How's everyone enjoying their "Global Warming"?

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How do you like the Global Warming so far?

This sucks like all get out!!!!!!!!!
15
58%
Mildly annoying
4
15%
Who cares, it's only weather
7
27%
This is kinda okay
0
No votes
 
Total votes: 26

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Wosbald
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For indigenous protesters, defending the environment can be fatal
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Paulo Paulino Guajajara, one of the Guardians of the Forest in Brazil's Amazon, paints his face Sept.10, 2019, on Arariboia indigenous territory near Amarante, Brazil. Guajajara, 26, was killed Nov. 1 inside the Arariboia Indigenous Territory, where he lived with his wife and son. (CNS/ Reuters/Ueslei Marcelino)


This story, originally published by Grist, is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration committed to strengthening coverage of the climate story.

================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

Adán Vez Lira, a prominent defender of an ecological reserve in Mexico, was shot while riding his motorcycle in April. Four years earlier, the renowned activist Berta Cáceres was shot dead in her home in Honduras by assailants taking direction from executives responsible for a dam she had opposed. Four years before that, Cambodian forest and land activist Chut Wutty was killed during a brawl with the country's military police while investigating illegal logging.

These are some of the most prominent examples of violence faced by environmental activists in recent years -- but, according to a new report, they are not unusual. As police crack down on protests demanding justice and equity in the wake of the police killing of George Floyd in the U.S., it's clear that activism in general comes at a heavy price.


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Environmental activists specifically -- particularly indigenous activists and activists of color -- have for years faced high rates of criminalization, physical violence, and even murder for their efforts to protect the planet, according to a comprehensive analysis by researchers from the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, which was released earlier this month.

The researchers analyzed nearly 2,800 social conflicts related to the environment using the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) database, which they created in 2011 to monitor environmental conflicts around the world. The study, published in the journal Global Environmental Change, found that 20% of environmental defenders faced criminal charges or were imprisoned, 18% were victims of physical violence, and 13% were killed between 2011 and 2019. The likelihood of these consequences increased significantly for indigenous environmental defenders: 27% faced criminalization, 25% were victims of physical violence, and 19% were murdered.

"We can think of this as compounded injustice, highlighting the extreme risks vulnerable communities opposing social and environmental violence against them face when they stand up for their rights," one of the study's researchers, Leah Temper, told Grist.


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Guadalupe Lara holds up a sign that reads ""Temaca, You Are Not Alone," in defense of Temacapulín, a village threatened by a dam, at July 2019 press conference in Guadalajara by the Mexican Institute for Community Development. The institute accused the government of following inequitable water management policies. (Tracy L. Barnett)


[...]

The lead author of the study, Arnim Scheidel, said he hopes that the analysis gives lawmakers and the public a better understanding of the causes of the violence that protesters still face around the world.

"Globally, indigenous peoples suffer significantly higher rates of violence in environmental conflicts," Scheidel said. "Being aware of these connections may help to connect struggles against various forms of racism worldwide. Protest is key for the success of such struggles, particularly when using diverse channels and building on broad alliances."


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New 'ecclesial conference' established for Amazon region
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An Amazonian indigenous girl gives Pope Francis a plant during the offertory of a Mass for the closing of Amazon synod in St. Peter's Basilica at the Vatican, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2019. (Credit: Alessandra Tarantino/AP)


ROSARIO, Argentina -- Answering a call made by those who took part in the October 2019 meeting of bishops on the Amazon region held in Rome, on Monday leaders of the Catholic Church in Latin America announced the creation of the Amazonian Ecclesial Conference.

The hope is that the new organism will help "delineate a Church with an Amazonian face, and to continue the task of finding new paths for the evangelizing mission," says a statement signed by Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos of Trujillo and president of CELAM, the Latin American Episcopal Conference, and Cardinal Claudio Hummes, emeritus of Sao Paulo and president of REPAM, the church's Amazonian network.

The new body will be an "ecclesial conference" as opposed to an "episcopal conference," denoting that the newly created body will be composed of lay people and religious men and women, as well as bishops.

[...]

As the statement notes, the conference was created on the feast of Sts. Peter and Paul, which they read as a "very especial sign," and as a gesture of its vocation to "affirm the identity of the Church, it's prophetic option," and the call to be a "missionary" church that is an "ineludible call in this present time."

Pope Francis, they said, has "accompanied this process closely."


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Brazilian Cardinal Claudio Hummes says Mass in the Catacombs of Domitila, Oct. 20, 2019. A group of prelates participating in the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, together with lay women and men, signed a declaration called "Pact of the Catacombs for the Common Home." (Credit: Ines San Martin/Crux)


[...]

"In these difficult and exceptional times for humanity, when the pandemic of coronavirus strongly affects the pan-Amazonian region; and the realities of violence, exclusion and death against the biome and the peoples that live in it, clamor for an urgent and imminent integral conversion," the statement says.

The Amazonian Ecclesial Conference, they argue, hopes to be "good news" and an opportune answer to the "screams of the poor and the sister mother Earth," as well as an efficient way to see many of the suggestions of the Amazon Synod come to fruition.


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Post by Obi-Wan Nihilo »

We interrupt this vapid stream of dogmatic cutting and pasting to actually talk about climate science....


On Behalf of Climate Scientists, I Apologize for the Climate Scare
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That article is very definitely well worth a read - given that it's been penned by an erstwhile and long-term committed climate activist and subject matter expert. I'm also inspired to potentially go looking for the author's book, "Apocalypse Never".

Here's a few of the very many money quotes from that article for those too lazy to follow Obi's link as posted above:-
Obi's linked-to article wrote:On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It's just not the end of the world. It's not even our most serious environmental problem.

I may seem like a strange person to be saying all of this. I have been a climate activist for 20 years and an environmentalist for 30.

But as an energy expert asked by Congress to provide objective expert testimony, and invited by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to serve as Expert Reviewer of its next Assessment Report, I feel an obligation to apologize for how badly we environmentalists have misled the public...

But until last year, I mostly avoided speaking out against the climate scare. Partly that's because I was embarrassed. After all, I am as guilty of alarmism as any other environmentalist. For years, I referred to climate change as an "existential" threat to human civilization, and called it a "crisis"...

But then, last year, things spiraled out of control.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said "The world is going to end in twelve years if we don't address climate change." Britain's most high-profile environmental group claimed "Climate Change Kills Children."

The world's most influential green journalist, Bill McKibben, called climate change the "greatest challenge humans have ever faced" and said it would "wipe out civilizations."

Mainstream journalists reported, repeatedly, that the Amazon was "the lungs of the world," and that deforestation was like a nuclear bomb going off...

Why were we all so misled?

