From The Director

Consider Alternative Gifts for Christmas

The Coalition encourages you to support sustainable and fair trade gift-giving this Christmas.  Here are just two ideas.  You undoubtedly know many more.

Catholic Relief Services offers both fair trade gifts (coffee, chocolate and handmade products) that support their development efforts around the world, as well as “shares” to help support projects and programs around the world.  These shares are the perfect gift for the friend or relative who has all they need and would appreciate a gift in their name.

Snail’s Pace is a line of environmentally and socially responsible paper goods from the Monks at Abbey Press Printing in Indiana. The line includes note and greeting cards, gift wrap and bags, journals, notebooks and more, most printed locally in their own facility using Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)-certified recycled paper, soy-based inks and eco-friendly processes. Every Snail’s Pace product celebrates the artistry of God’s Creation and invites the user to slow down and rediscover the written word. Visit thier gift shop here.

Please consider alternative gifts such as these this Christmas.

NEW PARTNER

University of Notre Dame Takes the St. Francis Pledge

The Catholic Coalition on Climate Change is pleased to announce that the University of Notre Dame has become the latest Catholic organization to become a Catholic Climate Covenant Partner by endorsing the St. Francis Pledge to Care for Creation and the Poor.  Notre Dame’s Office of Sustainability was a key partner in developing the new resource: Sustainability and Catholic Higher Education: A Toolkit for Mission Integration.  Becoming a Covenant Partner is a natural extension of these efforts.

In announcing the partnership, Tami Schmitz, Assistant Director of Campus Ministry said, Making a commitment to be better stewards of God’s creation is not only a sign of hope, but a necessity.  The St. Francis Pledge provides an important framework for expanding collaboration between Campus Ministry and Sustainability and we are grateful to Fr. Jenkins for his leadership on this issue.

Heather Christophersen, Director of Sustainability at Notre Dame, said, We appreciate the opportunity to explicitly link our sustainability initiatives to our Catholic mission.  In order to accomplish our goals, we need the support of all members of the Notre Dame community. We encourage everyone to pledge their support by signing the St. Francis Pledge and by taking the 2030 Challenge.  The 2030 Challenge is the university’s new campaign to achieve ambitious and mission-inspired carbon and waste reduction goals: a 50% per square foot carbon reduction and a 67% recycling rate by 2030.
Read the entire story here.

Climate Change Conference in Durban

International Climate Negotiations Update

The 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) continues for two weeks in Durban, South Africa, wrapping up on Friday, December 9.  Pope Benedict XVI has voiced his concern that the negotiations produce a fair and just international climate agreement: I hope that all members of the international community can agree on a responsible, credible and supportive response to this worrisome and complex phenomenon, keeping in mind the needs of the poorest populations and of future generations.

Caritas Internationalis President, Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez Maradiaga (of Tegucigalpa, Honduras), is leading a 20-member delegation to the talks.  He has been a prophetic and courageous voice not only for the Catholic community but for the global community.  Below are some of his most powerful statements.  You can read much more on the Caritas blog from Durban.

During a December 1 interfaith panel, he said: Our economic system and its search for money above all has dehumanized human beings. Religious groups have a duty to humanize them again … We are just administrators of the Earth, not its owners.  Creation was given to us as a treasure, to safeguard, not to destroy. We must work for the common good, but we have forgotten to be faithful administrators.

In a special Mass at Emmanuel Cathedral in Durban on December 4, Cardinal Rodriguez said: How long will countless people have to go on dying before adequate decisions are taken? It’s true that in faith we wait “for the new heavens and the new earth” as the second reading told us, but this does not mean indifference or complicity with those who destroy this land where we live. “Living holy and saintly lives” means living in justice with creation and the environment, and especially with the poor people who are the primary victims of this serious problem.

The Coalition’s executive director offered some thoughts on the negotiations in an interview with National Catholic Reporter.  Dan Misleh reiterated the moral dimensions of the negotiations and echoed the hopes expressed by Pope Benedict XVI and Cardinal Rodriguez: I do hope that these negotiations will continue to drive home the point that climate change is a serious business that requires serious commitments on the part of all nations … especially by those with the means to both create new ways of providing needed energy to a growing world and to help poor nations adapt to unfolding climate impacts.

From America Magazine

Climate Change is a Life Issue

In an online article for America Magazine, Xavier University (Cincinnati) theology professor Elizabeth Groppe recognizes that climate change is clearly connected to concerns for human life and dignity.  In Climate Change: A Life Issue, Professor Groppe points out that Although Catholics may not usually think of climate stabilization as a pro-life issue, it is increasingly clear that protecting the sanctity of life means not only working to end abortion and the death penalty but also acting to conserve the earth’s climate and biosphere.

Groppe recognizes that [u]nlike abortion and the death penalty, climate change does not entail an intentional act that ends the life of another human being.  It is the unintentional outcome of the industrial and agricultural processes that have accompanied our economic development.  In the long term, however, climate could change so radically that the earth could no longer support human civilization. In this sense, caring for the climate and the biosphere is a paramount pro-life issue.

Groppe’s article reiterates the connection between caring for creation and protecting human life/dignity previously voiced by Pope Benedict XVI and the U.S. Bishops.

FROM A DIOCESE

Caring for the Environment is Part of Catholic Cocial Teaching

In an article for Intermountain Catholic, official publication of the Diocese of Salt Lake City, Jean Hill, Director of the Diocese’s Peace and Justice Commission, reminds readers that caring for God’s Creation is a key dimension of Catholic Social Teaching (CST).

In Caring for the Environment is Part of Catholic Social Teaching, Hill recognizes
that the most obvious [dimension of CST involved in addressing environmental harm] is our duty to care for Creation. The Church calls us to address climate change not only to care for creation, but in recognition of the profound impact climate change has on the right to life and that [i]n keeping with Catholic teaching, our efforts to protect creation must also account for the disproportionate effects of climate change on the poor.
Read the entire article here.