Rich Heffern's blog

Climate change and the protection of creation will be the focus of a major campaign coordinated through the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change.

The Coalition plans to introduce an ambitious effort to reach all the country's 19,000 parishes through what is being called the Catholic Climate Covenant: The St. Francis Pledge to Protect Creation and the Poor. The covenant is an extension of efforts to more fully implement the U.S. bishops' statement on climate change.

Executive director of the Coalition, Daniel Misleh, disclosed campaign plans Oct. 25 in an address to the 39th Annual Peace and Justice Awards Dinner of the Commission on Catholic Community Action of the Cleveland diocese.

The covenant, according to the coalition's online fall update, will be the campaign's cornerstone. It will "offer a distinctively Catholic perspective on global climate change." It will also invite people to "deeper prayer, more learning and sincere action in this time of environmental uncertainty and challenge."

Let the water run. Throw those recyclable milk jugs in the trash. And drive that 15-year-old gas-guzzling truck all over town.

Not interested? That’s okay but just don’t go feeling superior about it.

A biting essay in Orion (July-Aug. 2009), written by Derrick Jensen, rails against “simple living as a political act.” The radical environmentalist argues that focusing on our personal choices as a salve for eco-destruction is not only misguided, but also ineffective.

“Would any sane person think Dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday . . . or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the voting rights act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal ‘solutions’?”

This past week, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee passed their version of a climate and energy bill, theirs called Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733). The bill and the process took a great deal of flak and revealed how partisan this issue has become. In our estimation, this bill made some substantial progress in emission reductions of greenhouse gases and the inclusion of adaptation funding for poor people here at home and around the world. The poor and vulnerable will be hit first and worst by the negative impacts of climate change.

It is crucial to show that there is support for a final bill to come out of the Senate so that the momentum continues as negotiators head to Copenhagen for the upcoming international gathering on climate change. Learn more about Climate & Energy legislation and advocacy at the National Catholic Rural Life Conference website.

The late Fr. Thomas Berry, a leader in the eco-spirituality movement, styled himself a "geologian" rather than a theologian. This means Berry built his images of God and his spirituality from the ground up rather than from the top down.

When asked what was the one most important element of a practical, everyday spirituality of living, he answered with an intriguing word: "Enchantment."

In order to engage with an active spirituality that makes sense, that works and is effective for our times, Berry urges the awakening of an energetic sense of awe and wonder within us. Enchantment comes as we see the whole universe, and especially the Earth that gave us birth, as vast, sacred mysteries.

Four hundred years after it put astronomer Galileo under house arrest for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial life and its implications, if discovered, for the Catholic church.

"The questions of life's origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in our universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration," said Jesuit Fr. Jose Gabriel Funes, director of the Vatican Observatory. Funes presented the results Nov. 10 of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the new field of astrobiology -- the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the universe. See Catholic News Service story

In a set of recent experiments, researchers at the University of Rochester in New York monitored the effects of natural versus artificial environments, and found that nature makes us kinder and more caring.

"Previous studies have shown the health benefits of nature range from more rapid healing to stress reduction to improved mental performance and vitality," says Richard Ryan, professor of psychology, psychiatry and education at the University of Rochester, and co-author of the study, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.

"Now we've found nature brings out more social feelings, more value for community and close relationships. People are more caring when they're around nature," he says.

The effect doesn't necessarily hinge on daily hikes through fields and woods as much as it does paying attention to the natural elements we encounter every day. "It's about stopping and smelling the roses as opposed to passing them by while thinking of your next meeting," says Ryan.

- The average laptop computer consumes one fifth the energy of a desktop PC. So, if you're going to own only one computer, seriously consider a laptop instead of desktop model. If a laptop won't work for you, think about whether you really need the biggest desktop you can afford or whether you might be able to get by with what's known as a "small form-factor" PC. These smaller machines are designed to take up less space on your desktop, but they have the advantage of drawing less power, too.

- Screensavers were never designed to save energy. They were actually intended to prevent "phosphor burn in" on CRT screens (and, these days, on plasma screens). Nowadays, they function primarily as a form of entertainment on PCs. However, setting your display to blank out after a period of inactivity can make a difference. Best to forgo the pretty pictures, though.