In the final three chapters of Apocalypse Never I expose the financial, political, and ideological motivations. Environmental groups have accepted hundreds of millions of dollars from fossil fuel interests. Groups motivated by anti-humanist beliefs forced the World Bank to stop trying to end poverty and instead make poverty "sustainable." And status anxiety, depression, and hostility to modern civilization are behind much of the alarmism.
Newsflash: the word "irony" doesn't mean "a bit like iron" :roll:

Shockingly, some people have claimed that I'm egocentric... but hey, enough about them

"If you strike me down, I shall become far stronger than you can possibly imagine."
_______________________________________________
I occasionally post things here because I am invariably correct on all matters, a thing which is educational for others less fortunate.
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Post by Avatar »

Eh, sounds like an advert for his book. Some points I agree with, but some, like the industrial farming things, are unclearly stated and certainly debatable, and some of the funders of his foundation might have commercial interests. :D

I certainly agree that the amount of alarmism generated has actually reduced our ability to deal with it in time, and I also think it's too late for us to do much now, and whatever is going to happen is going to happen.

(Also obviously the issue is hugely politicised, especially (but not only) in the US.)

--A
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Climate crisis poses serious risks for pregnancy, investigation finds
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Young people gather for a climate change rally in New York City Sept. 20, 2019. (CNS/Gregory A. Shemitz)


This story, originally published by the Guardian, is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration committed to strengthening coverage of the climate story.

===========================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

More than a decade of overwhelming evidence links air pollution and heat exposure with negative pregnancy outcomes in the U.S., according to a new review of dozens of studies.

The investigation, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, identified 57 studies since 2007 showing a significant association between the two factors and the risk of pre-term birth, low birth weight and stillbirth.

Black mothers were particularly at risk, as were people with asthma.

The review analyzed 32 million births tracked across 68 studies. Of those, 84% found air pollution and heat to be risk factors.

[...]

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists already finds climate change to be an urgent threat to women's health, in addition to a major public health challenge. Climate change is linked with worsening cardiac disease, respiratory disease, mental health and exposure to infectious diseases. But pregnant women and developing fetuses are especially vulnerable to its effects.

In the review, 19 studies linked air pollution to pre-term birth, defined as a baby born alive before 37 weeks of pregnancy. Twenty-five studies linked air pollution to low birth weight. And four studies linked air pollution to stillbirth. One study found the risk of stillbirth increased 42% with high third-trimester exposure. Stillbirth is rare, so data on it is limited and it is difficult to draw broad conclusions about why it happens, Bekkar said.

[...]


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[...]

The review confirmed black mothers are at greater risk for pre-term birth and low birth weight. Social determinants of health -- including poverty, long-term stress levels and access to healthcare -- disproportionately hurt people of color.

The study concludes that "environmental exposures further exacerbate that background risk and could be included among these social determinants".

[...]


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Environmental scientist roots work in sanctity of life: A conversation with Sylvia Hood Washington [Interview, In-Depth]
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Sylvia Hood Washington speaks Feb. 12, 2017, at St. Columba Catholic Church in Oakland, California, in a screenshot via St. Columba's YouTube channel (NCR photo)


Sylvia Hood Washington wears a lot of hats. She's an environmental health scientist and engineer, as well as an environmental historian and author of Packing Them In: An Archeology of Environmental Racism in Chicago, 1865-1954.

In addition to serving on the EarthBeat advisory board, she's also a fierce advocate for environmental justice who sees climate change as inextricably linked to the sanctity of life, a view motivated both by her Catholic faith and her own life experiences.

During a July 16 interview with EarthBeat, Washington shared her story of suffering a miscarriage as the result of the 1995 Chicago heat wave, an event that led to 739 heat-related deaths in the area over the span of five days.


EarthBeat Interview with Sylvia Hood Washington [YouTube: 27.5 min]
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EarthBeat interview with Sylvia Hood Washington, left, July 16, on NCR's YouTube channel


When asked, based on her experience and expertise, what she would say to bishops in the U.S. who don't yet consider climate change and environmental justice to be urgent issues, Washington said she'd ask those bishops to invite scientists like her into a room to have a conversation.

"The bishops need to understand that the science of climate change and the science of environmental pollution are sciences that deal with the integrity of human life. If you are pro-life, then you would want every human being to have that ability to be born as God's creation," Washington said.

Below are excerpts from EarthBeat's conversation with Washington, edited for length and clarity.

============================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

EarthBeat: I want to start with this: What do you think all Catholics need to understand about environmental justice and environmental racism?

Hood Washington: The thing all Catholics should understand about environmental justice and environmental racism is it's a right to life issue. Unequivocally.


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Sylvia Hood Washington (Provided photo)


This is not about politics. This is about the sanctity of life from conception. And I emphasize conception because I am unabashedly pro-life. I believe that life begins at conception. By extension, and just as importantly, as we conceive life, especially human beings, at issue here is the disruption of human integrity during conception. So as an environment epidemiologist, I understand in our training research that life is actually degraded in the womb from exposures to chemicals.

[Some people] will say the environmental justice movement began in 1978. I will argue with anyone that environmental justice and the concept of environmental health degradation began with Lois Gibbs in Love Canal, where people were having disrupted pregnancies and the development of cancer.

So if you want the integrity of life as God intended us to be, [that means] not with damaged DNA, not with a reduction in lifespan and not with a reduction in life quality by being exposed to toxic waste.


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Makielah Conway stacks up bottled water at her home in Flint, Michigan. "Whenever I use city water, I always pray," said the mother of three. (CNS/Tom Gennara, courtesy of FAITH magazine)


In recent years, the climate movement has brought the concepts of environmental justice and environmental racism more into the mainstream. This year, COVID-19 has brought more attention to existing health disparities between different racial groups. And in recent weeks, the country has been grappling with systemic racism and violence against people of color. As someone who has studied and worked on these issues for decades, what do you make of this moment?

I'm going to give you a specific example. Flint, Michigan, was in the news when Laudato Si' emerged. I am appointed by the governor of Illinois as an environmental justice commissioner for the state of Illinois, and I'm the Illinois EPA elected co-chair of the environmental justice advisory group. We know that lead exposures in the womb actually change the brain of children, creating learning disabilities. There used to be a statistic that something like some 30% of all incarcerated individuals had been exposed to lead.

[...]


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Protest about the Love Canal contamination by a resident, 1978. (Wikimedia Commons/Environmental Protection Agency)


[...]

You mentioned Laudato Si'. How do you think that ties into environmental racism and environmental justice?

I was flabbergasted when I read Laudato Si'. I love Pope Francis and I love the fact that he took all those researchers and scholars and brought that together because I have never read in my life as a historian and scientist someone who could weave a narrative about how we are changing all of God's creation. Laudato Si' is not just about solar panels. He is talking about the integrity of all life, and how the integrity of all life is compromised by our actions. If you cannot grasp the fact that what we do on an individual basis will have actual life changing consequences for those who are different from us, and those we perceive as less, then we have missed the boat in terms of our catechesis.

