The Alberta Tar sands, an extremely dense and viscous form of petroleum called bitumen, have been referred to as the most damaging project on the planet. According to Greenpeace, emissions from tar sands extraction could grow to between 127 and 140m tonnes by 2020, exceeding the current emissions of Austria, Portugal, Ireland and Denmark. If proposed expansion proceeds,it will result in the loss of vast tracts of boreal forest and peat bogs of a territory the size of England.

The extraction of petroleum from tar sands is a very energy and water intensive process. It is said to generate two to four times the amount of greenhouse gases per barrel of final product as the production of conventional oil.

Oil companies are asking for a new pipeline to be built to carry this dirty oil to the United States, the largest consumer of tar sands oil. Environmental and faith groups are opposing further tar sands development.

Catholic Bishop Luc Bouchard, whose diocese extends over the tar sands, issued a strong pastoral letter on the tar sands last year: “The Integrity of Creation and the Athabasca Oil Sands.”

The letter concludes, “even great financial gain does not justify serious harm to the environment,” and “the present pace and scale of development in the Athabasca oil sands cannot be morally justified.”

Bishop Bouchard notes that “The environmental liabilities that result from the various steps in this process are significant and include”:

• Destruction of the boreal forest eco-system
• Potential damage to the Athabasca water shed
• The release of greenhouse gases
• Heavy consumption of natural gas
• The creation of toxic tailings ponds

He writes at length on all five, and concludes:

“Any one of the above destructive effects provokes moral concern, but it is when the damaging effects are all added together that the moral legitimacy of oil sands production is challenged.”

Read the Bishop’s letter…

Daniel LeBlanc, OMI – now in Bolivia for the Alternative Climate Summit sent the following for our contemplation and action on Earth Day:

Resources:

“The Story of Stuff”

Season for the Earth Resources

Earth Day 2010 Climate Declaration

A PRAYER FOR SANITY IN THE NUCLEAR AGE

Loving Creator –

We mourn and remember.

We remember the tragedy, the loss, and the pain of our actions.

We remember those dark clouds we created that took the breath of life.

You have provided us with abilities to create;

Yet we have used them to undo.

We have fashioned swords of mass destruction and fallen upon them.

We have used our collective abilities for suicide…

Help us not just to remember, but to recognize.

To take responsibility.

To be responsible for the precious yet delicate gift of life you have given us.

Help us to be responsible with our abilities:

To use them for life and the flourishing of life.

Help us to continue to call out: “We will study war no more.”

And help us to twist the swords of destruction into pruning hooks and plowshares.

Help us that we might turn the tide of loss, tragedy, and pain toward your will for life and love.

In your many wonderful names.

Amen

Prepared for use at the Interfaith Convocation of the NPT Review Conference, Rally, March and Festival May 2nd, 2010, by Preston Davis, Union Theological Seminary and Fellowship of Reconciliation.

See also the Litany for Sanity in the Nuclear Age (below).

Haiti & Kenya: A Unique Global South Partnership

Since 2007 the Green Belt Movement of Kenya has partnered with the Lambi Fund of Haiti to address economic and environmental challenges at the grassroots level. Now this unique long-term partnership is adapting to the effects of the devastating earthquake in January. Read more…

MDG Summit:

Only five years remain to achieve the MDGs, and despite some progress we are falling short. Now improvements in the lives of the poorest are being further eroded by the onset of global economic, food and climate crises. UN Member States will come together this September for an MDG Summit. To keep civil society stakeholders informed on the latest developments related to the summit process, the UN Millennium Campaign and the UN Non-Governmental Liaison Service (UN-NGLS) have launched a new website http://www.un-ngls.org/spip.php?page=mdg2010 . You can also find information on the General Assembly Interactive Session on the MDGs (4-13-10) see below.