- Although each generation of microprocessors is speedier than the previous one, smart engineering means that they often also use less energy at the same time. For example, Intel's Core 2 Duo desktop processor is up to 40 percent faster and more than 40 percent more energy-efficient than its single-core predecessor.

Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams, head of the Church of England and leader of the worldwide Anglican communion, said the climate change crisis is an opportunity for people to become human again, setting aside the addictive and self-destructive behavior that has damaged their souls. People have allowed themselves to become "addicted to fantasies about prosperity and growth, dreams of wealth without risk and profit without cost," he said.

Speaking before an audience at Southwark Cathedral, Dr. Williams said that small changes, such as setting up carbon reduction action groups, would help them reconnect with the world in addition to repairing some of the damage to the planet. "When we believe in transformation at the local and personal level, we are laying the sure foundations for change at the national and international level."

Williams' full speech

Food Policy Councils bring together stakeholders from diverse food-related sectors to examine how the food system is operating and to develop recommendations on how to improve it. These councils take different forms: often a grassroots effort, but sometimes commissioned by a state or local government. Food policy councils are successful at educating officials and the public, shaping public policy, improving coordination between existing programs, and starting new programs. The first Food Policy Council started 20 years ago in the city of Knoxville. During the last five years, Food Policy Councils have gained momentum and today there are almost 50 councils nationwide.

New jobs, especially those connected to the rapidly growing economy revolving around energy conservation and pollution reduction, must provide laid-off workers and low-income families the opportunity to shed the title of working poor by having a well-paying job, said Father Larry Snyder, executive director of Catholic Charities USA, during a recent nationwide webinar marking the second Fighting Poverty with Faith initiative.

"As people of faith we can make a difference to develop and shape a new American economy, one that provides a living wage and one that provides the benefits where people don't have to rely on government benefits," Father Snyder said. "We can, and must, work to reshape our economy so there is a balance and pay equity for all workers."

To view the recorded webinar, click here. You may be inspired to engage in volunteer projects, public education, and advocacy on the issue of shared economic prosperity and workforce development that includes "green" pathways out of poverty for working families.

Somehow we manage to both disparage our humanity and exalt it at the same time.

We are told by TV evangelists that we are unworthy, abject sinners. Low self-esteem and depression are epidemic, even among teens. There is widespread interest in angels and UFOs, beings that will perhaps save us from ourselves. We don’t really feel good about our humanness. We’re always trying to improve. Self help books are legion in bookstores.

"Follow your bliss," advised scholar of mythology Joseph Campbell in his famous interviews with Bill Moyers, stressing the importance to the spiritual life of cultivating our unique interests, passions and loves. In what do you most delight? Where is your heart of hearts? To what does your body and soul wholeheartedly want you to go? What keeps you fresh and eager? What kindles your enthusiasm?

Campbell's bliss happened to be studying world mythology. Yours might be growing orchids, reading good mysteries, quilt making, home schooling your kids, union organizing, mastering the dulcimer and playing in a bluegrass band, ballroom dancing, writing haiku poetry, amateur astronomy, constructing your own log house, teaching fourth grade, grassroots political activism, refurbishing old Harley Davidsons, contemplatively walkiing, fine liturgy, photography, gardening, cooking and eating fiery Cajun dishes, your ministry -- you name it. You know what it is.

If your recyling bin is stuffed with catalogs you never read, put an end to the pile with the free Catalog Choice service. Catalog Choice lets you select the catalogs you don't want to receive and sends your requests directly to the merchants.

Over 53 million trees are consumed each year to produce paper catalogs. The production of all those catalogs results in 56 billion gallons of wastewater. And when all those catalogs are thrown out it's approximately 4.1 million tons of waste, equal to the annual waste of 2 million households. An emptier mailbox means less pollution, less waste and less of the emissions that cause global warming.

Rather than spend a morning calling companies and asking to be removed from their mailing lists, go to catalogchoice.org and spend 10 minutes selecting the catalogs you don't want to receive. Catalog Choice will contact the merchants for you and they'll stop sending you catalogs you don't want!