[...]

At the U.S. bishops' conference fall assembly in 2019, then-president Cardinal Daniel DiNardo said during a press conference that climate change is not yet an "urgent" issue for the conference. From your perspective as someone who has studied this and someone who has been impacted, what would you say to bishops who don't consider climate change and environmental justice top priorities for the church in this country?

I would say, Please invite Catholic scholars like myself into a room and have a discussion. I think there has been, at least how environmental issues have been communicated in the media, a decoupling of the narrative from life issues. They'll talk about social equity. They'll talk about economic imparity. But the bishops need to understand that the science of climate change and the science of environmental pollution are sciences that deal with the integrity of human life. If you are pro-life, then you would want every human being to have that ability to be born as God's creation.

We do want to save babies. But I say that to you, that if you do not make climate change a priority, then that non-action will leave millions who are going to die and be compromised in the womb. We saw that with the Zika virus. It's going to cause deformities. It's going to cause spontaneous abortions. It's going to cause deaths from heat waves. And for those individuals living in urban environments with heat island effect: It's death. And by not addressing it, we are contributing or turning away from our fellow man dying.

Climate change is not about solar panels. I think that's great. But for me, as an epidemiologist and a Catholic, it's about saving lives from conception to natural death.


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Union Camp Chemical Plant in Savannah, Georgia, 1973. (Wikimedia Commons/Environmental Protection Agency/Paul Conklin)


[...]


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Lessons from a hotter planet: Things escalate quickly [Interview, In-Depth]
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A glacier lagoon is seen in southern Iceland in July 2017. (CNS/Thomson Reuters Foundation/Thin Lei Win)


This story, originally published by Inside Climate News, is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration committed to strengthening coverage of the climate story.

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The story of our warming planet can be told by degrees. The global thermostat has gone up 1 degree Celsius since the Industrial Revolution, and rivers of meltwater are now coursing off Greenland's glaciers. Two degrees could mean crop failures and 500,000 deaths from malnutrition a year. Three degrees would be a hotter world than our species has ever experienced: The last time the temperatures rose that high was 2 million years before the evolution of homo sapiens.

Creep up another 2 degrees, and it could lead to the greatest mass extinction in earth's history. To paraphrase Ron Burgundy, things escalate quickly. If you are like most people, you have a sense that climate change is bad, but would be hard-pressed to explain the exact consequences of each additional degree of heat. A few degrees of warming doesn't sound that bad, maybe no more dangerous than nudging up your thermostat. So at what point do sweaty summers and mild winters turn into extinction and the collapse of civilization?

A new book fills that knowledge gap: Our Final Warning: Six Degrees of Climate Emergency by Mark Lynas, an influential environmentalist in England. Lynas is known for his ability to spin stultifying scientific evidence into compelling prose and for conducting long-simmering public debates with other public intellectuals. Back in 2007, Lynas published another book, Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, but in the intervening years the climate changed so rapidly that he decided it needed not just an update, but a top-to-bottom rewrite.


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As of 2015, a world warmed by 1 degree is reality, not a speculative future. Sea levels have climbed 6 centimeters, and evidence that fossil-fuel emissions are amplifying hurricanes has solidified. There's so much new evidence that Lynas had to start over and write an entirely new book built on the same structure as the old one.

Lynas recently spoke with Grist about how much has changed in the last 15 years, how the COVID 19 pandemic resembles climate change, and how he manages to live happily while carrying the knowledge of looming doom.

======================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

Grist: There was a similar magazine piece to your book that got a lot of attention in the States by David Wallace Wells, which came under criticism for conflating the worst-case scenarios with the likeliest future. How did you deal with the tension between telling a gripping story and being rigorous about facts?

Lynas: The beauty of using 6 degrees of warming as a framing is you can have it both ways. It's a grippingly terrifying story because you've got a strong narrative going from the relatively moderate 1-degree world up to the utterly terrifying 6-degree world, and you can read it almost like a novel as those worlds unfold. I'm not saying that we will ever see 6 degrees; that's a product of decisions we have yet to make. I just think it's useful to get outside these polarized debates about what the future will bring, because that's not actually the question. The question is: What will happen if we do X? I don't have to address the question of how likely it is, that's a collective decision humanity will make over the next few decades.

One of the scariest things you mention is the positive feedbacks, where, for instance, a world with 4 degrees of warming melts the Arctic permafrost, which could release enough methane to bump us up to 5 degrees.

Yeah, and that's probably what David Wallace Wells would point to. Even if we are not going to quadruple our coal consumption, we still face the possibility of crossing these tipping points which make the global heating process unstoppable. Perhaps I'm more nuanced on that than I was in the first book: Some people thought that it was saying that if we crossed 2 degrees it would trigger a tipping point which would get you to 3, and then a tipping point which takes you to 4 like a line of dominoes. It's not quite like that because we are not sure where the tipping points are, and because it takes time for them to play out. That Arctic permafrost is meters thick, it takes decades to melt, rot, and hit the atmosphere, and then decades more for that to turn into warming and then melt more permafrost.

On a lot of these tipping points, we are talking about centuries. For instance, I think we have already crossed the tipping point where the melting of Greenland has become irreversible, but it will still take centuries to unfold.

[...]


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What about the scenarios that might not lead to the collapse of civilization but that would create mass suffering among people without access to air conditioning in, say, South Asia?

The date at which we make parts of the world uninhabitable because of extreme heat keeps coming forward. The first research on this put that date within a 5-degree scenario. It's now between 3 and 4 degrees. We've already been close to conditions that make it lethal to stay outside in some parts of the Persian Gulf -- just about touched it for a few hours. It wasn't supposed to happen for another 2 or 3 degrees. That suggests it's going to come more quickly. In terms of human consequences, the two issues that stand out are extreme heat and food production. I'm not confident that we can adapt the world's breadbaskets to survive even 2 degrees warming.

[...]

How does this grim knowledge make you feel day to day? Does it make you depressed, energized, or what?

The pandemic is like climate change on warp speed. The cause and effect are much more closely linked.

The lockdown is also a bit like the need to change our lifestyles to reduce carbon. So we stopped the flying, we change our diets, we make the sacrifices needed to bend the [carbon] curve. And then in the longer term, you've got the prospect of a vaccine. The climate parallel is technology substitution: You can replace dirty power with clean power, you can find ways to do zero-carbon travel. Those all take time, so in the short term, yes, we need to stop flying, but you can't maintain lockdown forever, either for this virus, or for climate change.

It sounds like you see both a need to live more simply, and embrace technology?

