The Environment

Moyer report on chemical industry provides an occasion for organizing

[3-8-01]

Witherspooner -- and founding member of Presbyterians for Restoring Creation -- Bill Knox has sent this bulletin:

On Monday night, March 26, Bill Moyer's groundbreaking investigative report on the irresponsible Chemical Industry will air nationally on PBS channels. TRADE SECRETS will uncover how our health and safety have been put at risk and why powerful forces in the chemical corporations don't want the truth to be known. Nationally viewed on PBS channels.

A group called COME CLEAN is urging environmentalists to organize around this media event. Here's there call to action:

\\\\\\\\\\//////////

On March 26 there will be a showing of a new Bill Moyer's Groundbreaking Report on the Chemical Industry on PBS channels nationally:: TRADE SECRETS.

COMING CLEAN is a network of groups organizing around this event: it is a great opportunity to look at Corporate irresponsibility and disregard for the health of our environment and US!

For activists working on corporate globalization issues, this report is a critical link to environmental organizing and specific assaults by corporations on our health and safety.

For the general public, we can use this to mobilize people around issues of health that connect to corporate operations; it is an easy first step to invite people to watch a TV show! (easier than travelling to Qattar for next WTO meeting!)

SO: Coming Clean (and me) is asking you to:

1. Organize people to watch TRADE SECRETS on MODAY MARCH 26th. ( time varies, see www.PBS.org) -- organize a viewing party in your own home, or get your group to have a public showing (serve some GMO pesticide -free popcorn or drinks!!!) (there is a small amount of funding available if your group needs help renting a space - see below )

2. get the word OUT...pass a message to all your contacts.

3. let them know what you are doing:
Bryony Schwan swan@wildrockies.org 406-543-3747
Ann Long annlong@shentel.net 540-631-7279

4. Request information packets from them if you'd like... visit their web site: www.comeclean.org

Global warming is subject of ecumenical organizing
12-5-00

The Minnesota Interfaith Campaign for Climate Change is just one state ecumenical effort responding to an initiative by the National Council of Churches, to deal with issues of global warming and to create a "climate of change" in our society. About 50 people came together for an initial retreat and training session on December 3 and 4, 2000.

The Rev. William Somplatsky-Jarman, Associate for Environmental Concerns in the National Ministries Division of the PC(USA), was one of the speakers. Warning that global warming is seen as a very real threat to our world by a broad majority of scientists, he said that we are creating changes that will affect the generations immediately succeeding our own.

For information on the Minnesota group, contact Karen Roles at the Minnesota Council of Churches, 612 870-3600.

For the full story in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, click here.

Does your presbytery have a
Restoring Creation Enabler??

If a volunteer is appointed by the presbytery, the Office of Environmental Justice will pay for their training.

This is a partnership arrangement to help infuse the policy of "Restoring Creation for Ecology and Justice" through the church's mission. A way of helping pastors and congregations enhancing their work in caring for creation.

The next opportunity for training will be May 19-22, 2001, at the 4-H Center, Washington, DC.

Contact Bill Somplatsky- Jarman, 100 Witherspoon St., Louisville, KY 40202, for information and the application forms to enroll a new Restoring Creation Enabler in your Presbytery.

from Bill Knox

Conservatives discover the environment

Witherspooner Brian Christoffersen has urged us to offer another view of the Cornwall Declaration, asserting that "the legitimate evangelicals are those of the Evangelical Environmental Network."
Click here for the EEN comment.
Laura Collins comments [9-25-00]: "

A recent gathering of conservative religious leaders, including Dr. James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Dr. D. James Kennedy of Coral Ridge Ministries, Rabbi David Novak of the University of Toronto, and Father Richard John Neuhaus of First Things, signed on to a declaration on environmental stewardship.

Click here to see the full text of the Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship.

The statement makes some interesting distinctions between issues the group takes seriously, and others to be dismissed:

"While some environmental concerns are well founded and serious, others are without foundation or greatly exaggerated. Some well-founded concerns focus on human health problems in the developing world arising from inadequate sanitation, widespread use of primitive biomass fuels like wood and dung, and primitive agricultural, industrial, and commercial practices; distorted resource consumption patterns driven by perverse economic incentives; and improper disposal of nuclear and other hazardous wastes in nations lacking adequate regulatory and legal safeguards. Some unfounded or undue concerns include fears of destructive manmade global warming, overpopulation, and rampant species loss."

A thought from the Webweaver: Is this an area in which some "left-right" cooperation might become possible? Or does this approach, by its refusal to deal with underlying environmental issues, make any cooperation impossible?

Send your thoughts here, and don't forget to mention your name, in case it's not obvious from your e-mail address.

Click here for some responses!