POST COPENHAGEN:

More than three months have gone by since the Copenhagen Accord was adopted at the UN Climate Change Conference (COP-15) in Denmark last December, where differing opinions abounded as to whether the Conference had been a success or an outright failure. In the wake of Copenhagen, there has been frustration and confusion over how governments will be able to move forward on reaching a legally binding treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Follow this story and more through the UN’s NGLS Civil Society Observer at: http://www.un-ngls.org/spip.php?article2237

WORLD PEOPLE’S CONFERENCE ON CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE RIGHTS OF MOTHER EARTH

– Cochabamba, Bolivia – April 19th to 22nd 2010

More than 20,000 people of civil society from 142 countries are participating actively in this effort to bring concrete proposals to all countries who will once again try to negotiate a serious agreement in regards to climate change in Mexico in December of this year. There are also official representatives of 47 countries participating. In two more days the results of this conference and work on the part of civil society will be available, as is a great deal of information, at the following (in Spanish and English) – http://pwccc.wordpress.com/

Litany for Sanity in the Nuclear Age

May we remember and mourn

Those who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Those who use their gifts to create weapons of mass destruction

Those who have died of cancer and disease from exposure to nuclear tests

Those who today suffer from these diseases and those not yet born who will

Those islands that were destroyed in nuclear weapons tests

Those who would sow fear by threatening to use nuclear weapons

Those who fund new generations of weaponry

Those who profit from the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

WE REMEMBER AND MOURN

WE LIFT UP OUR VOICES IN LAMENTATION

WE CRY OUT FOR FORGIVENESS ANE REDEMPTION

We who are silent in the face of madness

When nuclear weapons are developed and deployed around the world

When monies are allocated to the development of new weapons

When world leaders threaten to use nuclear weapons in war

When our investments, our pension funds, are used to build weapons

When we still our consciences rather than speak out

When we hear hateful speech and do not object

When voices of belligerence escalate and put us all at odds with one another

When our children and grandchildren to the 7th generation are put at risk

Of damnation and extinction

WE REMEMBER AND MOURN

WE LIFT UP OUR VOICES IN RESISTANCE AND APPEAL

WE SING OUT FOR WISDOM AND DELIVERANCE

I call to mind that which I cannot bear to imagine life without, lost forever

The sweet fruit and grains of the earth and daily sustenance

The music of children laughing in play

The warm embrace of family and friends

The earth as seen from the moon, green and blue

The world as seen through the eyes of peace without borders

The dew of dawn and the soft breeze of sunset

The sunlight beams on clover leaf and pine

The awe of creation and echoes of the creator spirit

WE REMEMBER AND MOURN

WE OPEN OUR IMAGINATIONS AND HEARTS TO MEMORIES YET TO BE MADE

WE CALL OUT FOR LEADERSHIP AND RESOLVE

Hear me as I commit to myself and to you, neighbor, friend, fellow living being

My heart, I will soften and open to my brothers and sisters around the world

My neighbor, I will love as myself.

My nation, I will call to account for bringing peace and justice to the world

My species and all living things, I will cherish, protect and celebrate.

WE REMEMBER AND WE MOURN

BUT WE DO NOT DESPAIR

WE DO NOT ACCEPT

WE FEAR NOT

WE LIVE

AND

WE LOVE

Prepared for use as part of the Interfaith Convocation of the NPT Review Conference, Rally, March and Festival May 2nd, 2010

More than 200 organizations across the world have endorsed a critique of the loan saying it will be a burden to poor people who will likely see their household bills increase, while international extractive corporations will continue to receive subsidized energy due to special pricing agreements with Eskom

Eskom is the world’s fourth-largest power company and Africa’s largest carbon emitter, and accounts for 40% of South Africa’s total emissions. The loan raised serious environmental concerns such as pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, and raised questions about the World Bank’s commitment to renewable energy sources.

In the spirit of solidarity with Oblate missions in South Africa who will likely be impacted by this deal, the Oblate JPIC staff, in partnership with other coalition groups in Washington D.C., joined forces in a campaign to raise awareness with officials at the World Bank and in the United States Congress about the potential negative impact of the plant on poor people’s access to energy and environmental impacts in South Africa.

The Oblate JPIC Office endorsed a letter signed by more than 200 organizations addressed to the World Bank, and joined in lobby meetings with South African community and environmental leaders who came to the United States.

One of the South Africans who came is Mr. Desmond D’Sa of the South Durban Community Environmental Alliance in Durban. He is also an active member of a Catholic Church staffed by the Missionary Oblates in Durban. Before Desmond left Washington D.C, he did a TV/Radio interview with Democracy Now. Click here…

The organizations noted that “by focusing on this three-pronged strategy (i.e., carbon cap + efficiency + renewables), it may prove unnecessary – for the moment at least – to tackle either of the two most controversial options for addressing climate change: creating a “trading system” for emissions credits or imposing carbon taxes.”

The letter also stressed that “climate legislation that promotes continued or expanded use of fossil fuels and/or nuclear power, or which rolls back existing environmental safeguards, could result in a bill that might actually be worse than no bill at all.”