Well, the living simply thing isn't going to work in the long run. The part of the world that is living simply, namely sub-Saharan Africa and other places way below the poverty line, don't want to stay in that condition. It's not a viable argument in a practical or even moral sense. Yes, it's a lifestyle choice for certain people, but to pretend even for an instant that it's a climate solution is insane.

Wait, but you just mentioned flying less, don't you think the richer world must make sacrifices?

I do, but only in the short term. Remember you can only sustain things by moral exhortation for a short period of time, and then people tire of it and move on. Like with the lockdowns, it's a matter of months really. I think the same thing will apply to climate. Look, there are technologies available that would allow us to decarbonize and continue to grow prosperity, especially in the developing world.

[...]


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US bishops' anti-poverty program puts Laudato Si' into action with $500,000 grant
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Kaleb Cassel, 13, removes belongings from a destroyed market Oct. 11, 2018, after Hurricane Michael swept through Panama City, Florida. The Category 4 storm was the most powerful storm to hit the continental United States in decades, turning homes into piles of lumber and flooding subdivisions. (CNS/Reuters/Jonathan Bachman)


The U.S. bishops' anti-poverty arm awarded a $500,000 grant to act on Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" by helping low-income communities in the South cope with and overcome the impacts of climate change.

The Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD), the domestic anti-poverty program of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, announced July 22 it had approved a $500,000 national grant to assist low-income people in the Southeast "to overcome the impacts and address the root causes of climate change" over the course of the next five years.

The grant project, titled "Caring for Creation, Caring for Community," was awarded to the Direct Action and Research Training Center (DART), a Miami-based network of 23 faith-based grassroots community organizations that work on local justice issues in nine states.

Ralph McCloud, CCHD director, told EarthBeat that the grant connects two important church documents -- Francis' 2015 encyclical Laudato Si' and the U.S. bishops' 2018 pastoral letter against racism, "Open Wide Our Hearts" -- by examining and seeking solutions to the disproportionate ways climate change impacts low-income and minority people in America.

"This is a way to give amplification to the voices of those communities," he said.

As cities spend more money to mitigate and adapt to impacts of climate change, poor and marginalized communities are often an afterthought, if a thought at all, said John Aeschbury, DART's executive director. "And yet those communities are often impacted most severely."

[...]

In a statement, Bishop David O'Connell, chairman of the bishops' CCHD subcommittee, said they were "pleased to support this strategic national effort to put Laudato Si' in action."

"The adverse effects of climate change devastate poor communities around the country, and with this project, CCHD and DART will seek to live out the call of Pope Francis to respond to 'the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor,' " said O'Connell, an auxiliary bishop in the Los Angeles Archdiocese.

McCloud added the work done by DART could create a template to be used in other parts of the country, as well.

The grant, part of Catholic Campaign for Human Development's strategic national grant program, is its latest effort to assist communities facing environmental problems like air and water pollution, lack of access to healthy food, and hazards brought by extractive and chemical industries. Over the years, the organization has invested $6.6 million in 80 organizations across 28 states and 42 dioceses to help communities address local issues related to the environment, according to a summary from the bishops' conference on its response in the five years since the release of Laudato Si'.


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Mobile homes and farmworker housing in Immokalee, Florida, are seen flooded Sept. 12, 2017, after Hurricane Irma swept up through Florida, leaving many in Southwest Florida without housing. (CNS/Tom Tracy)


Also on Wednesday, the Catholic Campaign for Human Development awarded a separate $300,000 grant to provide emergency assistance for low-income Native American households across the country struggling because of the coronavirus pandemic.

The grant was given to the Native Community Development Financial Institutions Network. The organization, consisting of 60 community financial institutions in 27 states, provides access to capital and credit to Native American businesses and economically disadvantaged households. The grant is expected to help Native American communities deal with the economic fallout of the pandemic, which has struck Native Americans especially hard.

"Over the last several months we have seen the coronavirus pandemic disproportionately impact Native American communities throughout the United States," O'Connell said. "This strategic national grant will provide vital assistance to the Native CFDI Network as they continue their important work supporting and empowering Native American families and communities."


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Theologian praises Ireland's green new deal but questions: Will it happen? [In-Depth]
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A wind turbine stands over in Burtonport, County Donegal, Ireland, in 2014. (Wikimedia Commons/Jakub Michankow)


Fr. Dermot Lane says bishops must provide environmental leadership -- in both Ireland and the US


DUBLIN -- Irish theologian Fr. Dermot Lane, author of a new book on integral ecology, welcomes the environmental policies outlined by the newly formed Irish government. But he questions whether the coalition will be able to deliver on its "ambitious targets."

Lane is the retired president of Mater Dei Institute of Education at Dublin City University. His new book, Theology and Ecology in Dialogue: The Wisdom of Laudato Si', is set to be published in the fall by Paulist Press in New York.

The new government's so-called Program for Government, "Our Shared Future," shows the Green Party's influence on its two bigger coalition partners, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. These include:
  • Climate action measures to reduce Ireland's greenhouse gas emissions by an average of 7% annually;
  • A major investment of 360 million euros (about $408 million) in walking and cycling infrastructure;
  • A pledge that all future capital spending on transport infrastructure will be split two to one in favor of public transport over roads;
  • A ban on further gas exploration in the waters off Ireland;
  • A ban on the importation of fracked gas.
The new government's three parties managed to conclude a deal and form a government four months after the Feb. 8 general election.


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Fr. Dermot Lane (Provided photo)


Speaking to EarthBeat in a telephone interview, Lane said successive Irish governments had "kicked the can down the road for far too long" on issues like carbon emissions, fracked gas, clean technology and transport. But he is concerned that the government's environmental promises will either not be fully implemented or may fall by the wayside at budget time.

"I was encouraged by what the Green Party achieved, but the big question is how will they deliver on this economically," Lane said, noting that the proposed environmental reforms will place "extraordinary demands" on the budget as the country grapples with the financial fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He said he welcomed the proposal for a Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity in the program for government. But he is well-aware that the farming community may feel threatened by this. Ireland's agri-food sector is one of the most important indigenous manufacturing sectors, accounting for 8.5% of national employment and 9.8% of exports, mainly beef and dairy products.

The farming community has, Lane believes, "a very important role to play. There are big scientific questions about how to change agricultural practices to reduce methane gases. It can be done by changing the feed and the quality of the grass."

In a country where farming is still a major player in the economy and farmers still make a major contribution to the social fabric, Lane emphasized that they must not be "made the scapegoat."

The real challenge for the government, he suggested, is "not to create conflict with the farming community but to support them in changing their way of farming and in particular the intensity of their farming."


