Environment

Last week was a busy one, getting the blog switched over from Beliefnet to our own web site. Sharp-eyed readers have noticed a few bugs, but since we're over the hump I thought a little Friday fun was in order. Fans of the Colbert Report know that Stephen has done has done a lot to raise awareness of the dangers of bears. His work remains unfinished.

Becky Garrison 9-19-2008
During a recent trip to Seattle, I took a tour of Theo Chocolate, the first and only organic and fair trade chocolate factory in the United States.
Jim Wallis 9-15-2008

The presidential tickets in this election on both sides of the aisle have lots of "personality;" some of the candidates have even been referred to as "rock stars." John McCain's campaign manager Rick Davis has said that "this election is not about issues, this election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates." That has been widely interpreted as a prediction that the election will be about personalities more than about issues. That would be a tragedy. [...]

Ed Spivey Jr. 9-01-2008

Are you an Olympian?

Jim Wallis 8-21-2008

My two boys have an alley for a backyard. Luke (9) and Jack (5) are thoroughly urban kids, but I watched them, these past two weeks, fall in love with a natural world far different from their own in a magical place called Block Island, off the coast of Rhode Island.

I came here a lot as a younger man. It was the home of lawyer-theologian William Stringfellow, one of my theological and political mentors, and it still has a little cottage on the back of the property that is used by [...]

Ed Spivey Jr. 8-01-2008
Putting stickers on cars is a different kind of superpower.
Brian McLaren 6-27-2008

A friend of mine recalls a dinner-table conversation one day when she was a schoolgirl. Her dad had come home unusually frustrated from his job as a city planner. "D#@*$% environmentalists!" he said over dinner. "Dad, I thought you were an environmentalist," she said. "Why are you so upset?"

"All day long," he answered, "environmentalists come to me with problems and complaints, and business people come to me with ideas and projects. Why can't the environmentalists be proactive [...]

Abayea Pelt 6-27-2008

As a convert to Orthodox Christianity, I have come to appreciate the strong connection in our tradition between spirituality and creation. Many of our great feasts, minor celebrations, and daily prayers involve joining prayer, blessing, and the material world. Unlike Western Christians who remember the three kings on Jan. 6, 13 days after Christmas we celebrate Theophany, the feast of the baptism of Christ in the Jordan. Part of this feast includes blessing water in our churches or [...]

In January, I was nominated to be one of the Torchbearers for the Olympic Torch Relay when it came to San Francisco. The theme for the relay in San Francisco was sustainability and caring for our Mother Earth. Part of the nomination process included writing an essay about how I have been involved in caring [...]

In March, advocates from Peruvian human rights and environmental organizations met in Washington, D.C., with representatives from the Inter-American Com­mission on Human Rights and the Peruvian

Mary Nelson 4-30-2008

Recently, both President Bush and an oil company spokesperson, speaking to the rising gas prices, pushed for building more refineries and upping the production of oil here in the States. No mention of exorbitant oil company profits. No mention of our need to drastically reduce use of cars and gasoline, to change lifestyles. No mention of the working poor who are stuck without public transportation to jobs remote from their inner-city or inner-ring suburban homes.


Reducing dependence [...]

Kim Szeto 3-26-2008

Environmental consciousness seems to be gaining momentum with increasing numbers of "eco-friendly" products out there from organic bath towels to hybrid cars. But are we really being more environmentally conscious when we buy these products? Are we actually thinking twice about the ecological consequences, or are we just switching from "brand x" to "brand organic"? A recent Washington Post article,

Brian McLaren 3-10-2008

As the nation's second largest denomination (after the Roman Catholic Church), Southern Baptists have been given much, so their potential to do good is considerable - as is the danger of missing opportunities to do good. Sadly, until now, constituents and leaders of the 16-million-member Convention have tended to lag behind other large Christian communities when it comes to addressing the issue of environmental stewardship in general and climate change in particular. But that may be [...]

At last week's New Baptist Unity Conference in Atlanta, an estimated 20,000 Baptists spanning the moderate to progressive spectrum gathered for three days of worship, fellowship, and training. Even though Southern Baptists were conspicuously missing, the conference united members of denominations from the American Baptist Convention, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, National Baptist Convention USA, and the Progressive National Baptist Convention, among others, to collectively represent over [...]

Rose Marie Berger 1-03-2008

The Archbishop of Canterbury posted his New Year's message on YouTube - inviting everyone making a resolution in 2008 to keep asking, "What world do we want to pass on to the next generation?" Filmed between a recycling center and the Canterbury Cathedral, Archbishop Rowan Williams said:

In a society where we think of so many things as disposable, where we expect to be constantly discarding last year's gadget and [...]

Elizabeth Palmberg 1-01-2008
Don't buy the corporate agrofuel greenwash.

“Think cosmically and act personally,” urged Dr. Elizabeth Theokritoff in September to the St.

Over the past two years, educators Linda and Scot DeGraf have been building a one-room cottage made of natural, recycled, and local materials.

Rose Marie Berger 12-17-2007

The watered-down energy bill passed by the Senate on Thursday raised fuel-economy standards by 40 percent-not a bad thing. Congress also boosted the production of biofuels to 36 billion gallons per year by 2022-and 21 billion must come from something other than corn-based ethanol, which is good since it takes more fossil fuel to make corn ethanol than corn ethanol saves. According to

Mary Nelson 12-14-2007

"We have the ability to solve this crisis and avoid the worst of its consequences, if we act boldly, decisively and quickly", said Al Gore in is Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech. He called on the U.S. and China, the worst polluters, to stop blaming others and take action "or stand accountable before history for their failure to act." God calls us to care for creation and the generations to come; we, too, will stand judged if we do not rouse from our doze and not only call for action on [...]