Specifically:

• The United States should establish a mandatory cap on allowable greenhouse gas emissions as well as both a near-term and a longer-term schedule for reducing overall emissions to levels consistent with the best science now available (e.g., 30% or more by 2020).
• The cornerstone of near-term U.S. climate policy should be quickly reducing energy waste and fossil fuel consumption. Rapidly curbing energy consumption by 30% or more is well within reach.
• The goal of 25% renewable energy by 2025 – or an even stronger one – should be formally incorporated in Senate climate or energy legislation.

On the other hand,

• U.S. climate policy should include the aggressive phase-out of coal-fired plants and oil use in the transportation sector. Federal subsidies for the fossil fuel industries should be ramped down considerably, if not completely eliminated.
• There should be no financial or regulatory incentives for new nuclear construction or relicensing of existing plants.
• Existing environmental or human-health safeguards should not be rolled-back; in particular, the authority of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to regulate CO2 emissions should be left intact.

The letter was spearheaded by the Sustainable Energy Network which is an unincorporated network founded in 2006 comprised of 625+ organizations, businesses, and individuals advocating aggressive development of sustainable energy technologies to curb energy imports, slash greenhouse gas emissions, and phase out nuclear power.

The full text of the letter and list of signers are available here (Download PDF)

The United Nations has set-up a High-Level Panel to implement a key component of the Copenhagen Accord to promote climate mitigation and adaptation financing in developing countries.

The Advisory Group on Climate Change Financing must design a mechanism to channel cash from developed nations to projects aimed at protecting agriculture and infrastructure from rising seas and weather extremes. The group will also propose strategies for boosting renewable energy and clean technology investments in poor nations in an effort to move stalled international negotiations forward. Two Prime Ministers — Great Britain’s Gordon Brown and Ethiopia’s Meles Zenawi — will lead the panel, whose representation will be divided equally between developed and developing nations’ governments.

World Day for Social Justice Highlights Need for Economic Justice

At the UN observance of the International Day for Social Justice the 20th February, the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stated, “Social justice must be based on the values of fairness, equality and respect for diversity as more important than ever amid a global financial and economic crisis that has significantly increased unemployment and poverty and is straining social integration. . . The world’s major economies are beginning to emerge from this global downturn, we must ensure that the world’s people do so too.”

He called for a major push this year to put countries back on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, which seek to slash a host of social ills, from extreme poverty and hunger to maternal and infant mortality, to lack of access to education and health care, all by 2015, calling them one of the United Nation’s key means of bringing social justice and development together to benefit the poorest and most vulnerable.

A ‘Lent Carbon Fast’ calendar is available from the Environmental Outreach Committee of the Archdiocese of Washington. Please consider using the Lent Carbon Fast Calendar as part of your Lenten discipline.

Take Action: Demand Financial Transparency – Tell the G20 to Create Financial Transparency and staunch the flow of capital out of poor countries.

He wrote a number of excellent brief articles from Copenhagen that give a vivid sense of the conference, as well as valuable information on the  climate change debate.

Read his articles here:

• COP-01- Setting the Stage for COP 15 in Copenhagen (December 8, 2009)
• COP-02-How Robust is the Science of Climate Change (December 9 2009)
• COP-03-There is a need for urgent action on Adaptation (December 10 2009)
• COP-04-Politics and the UN Framework Convention Climate Change Conference (December 11 2009)
• COP-05-Tuvalus intervention on December 9th 2009 (December 14, 2009)
• COP-06-Q&A on Copenhagen and Reflections on the Church (Dec. 14 2009)
• COP-07-Tight Restrictions at COP15 (Dec 15 2009)
• COP-08-Politican Leaders Converging on Copenhagen (Dec. 16 2009)

According to the Pope, “Respect for creation is of immense consequence, not least because “creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works”,[1] and its preservation has now become essential for the pacific coexistence of mankind.

He calls on us to respect the carrying capacity of the earth, but also the needs of the poor and of future generations. “To protect the environment, and to safeguard natural resources and the climate, there is a need to act in accordance with clearly-defined rules, also from the juridical and economic standpoint, while at the same time taking into due account the solidarity we owe to those living in the poorer areas of our world and to future generations. … A greater sense of intergenerational solidarity is urgently needed. Future generations cannot be saddled with the cost of our use of common environmental resources.”

Read the message here…

Learn more…