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Baling silage on a farm near Maree, County Galway, Ireland (Wikimedia Commons/Eoin Gardiner)


With the country still on something of a green wave, Lane said he believes the Irish bishops should "seize the moment" to promote Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" and its teachings on care for the Earth. "We have now a growing awareness of the importance of climate change in Ireland with the formation of a new government with a strong Green presence. We would be pushing an open door!"

He also sees a role for the bishops in making sure that the commitments and the responsibilities entered into by the government are honored and kept. He said discourse around climate change must be followed by action: "The encyclical is so strong on the importance of ecological conversion. It requires a shift in everybody's lifestyle."

But he said the bishops in Ireland have failed to provide sufficient leadership on the climate crisis.

[...]


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A boardwalk tracks through a variety of habitats in the nature reserve of Fenor Bog in County Waterford, Ireland. (Wikimedia Commons/Brendan Tobin)


[...]

The Irish bishops are not the only bishops with whom Lane expresses disappointment. He believes the Anglophone church has a problem with climate denial and that the bishops in the United States have failed to speak with one voice on the issue.

"The Catholic Church in America is very polarized and there are a lot of very conservative Catholics who don't want to know about it," he said. "The petrochemical industry is massive. There are lots of vested interests who are denying climate change and that has seeped into a mindset of a lot of Catholics and many U.S. bishops."

He is also critical of the U.S. bishops for failing to see that climate change is a pro-life issue. "It is about life of the human being and it is about life of other species within the natural world. If half the ardor and energy that goes into the abortion debate went into climate change, they might begin to have an impact."

[...]


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Fr. John Garvey, left, and Fr. Dermot Lane, right, take part in a climate demonstration in San Francisco during Lane's sabbatical 2018-19 at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley. (Provided photo)


[...]


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Climate activists demonstrate on a street in the city of Galway, Ireland, in an undated file photo. (Dreamstime/Karlo Curis)


He described the central theme of his book as integral ecology.

"If you don't get what integral ecology means, all the rest of what I have said won't fit into place," he said. "Integral ecology is an innocent-sounding concept, but it has radical implications for ethics and theology. It is about an interdisciplinary approach to climate change, recognizing that everything is interrelated and interconnected and interdependent.

"That is the mantra running through my book and running through Laudato Si'. If you get that, you begin to realize that the COVID crisis is one more very sad, very traumatic expression of climate change; then you begin to sit up and realize -- this is a challenge for all of us."

Another mantra of the encyclical and his book is the recognition that it is the poor who have contributed the least to climate change and who are suffering the most.

"We must hear the cry of the poor and the cry of the Earth," Lane said "Pope Francis is very clear, these are not two crises; they are one and the same crisis manifesting themselves in different ways. Care for our common home is not an option, it is not an add-on, it is not something secondary -- it is at the heart of Christian experience and if our faith is not informed by that, then it is a defective faith."


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Brazil's traditional fishing communities under attack during COVID-19 pandemic [In-Depth]
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Artisanal fisherman in Pirapora, River São Francisco in Brazil. (Credit: Acervo Nuhicreiepha/ Instituto Estadual do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico de Minhas Gerais)


SÃO PAULO -- In the past few months, there has been an escalation in the number of incursions of territories traditionally occupied by artisanal fishing communities in Brazil, according to the Bishops' Conference's Fishermen Pastoral Council (CPP).

Since the COVID-19 pandemic started, the South American country has seen a surge of land conflicts in natural reservations and rural areas. Indigenous peoples, peasants, and quilombolas (the descendants of African slaves who fled captivity in colonial and imperial times and settled in the countryside) have been victimized by ranchers who want to expand their farming areas, as well as illegal miners and loggers.

Catholic activists have denounced the government for reducing the number of monitoring operations to prevent illegal activities.

"The pandemic is currently growing in Brazil's countryside. Along with the virus, land conflicts have increased too. The partial suspension of the work in many governmental agencies [due to the pandemic] made the invaders' situation easier. We've been receiving several reports on such occurrences involving artisanal fishermen," Ormezita Barbosa, CPP's executive secretary, told Crux.

Artisanal fishing is conducted by individuals and families, often members of traditional communities using methods handed down generation to generation. Several areas where it is practiced are protected under Brazilian law.

Both coastal and riverside communities have been threatened by outsiders or impeded to work properly. In Bahia State, where vast seaside territories have huge touristic and fishing potentials, the area of the artisanal fishermen community of Conceição de Salinas, near the state capital Salvador, has been partially taken over by a real estate venture.


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Artisanal fisher community in Pirapora, River São Francisco in Brazil. (Credit: Acervo Nuhicreiepha/ Instituto Estadual do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico de Minhas Gerais)


"It occupies 60 percent of our traditional land, including forest areas. The local authorities have been complicit in its development. At this point, they're building houses at full throttle," community leader Elionice Sacramento told Crux.

Conceição de Salinas, one of the major fishing zones in the region, is a quilombola community. Its traditional territory hasn't been fully recognized by the federal government yet -- land grants in such cases involve anthropological studies and several legal requirements that usually take many years to complete.

Although the community's right over the area isn't definitive, the certification already obtained should guarantee that nobody would feel entitled to invade it. But what really happens is the legal precariousness makes the community vulnerable to occupations and threats.

COVID-19 has brought additional problems.

[...]


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An artisanal fisherman in Pirapora, River São Francisco in Brazil. (Credit: Acervo Nuhicreiepha/ Instituto Estadual do Patrimônio Histórico e Artístico de Minhas Gerais)


[...]


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'We will live and die with you,' cardinal tells virtual Amazon assembly [In-Depth]
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Aymara women take part in a July 14, 2020, demonstration in La Paz, Bolivia, called by Bolivian workers unions demanding the economic reactivation of their sectors during the coronavirus pandemic. Church leaders sent a strong message of support to an unprecedented virtual assembly of more than 3,000 indigenous leaders, small farmers, environmental campaigners and women in the Amazon region affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Credit: David Mercado/Reuters via CNS)


Church leaders sent a strong message of support to an unprecedented virtual assembly of more than 3,000 indigenous leaders, small farmers, environmental campaigners and women from the nine countries of the Amazon region seriously affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The church is the ally of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and we will live and die with you, if necessary," Cardinal Pedro Barreto of Huancayo, Peru, vice president of the Pan-Amazonian Church Network, told participants. Speaking from Huancayo via Zoom, the cardinal reminded the participants that the assembly had the support of Pope Francis and the whole church.

"Rome has been Amazonified and the Amazon region is no longer invisible," the cardinal said, referring to the October 2019 Synod of Bishops for the Amazon held in the Vatican, which brought together church and lay representatives from all nine countries. The synod process produced an apostolic exhortation and a recently created Amazonian ecclesial conference, part of the Latin American bishops' conference.