It is not always simple to live simply. It takes energy and skill. Conflict and tension between many opposing factors must be steadily and uncomplainingly borne and confronted creatively. At times it feels like a complex chess game in which one weighs and balances the consequences of an array of moves or choices against the background of countermoves, trying to achieve the position on the board that best honors both our commitment to simple living and all of our other responsibilities, as parents, citizens, spouses, members of communities.

Often it's a matter of making trade-offs or truces, plea-bargaining, or just deciding in which battles we can prevail and in which it might be wiser to retreat or surrender.

What's more, in all kinds of ways, our consumer society mounts hurdles and roadblocks in our path. A television comedienne I saw once talked of visiting the mall to buy a wastebasket for her new apartment. The clerk put the new basket into a sack. She carried the sack home and then threw it into the wastebasket she had just bought after installing it in a corner. "What am I doing?!" she yelped and threw up her hands.

Senders of junk mail in the United States are causing carbon emissions equal to nine million cars, according to a forest preservation group.

Pressure group ForestEthics released the report, Climate Change Enclosed: Junk Mail's Effect on Global Warming, recently to support its new campaign for a "do not mail" registry. The study, which is based on figures from the Environmental Defense Fund, the Environmental Paper Network, and industry data, found that half the carbon expenditure relating from junk mail comes from the removal of forest wood, while another 20 per cent comes from the emissions created at paper plants during production.

It takes more than 100 million trees to produce the total volume of junk mail that arrives in American mailboxes each year—that's the equivalent of clearcutting the entire Rocky Mountain National Park every 4 months.

This simple stuff will save energy -- and money -- right now.

Unplug

Unplug seldom-used appliances, like an extra refrigerator in the basement or garage that contains just a few items. You may save around $10 every month on your utility bill.

Unplug your chargers when you're not charging. Every house is full of little plastic power supplies to charge cell phones, PDA's, digital cameras, cordless tools and other personal gadgets. Keep them unplugged until you need them.

Use power strips to switch off televisions, home theater equipment, and stereos when you're not using them. Even when you think these products are off, together, their "standby" consumption can be equivalent to that of a 75 or 100 watt light bulb running continuously.

Set Computers to Sleep and Hibernate

Enable the "sleep mode" feature on your computer, allowing it to use less power during periods of inactivity. In Windows, the power management settings are found on your control panel. Mac users, look for energy saving settings under system preferences in the apple menu.

Our increased reliance on personal technology -- laptops, cell phones, computer monitors, printers -- has resulted in vast quantities of garbage in landfills that could have been reused or recycled. Two million tons of tech trash ended up in landfills in 2005, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and only about 380,000 tons were recycled. If Americans recycled the more than 100 million cell phones that are no longer used, the amount of energy saved would be enough to power approximately 18,500 U.S. households for one year.

Some of the materials in personal electronics, such as lead, mercury and cadmium, are hazardous and can release dangerous toxins into our air and water when burned or deposited in landfills improperly. And throwing away metal components, like the copper, gold, silver and palladium in cell phones and other electronics, leads to needless mining for new metals.

Consumers, manufacturers and retailers can all help ensure that older electronics find new homes or new uses. The resources below will help you recycle, donate or resell your unwanted gadgets and keep them out of the waste stream.

RECYCLE

The Sierra Club this week released a groundbreaking new report that reaffirms the economic benefits of ending mountaintop removal coal mining and transitioning to clean energy sources in Appalachia.

The report shows that America can have affordable electricity without mountaintop removal because many factors contribute to the cost of electricity, with coal prices playing just one small part.

According to the report:

Ending mountaintop removal would have a negligible effect on electricity prices in the eastern United States, where mountaintop removal coal is currently burned.
We have an abundance of cost-effective alternatives to mountaintop removal coal.
Other types of mining in Appalachia employ more workers.
Mountaintop removal coal mining costs state budgets more than it generates.
Mountaintop removal destroys clean energy sources.

We've all seen the bumper sticker that reads "Live simply so that others may simply live" -- a ringing call to a sustainable life. Such a life involves, in the words of Mennonite author Doris Janzen Longacre, "cultivating a gentle way of handling the erth, versatility in the face of shortage, inner provision for contentment and, more than all that, commitment to live justly in our world."

A sufficient and sustainable life means being a bright, creative part of the solution rather than one more tired cog in the dreadful turning wheels of the problem.

