Creation Care for Pastors

Just getting back from the arctic with various luminaries and a week’s worth of memories to unpack with family and friends. On day five we saw a rare sight at close range: three polar bears on the sea ice after taking a seal for food, with the arctic ivory gull flying around. It was a stunning sight. And a sight that is itself at risk because the ice is melting at a higher rate than expected. We sailed through areas normally shut off from the pack ice, but that’s all changing and it’s the reason polar bears have been placed on the endangered species list. Throughout the trip, I was meditating on Genesis, chapter one: the days of creation. Read the rest of this entry »

Time arrived with this cover copy a while back: How to Win the War on Global Warming. Shall we confront a brutal fact in evangelical perspective? The thoughtful person on the outside of American Christianity looking in at its dominant form (evangelicalism) has every right to think:Evangelicals have been among the most dismissive of the effort to address global warming. If I am considering the Christian message, I should take this into account. If I support efforts to address climate change now for the sake of the vulnerable poor and future generations, I will be viewed as one of those environmental whackos by evangelicals. Life is stressful enough. I think I’ll get my spirituality on the golf course instead.  Read the rest of this entry »

In one of my other lives, I serve as regional underseer of the Great Lakes Region of Vineyard Churches–about 114 churches in all. We had our regional conference in Cincinatti last week–hence my blogging silence. A wonderful time. We had nearly 200 more in attendance than our previous regional conference, always a good sign. The theme of the conference was 4Ward ’till Kingdom Come, because the theology of the kingdom is the treasure buried in the field of the Vineyard. Read the rest of this entry »

On Friday May 2, The Ohio State University will host a Friendship Collaborative thanks to the work of Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship leaders like Howard VanCleave on the campus of OSU working with local scientists and evangelical leaders. On Friday about thirty leaders will gather–roughly half being environmental scientists, including Jim Hansen, the NASA expert on climate change–and the other half being local evangelical pastors and leaders. Cal De Witt, Jim Hansen, and Steve Weeks, will present from the scientific perspetive and Ken Wilson from the evangelical pastor perspective. Read the rest of this entry »

http://www.nccecojustice.org/mindful_living.html

This website provides access to a great pamphlet about the health effects of different compounds that are becoming scientific buzzwords in and among environmental health research circles. Hopefully, this will help those of you who feel called to delve deeper into the science (and possibly use this as a point of connection with those in the scientific community) of climate change and environmental degradation.

Here is an article from Reuters this week. The popular press has picked up on the disproportiantely severe effects of climate change on the world’s poor and indigenous peoples.Minorities the forgotten victims of climate changeMon Mar 10, 2008 9:00pm EDTBy Jeremy LovellLONDON, March 11 (Reuters) - Minorities and indigenous peoplefrequently bear the brunt of the ravages of climate change but alsooften come last on the aid list because they are on the margins ofsociety, a report said on Tuesday.Some are even the victims of efforts to tackle global warming such asclearing tracts of land and forest for growing biofuels, according to”State of the World’s Minorities 2008″ report from Minority RightsGroup International (MRG).”Climate change has finally made it to the top of the internationalagenda at every level but…recognition of the acute difficultiesthat minorities face is often missing,” said MRG’s policy chiefIshbel Matheson.  Read the rest of this entry »

Facts:

1. Coal burning power plants release mercury particles into the atmosphere with well documented health effects given the fact that mercury (the stuff in thermometers) is a poison.

2. We have the technology to burn coal cleaner, but it costs more to do so.

3. We tend to want the cheap energy of coal burning power plants without the mercury poisoning, but we’re less concerned about the poisoning effects of mercury if it affects someone else.

4. People with the means to keep coal burning power plants out of their neighborhood, tend to exercise that power.

4. Poor people don’t have much money. Money is power. So they have more coal burning power plants in their neighborhoods. And they and their kids and their unborn babies tend to suffer more harm as a result.

5. If people with power had more coal burning power plants in their own neighborhoods, they would be more likely to insist that we all spend a little more money to build clean power plants.

Am I missing something, or shouldn’t we all insist that no more dirty power plants be built? And that we spend money to clean up the ones that are spewing the mercury over poor people?   Whose children suffer memory loss and greater learning disabilities with all the mercury wrecking havoc in their brains?  One in six children are born at risk of this,  according to the EPA, and most of them are poor kids who can’t move away from the flipping power plants.  Excuse me, I got a little annoyed there.

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