The virtual assembly July 18-19 replaced the physical meeting of the Pan-Amazon Social Forum, which was to be held in Mocoa, Colombia, and has been postponed several times due to the pandemic. The Pan-Amazonian Church Network, or REPAM, participated in the organization of the virtual gathering, along with the Coordination of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin.


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People take part in a July 14, 2020, demonstration in La Paz, Bolivia, called by Bolivian workers unions demanding the economic reactivation of their sectors during the coronavirus pandemic. (Credit: David Mercado/Reuters via CNS)


For two days, representatives of 540 groups from Brazil, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia, Peru, Venezuela, Suriname, Guyana and French Guyana presented the situation in their countries. Some provided videos. Many of the grassroots members clearly were not accustomed to Zoom technology, with some forgetting to unmute their microphones or start their videos. Sometimes, the connections were bad, and sound was poor.

But the message from the groups could be summed up in the words of indigenous leader Luz Mery Panche of San Vicente, Caqueta, Colombia: "The pandemic is telling us that the model imposed upon us has failed. As humanity, we must stop and think if we want to continue to exist on this planet, or if we want to destroy it. This is not a fight between left and right -- it is a struggle for defense of territory and for life."

The assembly's convocation document set out the ills that are destroying the Amazon and its peoples: ecocide, as fragile ecosystems are destroyed by legal mining projects and environmentally destructive illegal artisanal mining; the destruction of the rainforest to produce monocultures and genetically modified crops and raise cattle for export abroad; massive forest fires and projects such as highways and hydroelectric projects. It also denounced the ethnocide and genocide of the region's indigenous peoples, who are uprooted from their environmentally sustainable way of life by such projects on their lands.

[...]


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Vanderlecia Ortega dos Santos embraces her niece outside their home in Manaus, Brazil, May 7, 2020. (Credit: Bruno Kelly/Reuters via CNS)


In his opening address to the assembly, Barreto referred to the Amazon as the lungs of the planet. He drew a parallel between the attack of the coronavirus on the lungs of those infected and the ongoing attack on the lungs of the planet.

"The virus gets into our lungs and suffocates and kills us. In the history of humanity, the virus of greed and extractivism and a lack of respect for human beings has corroded the Amazon and nature and destroyed by genocide the Amazon culture and original peoples," he said.

But, the cardinal added, the struggle of the people of the Amazon region brings hope to humanity.

"Life is much stronger than the virus," the cardinal said.

Participants in the virtual assembly gave presentations from each country detailing how the pandemic has affected them.

[...]


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Demonstrators hold a cross during a July 19, 2020, protest in Brasilia, Brazil, concerning governmental action during the coronavirus pandemic. (Credit: Adriano Machado/Reuters via CNS)


Julio Lopez of the National Organization of Indigenous Peoples of Colombia called on the church to work with the organizations of the indigenous peoples of the Amazon and to remember that the region is more than trees and oxygen.

"Everyone who wants to work to protect the Amazon should start by working with us, the original inhabitants of the region. We have the wisdom of harmony between nature and humanity to offer to the world," he said.


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Brazilian Church says 'Amazonize yourself' as region faces COVID-19, deforestation [In-Depth]
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In this May 22, 2014 file photo, a small boat navigates on the Solimoes River near Manaus, Brazil. (Credit: Felipe Dana/AP)


SÃO PAULO -- As deforestation increases in the Amazon and the COVID-19 coronavirus spreads throughout the region, the Brazilian Church has decided to create a campaign to raise awareness of the need to stop the destruction of the rainforest and its peoples.

Amazoniza-te -- Amazonize yourself -- is focused on dialogue with broader segments of the Brazilian society and with the international community, organizers said.

The initiative is part of the Church's effort to call attention to the Amazon, which began with the preparatory works for the Synod for the Pan-Amazon region, held in Rome in October of 2019.

Recently, members of the Brazilian clergy were involved in the organization of the First Global Assembly for the Amazon July 18-19 and defined a set of actions to fight the coronavirus and the growing environmental destruction.

"The Amazonian bishops felt the need to establish a dialogue not only with their customary public, but to society as a whole. That's why we decided to ally with scholars, traditional peoples and artists," Father Dario Bossi, one of the campaign organizers, told Crux.

[...]

The initiative includes a website (amazonizate.org) and the production of several short clips in which indigenous and other traditional groups, scholars, members of the clergy, and famous Brazilian artists briefly discuss the region's problems.

In the first video, indigenous leaders denounce wildfires and deforestation in their reservations. At the end, the Brazilian film actor and director Wagner Moura appears saying that the coronavirus pandemic "can't be disconnected" from the environmental issues.

"Both things are completely connected. If there's a moment in history when it's important to strongly engage in this fight, [this moment] is now," he said in the video.

During the virtual conference for the campaign launching on July 27, REPAM's executive director Sister Maria Irene Lopes reiterated that the initiative is based on the great vulnerability of the indigenous peoples to the coronavirus. "[This is major problem, especially if we consider] the weakness of the healthcare services and structure in the region's states and cities," she said.

Another motivation for the campaign, she continued, is the "accelerated destruction of the biome due to the uncontrolled increase of deforestation, wildfires, invasion of indigenous and other traditional communities' territories, spoliation of lands, mining and panning, cattle raising, monoculture growing, and the effects of hydroelectric plants on riverside communities."

Lopes argued that there's a "systemic violation of the environmental legislation" and that the governmental agencies in charge of monitoring and protecting natural reservations are being "dismantled."

"[There's] an intentional governmental operation to deregulate and illegally amplify the activities of mining companies, agribusiness, logger companies, and livestock raising in the region," she claimed, referring to President Jair Bolsonaro's anti-environmental platform.

[...]


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Catholic member of India's Tribal community named to UN climate change group [In-Depth]
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Archana Soreng has been named by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to a newly established Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change. (Credit: Goretti Xalxo/Courtesy to Crux)


MUMBAI, India -- A Catholic member of India's marginalized Tribal community has been named to a new United Nations advisory group providing perspectives and solutions to tackle the worsening climate crisis.

Archana Soreng, from Sundergarh in India's Odisha state, and six other young climate activists from around the world who have been named by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to a newly established Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change.

"We are proud of Ms. Archana Soreng and of the great contribution she makes to this prime global concern and we rejoice at the greater role bestowed upon her of helping preserve our common home by advising and guiding the United Nations, which are committed to this cause," said Goa and Daman Archbishop Filipe Neri Ferrão, the president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India, the national body of the 192 Latin rite bishops in the country.

Soreng studied regulatory governance from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) Mumbai and is the former president of the TISS Students Union. She is also the former National Convenor of Tribal Commission at Adivasi Yuva Chetna Manch, All India Catholic University Federation (AICUF).

After the appointment, Soreng told Crux her lived experience and education have enable her to "understand the role of indigenous communities in combating the climate crisis, and I feel it is us youth who have to be the front-liners for climate action."


