M.E. Schuman.

White Skin, Black Fuel: On the Danger of Fossil Fascism.  Andreas Malm and the Zetkin Collective.

GRAPHIC NOVELS

The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change, revised edition.  Brady Klein and Yoram Bauman.

The Most Important Comic Book on Earth: Stories to Save the World.  Paul Goodenough and Rewriting Extinction.

----------

An August 2022 headline: "Chances of climate catastrophe are ignored, scientists say", 8/2/22 news article by Associated Press Science Writer Seth Borenstein.

August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina hits New Orleans.

                                                                             -30-

7/22 CCC: Summer Books (Earth, Pandemic, etc.)

 July 2022 Creation Corner Column:  Summer Reading Suggestions

BOOKS ON THE ENVIRONMENT, NATURE, CREATION, EARTH, ECOLOGY

Above Sea Level (novel).  Douglas E. Congdon.

American Earth: Environmental Writing Since Thoreau.  Edited by Bill McKibben.  Foreword by Al Gore.

Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Extinction.  Michelle Nijhuis.

Birdscapes: Birds in Our Imagination and Experience.  Jeremy Mynott.

The Book of Green Quotations.  James Daley, editor.

Chimpanzee Memoirs: Stories of Studying and Saving Our Closest Living Relatives.  Edited by Stephen Ross and Lydia Hopper..

The Coal Trap: How West Virginia Was Left Behind in the Clean Energy Revolution.  James M. Van Nostrand.

The Day the World Stops Shopping: How Ending Consumerism Saves the Environment and Ourselves.  J. B. MacKinnon.

Earthlings: Imaginative Encounters with the Natural World.  Adrian Parr.

Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero Is Not Enough.  Holly Jean Buck.

The High /Sierra: A Love Story.  Kim Stanley Robinson.

The Insect Crisis: The Fall of the Tiny Empires That Run the World.  Oliver Milman.

The Intersectional Environmentalist: How to Dismantle Systems of Oppression to Protect People + Planet.  Leah Thomas.

Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change.  Thane Gustafson.

On Earth as in Heaven: Daily Wisdom for Twenty-First Century Christians.  N. T. Wright.

Passions for Birds: Science, Sentiment, and Sport.  Sean Nixon.

Plastic Unlimited: How Corporations Are Fueling the Ecological Crisis and What We Can Do About It.  Alice Hah.

Power in the Wild: The Subtle and Not-So-Subtle Ways Animals Strive for Control Over Others.  Lee Alan Dugatkin.

Reckoning with the U.S. Role in Global Ocean Plastic Waste.  By Committee on the United States Contribution to Global Ocean Waste; The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

Requiem for America's best Idea: National Parks in the Era of Climate Change.  Michael J. Yochim.

Saving Yellowstone: Exploration and Preservation in Reconstruction America.  Megan Kate Nelson.

Second Nature: Scenes from a World Remade.  Nathaniel Rich.

Sex in City Plants, Animals, Fungi, and More:  A Guide to Reproductive Diversity.  Kenneth D. Frank.

Silent Earth: Averting the Insect Apocalypse.  Dave Goulson.

Sonorous Desert: What Deep Listening Taught Early Christian Monks and What It Can Teach Us.  Kim Haines-Eitzen.

Subtract: The Untapped Science of Less.  Leidy Klotz.

Surveying the Anthropocene: Art and Photography Now.  Patricia Macdonald.

Thoughts on People, Planet & Profit.  Amy Domini.

Urban Climate Insurgency (An issue of Social Text, 150).  Editors: Ashley Dawson, Marco Armiero, Ethemcan Turhan and Roberta Biasillo.

Waste: One Woman's Fight Against America's Dirty Secret.  Catherin Coleman Flowers.

Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluges.  Erica Gies.

Why Veganism Matters: The Moral Value of Animals.  Gary L. Francione.

Wild Souls: Freedom and Flourishing in the Non-Human World.  Emma Marris.

PANDEMIC LITERATURE

Dear Vaccine:  Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic (poetry). Naomi Shihab Nye, David Hassler and Tyler Meier.

Natural Immunity and Covid-19: What it is and How it Can Save Your Life.  William A. Haseltine and Josephine Gurch.

Next Time  There's a Pandemic.  Vivek Shraya.

Omicron: From Pandemic to Epidemic.  The Future of Covid-19.  William A. Haseltine and Griffin McCombs.  An on-line e-Book updated regularly.

Plagues & Pencils: A Year of Pandemic Sketches.  Edward Carey.

Variants: The Shape-Shifting Challenge of Covid-19.  William A. Haseltine.  An e-book updated regularly.

Victories Never Last: Reading and Caregiving in a Time of Plague.  Robert Zaretsky.

The World the Plague Made: The Black Death and the Rise of Europe.  James Belich.