Sufficiency in involves the old virtues of thrift and frugality. Sustainability comes from innovation and creativity. It looks something like this: A friend reuses her bath and dishwater, hauling it out to the garden for her vegetables. It's a lot of bother, she says, but she doesn't mind. She gets exercise and cuts down on her water bill, while at the same time deriving a rich satisfaction from this way of doing things.

Birds are a priceless part of America’s heritage. They are beautiful, they are economically important — and they reflect the health of our environment. The 2009 State of the Birds report reveals troubling declines of bird populations during the past 40 years — a warning signal of the failing health of our ecosystems. At the same time, we see heartening evidence that strategic land management and conservation action can reverse declines of birds. This report calls attention to the collective efforts needed to protect nature’s resources for the benefit of people and wildlife.

It's available at www.stateofthebirds.org

Vic Hummert, environmental activist and author from Lafayette, La. reports on the memorial service held at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine in New York City.

"Fr. Thomas Berry (1914-2009), the wisest person I ever met, was honored and remembered in the last of four major funeral/memorial services on Saturday, Sept. 26, 2009, in one of the largest churches in North America.

Rev. James Kowalski, Dean of New York's Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, estimated attendance at 1,200, including his North Carolina relatives, former students, friends and associates from far and wide, assembling for the final major memorial service honoring Berry.

With the departure of Thomas Berry on June 1, 2009, we were deprived of one of the most stratospheric minds since Jesuit Fr. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin (1881-1955) tried to convince humankind that we are Earth coming to consciousness. A long-time president of the Teilhard Society, Berry had in his academic career the distinct advantage of seeing photographs of Earth from space and evaluating the universe's evolution from perspectives not available to Teilhard.

In December nations will gather in Copenhagen, Denmark, for the United Nations Climate Conference. There they will strive to strike a global deal that will address the climate change crisis. According to Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, this momentous task will be easier if we can dispesne with four common fallacies about solving the climate crisis.

1. We need to set a high price on carbon. According to Pope, a high price on carbon will mean failure as it makes the cost of doing something about the crisis appear to be completely out of reach. What is needed instead is a low price for alternatives to carbon. "That requires, in part, fixing flaws in the energy market. If you rent office space, for example, you have no control over the efficiency of the furnace or windows, but you still pay the bills. The landlord gets reimbursed for inefficiency and has no incentive to change.

"The best way to know God is to love many things," said the artist
Vincent van Gogh. James Conlon’s new book, Beauty, Wonder and Belonging: A Book of Hours for the Monastery of the Cosmos, is a book of prayer, meditation and reflection about the many things that we can love in the universe.

Conlon is director of Holy Names University’s Sophia Center in Oakland, Calif. He is author of many books, including From the Stars to the Street and At the Edge of Our Longing. This new book invites readers to engage the rhythms of the day and of the seasons to explore the divine mystery in our lives and in our world. Bring to your prayer the curiosity of a child, the heart of a mystic and the voice of a prophet, Conlon counsels.

It is available from Wyndham Hall Press (orders@wyndhamhallpress.com) or at bookstores.

Where does your trash go?

Karin Landsberg, 42, a Seattle resident, was curious. She invited researchers from the Massachussetts Institute of Technology into her home in Sept. to tag 12 items out of her garbage and recycling bins -- a can of beans, a compact flourescent light bulb, and other items -- with small electronic tracking devices.

The Architectural League of New York went through a smiliar trash-tagging process as part of the same project last month as well. Items tagged in New York included an empty plastic bottle, a broken wine glass, a book shelf, a coffee cup, and a discarded filing cabinet.

Through the project, overseen by MIT's Senseable City Laboratory, 3,000 common pieces of trash, mostly from Seattle and New York City, will be tracked through the waste disposal system over the next three months. The researchers will display the tracked routes online and in exhibits opening at the Architectural League of New York and the Seattle Public Library.

Two collections of the writings of Fr. Thomas Berry have been published recently, just a few months after his death in June.

One is The Sacred Universe: Earth, Spirituality and Religion in the Twenty-First Century, published by Columbia University Press. The other is The Christian Future and the Fate of the Earth, published by Orbis Books. The former is edited by Berry's friend and student Mary Evelyn Tucker; the latter edited by Tucker and her husband John Grim.