UN Secretary-General launches his Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change [YouTube: 1 min]
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When making the announcement, Guterres said young people have been on the "front lines of climate action, showing us what bold leadership looks like."

"We are in a climate emergency. We do not have the luxury of time," he said. "We need urgent action now -- to recover better from COVID-19, to confront injustice and inequality and address climate disruption."

India's Tribal community are the indigenous people of the country, and have long faced discrimination and social exclusion similar to that faced by Dalits, the low-caste Hindus formerly known as the "Untouchables." Soreng belongs to the Khadia Tribe.

She told Crux indigenous communities have been protecting their habitats using their traditional knowledge and practices. She is in Odisha working as a research officer for Vasundhara Odisha, which is advocating for natural resource governance and tribal rights in the fight against climate change.

"I have been working on documentation preservation and promotion of traditional knowledge and practices of indigenous communities and their role in combating the climate crisis," she told Crux.

[...]


United Nations in India @UNinIndia | Twitter
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[...]

Archbishop John Barwa of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar has known the Soreng family for years, having studied with her uncle at the seminary.


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Archbishop John Barwa of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar and Archana Soreng. (Credit: Father Dibya Parichha, Director of the archdiocesan Justice and Peace Commission/Courtesy to Crux)


"She is very good practicing and living-faith Catholic. She lives an exemplary life as a Catholic and is a witness of her faith; a humble person who is very passionate about indigenous issues, the environment and climate change," he said.

The archbishop said Soreng will use her new role to promote environmental values.

"She is a value promoter person. She has lived in these values from childhood and lived in this practical way with her family and community. She wants to promote these values," Barwa continued.

The archbishop said her appointment "is a moment of pride for the Catholic community of Odisha and India."

"As a student she has shown leadership in the given situation. I am hopeful she will do well taking Indian climate issues at UN level. I wish all the success as a promoter of the traditional knowledge and practices and contribute to the global efforts on climate change," Barwa said.

The other members of the Youth Advisory Group on Climate Change are climate activist Nisreen Elsaim of Sudan; Fiji's Ernest Gibson, the co-coordinator for 350 Fiji, a regional youth-led climate change network; Vladislav Kaim, an economist from Moldova committed to ensuring green and decent jobs for youth; Sophia Kianni, an American who has helped organize nationwide strikes and is the founder of Climate Cardinals, an international nonprofit working to translate climate information into over 100 languages; Nathan Metenier of France, who is the founder and coordinator of Generation Climate Europe and spokesperson for Youth and Environment Europe; and Paloma Costa of Brazil, a lawyer and human rights activist who has coordinated youth delegations to several climate conferences.

In a statement, the UN said the members of the committee "represent the diverse voices of young people from all regions as well as small island states."

[...]


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Pope Francis discusses climate crisis with well-known Italian journalist
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Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari, co-founder and former editor of La Repubblica, speaks on Italian television Feb. 1, 2015 (CNS photo/Cristiano Minichiello, AFG).


Pope Francis discussed the grave ecological crisis facing humanity with the well-known Italian journalist, Eugenio Scalfari, co-founder of the influential Italian daily, La Repubblica, in an hour-long conversation on July 30, at Santa Marta, the Vatican guesthouse where Francis lives.

The 96-year old Mr. Scalfari, an atheist, broke the news in an article on La Repubblica, Aug. 2, under the headline "Pope Francis and the modern society." In it, he recalled that they have met many times over the years since Francis was elected pope on March 13, 2013 and have exchanged correspondence over the years since then. "We are truly friends," he states, and reports that at this new meeting "we could not but embrace physically and mentally."

The only reports of Mr. Scalfari's long conversations with Francis have come from the elderly journalist, who does not record or take notes.

This time, he said, they spoke first about modern society, which began with the period of the Enlightenment, and how the church has to come to terms with the changes in society, as the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) made clear. He said Francis told him that the church has not yet fully implemented that council, and saw his own task as continuing that work.

[...]

... [T]he main part of the article reflects more or less faithfully what Francis wrote in his 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si', and the ecological crisis, including climate change, that is threatening the future of humanity, and the fact that so many people are living in poverty across the globe.

In today's article, Mr.Scalfari said they commented on "the ageing of the sun" -- something discovered by scientists -- and discussed especially the duty of people to use responsibly the goods of the earth and to recognize and respect every person and all living creatures. He reported that he and the pope "agreed" that there cannot be "a genuine and lasting solution to the challenge of the ecological crisis and climate change unless it is a joint and collective response, and a shared responsibility."

Quoting from memory, he said Pope Francis told him, "let us remember the places that are full of bio-diversity -- the Amazon and Congo basin rainforests with their great aquifers, and the great importance of these for the entire planet and for the future of humanity." He recalled that the pope spoke of how the oceans and rivers are changing, and said "the technicians [scientists] are concerned about them, but politics [the political world] is focused on other problems." He quoted Francis as saying that "all the Christian communities have an important role to play in educating people about this."

He concluded by saying that he promised the pope that he would do what he could to help him in this task.


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Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return

Nearly 40 years of satellite data from Greenland shows that glaciers on the island have shrunk so much that even if global warming were to stop today, the ice sheet would continue shrinking.

The finding, published today, Aug. 13, in the journal Nature Communications Earth and Environment, means that Greenland's glaciers have passed a tipping point of sorts, where the snowfall that replenishes the ice sheet each year cannot keep up with the ice that is flowing into the ocean from glaciers.
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Solar mandates in India's sacred groves [In-Depth]
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In India's Thar Desert, small patches of forested landscape, known as orans, are considered sacred by local communities. Plans for solar development in the area threaten the orans, which have stood for hundreds of years. (Wikimedia Commons/Khalid Majeed Afridi)


As India moves toward ambitious climate goals, it is trampling on sacred groves in desert ecosystems.


Editor's note: This story originally appeared on AGU's Eos Magazine. It is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalistic collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

======================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================================

India has an ambitious target to generate 175 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2022. Lands chosen to generate the solar component of this energy goal include the Thar Desert, a huge ecosystem in northwest India mostly located in the state of Rajasthan.

Like many deserts, the Thar is often inaccurately described as "barren" or a "wasteland" instead of a productive ecosystem with thriving niches. Among other habitats, the Thar is dotted by orans, small patches of forested landscape.

For generations, local communities have considered orans sacred groves. Orans usually host temples with local deities and are also used as grazing lands, especially during the dry months between April and June and October and December.


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Earlier this summer, demolition and construction equipment was brought in to cut down trees and make way for high-tension power transmission lines in a 9,634-hectare (23,806 acres) oran in a village called Sanwtha.

