Nature needs a lawyer (27 min.)
Siemen says, "Much of our law today does not recognize that we humans are embedded in a much larger system, which is an ecosphere. It includes our bisosphere of all the various forms of life but it also includes our air, our atmosphere, our land, our water. We humans can not exist unless we recognize those relationships, or we continue to do what we are doing today, make laws only for the good of humans, and I always want to say for the good of some humans more than others."
Nature needs a lawyer
Dominican Sr. Pat Siemen grew up on a small, family farm in Michigan. Working in the fields with her dad and siblings instilled within her a reverence for the earth. "As I look back now, I am very much aware of how much my growing up in a farm family and in rural Michigan has really influenced my value system today." With journalist Jennifer Szweda Jordan, she traces her journey from ministering to poor and African-American families in Tennessee to the founding of the Center for Earth Jurisprudence, which she today directs at the law schools at St. Thomas University, Miami, and Barry University, Miami Shores, both in Florida.
Jennifer Szweda Jordan is a freelance writer living in Pittsburgh, Pa.
More about Sr. Pat Siemen
Siemen and the Center for Earth Jurisprudence are featured in the July 20 issue of National Catholic Reporter. Read the full story. Or to learn more about the Center for Earth Jurisprudence.