Both contain important essays Berry wrote during his long career as a scholar, cultural historian and geologian. Berry had prophetic insight about our engagement with the Earth and was one of the first to link the ecological crisis to our religious views and assumptions.

The Catholic church in Australia has confessed it is one of the biggest carbon emission "sinners" in the country.

Catholic EarthCare, an organization set up in 2002 by Australian bishops to advise the church on environmental issues, admitted the Australian church has a carbon footprint larger than most other major organizations in the country.

"Although measurement has just begun, Catholic EarthCare estimates the carbon emissions of the church in Australia could be in the vicinity o 1.2 million to 1.5 million tons annually," a statement said.

"This is on a par with the emissions of the Australian government, excluding defense operations, of 1.7 million tons and dwarfs the emissions of groups such as the National Australian Bank and Insurance Australia Group."

Russian novelist Dostoevski wrote: "It is beauty that will save the world." I think I believe that. But what did he mean?

It's almost a platitude now that the future of the planet depends on reawakening a sense of the sacred, a knowledge that the earth is sacred, holy. What are the connections here? How does this work? Can a bloodshot Arizona sunset reverse the troublesome outcomes of our shortsighted public policies? Can an afternoon encounter in a mountain meadow knee-deep in shooting star and Indian paintbrush blow the whistle for good on our greed and consumer avarice? Can a tiny indigo bunting chirping from a treetop bring gentleness and understanding to racism's stiff necks and hearts of soften the rage of tribes against one another?

Maybe the whole thing works something like this.

Dominican Fr. Cletus Wessels died on Aug. 13. He was a pastor, theologian, author, college professor and seminary president. He made his profession as a Dominican friar in 1951, followed by his ordination as a priest in 1957. He held a doctorate in systematic theology from St. Paul University, Ottawa, Ontario.

He served for 18 years as professor of theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in Dubuque, Iowa, and became the third president of the Institute (which is now located in St. Louis). He also taught for a time at Aquinas College in Grand Rapids as well as other centers of learning, including the Quixote Center in Hyattsville, Md., and the Weber Center in Adrian, Mich.

Wessels died of complications from Alzheimer's disease Wednesday at Providence Health Care Center in Minneapolis. He was 79.

He devoted the last years of his life to preaching and writing about the “new universe story” and its implications for Catholic theology and spirituality. He wrote two books on this subject: The Holy Web: Church and the New Universe Story (2000) and Jesus in the New Universe Story (2003).

When life has become too complicated, when things are just too much, go borrow a good book from the nearest child. Or, better, revive that fine old custom of sitting down of an evening to read to children. Know for a short time once again the astonishment of being.

"Childhood is not something which dies within us and dries up as soon as it has completed its cycle," philosopher Franz Hellens wrote. "It is not a memory. It is the most living of treasures and it continues to enrich us without our knowing it." Adults need to curl up with a good tale as much as any child. Good reading can foster and restore in us and in our children a hope-filled approach to living. The encounter of one imagination with another can "purge from our inward sight," says the poet Shelley, "the film of familiarity which obscures from us the wonder of our being." Good books remind us of the riches we already possess: the ability to see beauty everywhere, the capacity for awe and for compassion, for taking joy and delight in the simplest things.

The late Blessed Sacrament Sr. Gloria Davis taught Native American spirituality in the Santa Fe, New Mexico archdiocese for many years. In an interview with her, she told me that her notions about spirituality were first formed as she grew up in her traditional Navajo family.

"I noticed," she said, "that the holy people in our community, the ones we all turned to for spiritual guidance, the ones who conducted the elaborate sings, blessing ceremonies and healing rituals were always the people who had the keenest sense of humor. You could always tell them by the laugh wrinkles around their eyes."

What an idea! The hallmark of holiness here is not a gaunt, hollow-cheeked face or a look of otherworldly serenity, but just a common, garden-variety lively sense of humor. And a sense of humor is chiefly woven of the fabric of life's ups and downs, its absurdities and sorrows, its humdrum everyday, its joys and comic interludes, its tediums, tensions and ironies, its unpredictable encounters and quiet satisfactions.