There are about eight villages around the oran, each with about 50–60 people, most of whom are herders. Locals have honored the oran as sacred for at least 600 years, and during this time, they have never cut any trees or tilled the land, only allowing their herds to graze. Today, an estimated 5,000 camels and more than 200,000 goats and sheep depend on the oran for grazing.

The power lines will connect to a 700-megawatt grid service station (GSS) located just a few meters outside the oran. The station already supports windmills installed in the area, explained Parth Jagani of the Ecology, Rural Development and Sustainability (ERDS) Foundation, a Rajasthan-based conservation organization.

The GSS will also support a large solar park. Although the park will be installed outside the oran, many residents worry it is still a threat.

"Even today they are cutting down trees and plants to install power lines in a few areas inside the oran," explained Sumer Singh, a herder from Sanwtha.

[...]

When asked about the ill effects of high-power transmission lines on local wildlife, Tulasa Ram, a tehsildar (administrative official) of the Fategarh area that comprises Sanwtha, dismissed such concerns. He said "[power] lines have to be placed if electricity has to be produced ... accidents happen on roads too ... animals die but we cannot stop developmental work because of this."

Power Struggle

Currently, Bhadla Solar Park near Jodhpur, Rajasthan, is India's largest solar facility, with an installed capacity of 2.25 gigawatts. "What will come up near [the Sanwtha oran] is very likely bigger than [Bhadla]," explained Sumit Dookia, a wildlife biologist at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in New Delhi and scientific adviser to the ERDS Foundation.

The dilemma faced by Indian villages over solar power echoes a similar conflict over wind power. Dookia noted that when the state government started building wind energy parks back in 2001, villagers started demanding that their lands be saved.

[...]

In 2018, the Supreme Court of India ordered that sacred groves of Rajasthan are to be treated as "deemed forests." Deemed forests, which account for about 1% of land in India, are tracts of land (which may include deserts and grasslands) that have not been officially recognized as federally or municipally protected forests in historic records. Designating the orans as deemed forests "is like the second layer of protection to the land," Dookia noted.

Nevertheless, power lines still cut through the orans. Additionally, nearby orans still held by the government "are being allotted to energy companies which are felling age-old trees, engaging in construction work, and damaging local ecology," Dookia said.

Villagers around the Sanwtha oran fear a similar outcome. "We want the land to be given back to us," Singh said.


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I am waiting for Antarctica to melt so I can move there and get in on the ground floor of a new nation/continent.
The Tank is gone and now so am I.
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Virginia shines as solar hot spot in Catholic Energies expansion [In-Depth]
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In July, a 421-kilowatt solar system was installed at St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, in Falls Church, Virginia. The rooftop solar array is projected to offset almost 90% of the parish's energy use and save it upwards of $1.3 million over 25 years. (Catholic Energies)


A quick scan of the parishes and groups partnering with Catholic Energies reveals a noticeable geographic pattern: Virginia is a growing hotbed of solar activity.

Last month, three parishes in the Arlington Diocese powered up new solar installations, each developed and financed through Catholic Energies, the burgeoning program of the Catholic Climate Covenant that helps church institutions find outside funding to take on energy initiatives without the initial burden of hefty upfront costs.

With the new installations, the parishes -- St. Anthony of Padua Catholic Church in Falls Church, St. Bernadette Catholic Church in Springfield and Nativity Catholic Church in Burke -- will collectively offset the carbon dioxide emissions produced by powering 3,500 homes for a year or burning 15,000 tons of coal. Just as attractive to their finance councils, the solar projects came at no cost and forecast sizeable savings.

At St. Anthony of Padua, the 421-kilowatt rooftop solar system -- the largest of the three parishes -- is expected to cover almost 90% of the parish's energy demand. The solar panels, along with LED lighting upgrades, are projected to save St. Anthony upwards of $1.3 million over the 25-year term of the power purchase agreement.

The rooftop panels at Nativity are part of several green initiatives under way at the parish. Its creation care ministry has also begun a community vegetable garden, and its school is developing an outdoor learning space with native plants and species. In bulletins this summer, the ministry team and pastor Fr. Robert Cilinski included reflections on "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home" to mark the fifth anniversary of Pope Francis' encyclical. While the panels will save the parish money -- more than $200,000 -- they also reflect Christian values to safeguard creation.

A quick scan of the parishes and groups partnering with Catholic Energies reveals a noticeable geographic pattern: Virginia is a growing hotbed of solar activity.

"Our solar panels are on the rooftop shouting the wisdom of Laudato Si', the social teaching of the church," Cilinski recently told the Arlington Catholic Herald, the diocesan newspaper.

With each Richmond parish, none paid any upfront costs, an arrangement made possible by Catholic Energies.

The program first works with groups to determine if solar is a fit, then seeks funding, primarily through power purchase agreements. In those deals, an outside investor finances the project and sets a fixed rate for energy usage, often lower than local utility rates, which is paid directly to the investor.

Since launching in fall 2017, Catholic Energies has completed 11 solar projects in the past 13 months. Eleven more are under contract and expected to be completed by the end of 2020. By then, the program will have footprints in eight states, along with Puerto Rico and Washington, D.C.

[...]


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Roanoke Catholic High School, in Roanoke, Virginia, installed 155 solar panels on its roof in June. The school, part of the Richmond Diocese, worked with Catholic Energies on the system, which is expected to save $250,000 in energy costs over 20 years. (Catholic Energies)


[...]

So why are Virginia parishes turning to solar?

Page Gravely, Catholic Energies executive vice president for client services, told EarthBeat the biggest factor has been support at the diocesan level. He said the leadership has recognized the economic benefit of reducing energy costs and also sees that adopting renewable energy can represent faith in action.

Catholic Energies worked with each diocese to streamline the process for evaluating whether solar might work and, if so, obtaining approval. The ultimate decision still rests with each individual parish, school or organization. In the Richmond Diocese, which spans three-fifths of the state, the chancery took the lead in creating a template power purchase agreement for interested parishes. After parish committees sign off on a project, it is presented to the diocesan building and renovation committee.

"I think that gave them all a lot of comfort, knowing that the diocese really stood behind them and supported it if they chose to do it. And that got a lot of parishes engaged with this at the same time," Gravely said.

Charles Mikell, real estate director for the Richmond Diocese, aims to get at least 30% of the 146 parishes running on solar power. At least 15 more parishes are exploring their options. He said the diocese sees the efforts as in line with Pope Francis' guidance urging the church to reduce its carbon footprint. But they also see savings in the numbers.

"If we can come up with a simple way and it costs the parishes almost nothing out of pocket, and they can save thousands and thousands of dollars a month, it's kind of a no-brainer," Mikell said.


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Solar panels sit on top of the roof at St. Bernadette Catholic Church, in Springfield, Virginia. The 248-kilowatt system was completed through the Catholic Energies program. (Catholic Energies)


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