Posts Categorized: Climate Justice

Climate Change: Real or Not, Solving It Solves Much!

Today, June 5th, is not only the transit of Venus in front of the sun, but it is also when all these things are happening:

  • World Environment Day

  • Rio+20 Day of Action

  • 15 days to the Rio+20 United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (and the parallel People’s Summit).

Better late than never, right?

On June 18-22, Environmental Ministries staffer, Rebecca Barnes-Davies will attend the People’s Summit with the World Council of Churches delegation. She will be watching the development at the UNCSD, learning from workshops at the People’s Summit, and blogging on Eco-Justice Journey for Presbyterians about her experiences while in Rio. She hopes this will help us gain a better global understanding of our call to care for God’s creation, even as we continue our local efforts in our own places.

So to help celebrate the day, perhaps you might:

And since this is the Food and Faith Blog, learn about the connections between food and climate and climate and food.


Finally, contact me at Andrew.KangBartlett@pcusa.org if you want to be on the next Open Food Justice Call–Thursday, June 14 at 4:00 pm eastern time. The theme is, yup, “Climate Change: Why Food Matters A LOT!”

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Voices of change (Cancún #3)

Climate change is a serious issue and one that threatens our survival and all species on the planet. The solutions that are needed are urgent and must be initiated at the local level, then institutionalized in our institutions. But who said it can’t be fun solving the problems that face us; combining creativity with human evolution should be a fun path to travel on. Enjoy the voices of change.

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Climate and social justice (Cancún #1)

Blain Snipstal, HEART Road Trip alumnus, is currently in Cancun during the UN COP-16 Climate Talks on a Rural Coalition delegation and sponsored by the Presbyterian Hunger Program. Along with thousands of people from civil society, many coming by caravan through Mexico, he is participating in the Alternative Global Forum on Climate Change and Social Justice (see news report about small farmer participation). Here are some of his thoughts prior to going to Cancun on Dec. 3rd, while finishing up his college studies. I write this to you as I am experiencing the final days of my academic experiment (well, at least for now). Academia, for me, was a microcosm for experiencing the dualities, tri-alities, and quasi-alities that our collective amalgamation of life, which we call the world, can offer. In my final days; the world is shrinking; its once enormity is now no more than an infinitesimal dot or splash in a sea of consciousness. Perhaps, nothing is what it seems.

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Protect the Clean Air Act: Protect Food Sovereignty

In the coming days, Senator Murkowski (AK-R) will bring a bill to the floor of the Senate that, if passed, will undermine the Clean Air Act and prevent the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from regulating greenhouse gases. Senator Murkowski’s bill…

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Planet says, “This food gives me gas.”

The Swedes are labeling some food items with the amount (estimated) of greenhouse-gas emissions the production of the food puts into the atmosphere!If this experiment is effective, they estimate the country’s emissions could be reduced by 20-50 percent. One Swedish burger chain, Max, offers beef alternatives and signed on enthusiastically to the new recommendations. It became the first restaurant chain to publish carbon footprints of menu items to encourage people to eat less beef.

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Good farms capture carbon!

Data from the Rodale Institute’s long-running comparison of organic and conventional cropping systems confirms that organic methods are far more effective at removing the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, from the atmosphere and fixing it as beneficial organic matter in the soil. Consider this fact: If only 10,000 medium sized farms in the U.S. converted to organic production, they would store so much carbon in the soil that it would be equivalent to taking 1,174,400 cars off the road, or reducing car miles driven by 14.62 billion miles. Right now, I’m on an initial conference call of the ad hoc Interfaith Food and Agriculture group, which is convened by Rodale. We are sorting through who else should be part of the conversation and what we might do together…

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climate change leaves more hungry

Figure out some small or big way to celebrate Earth Day and the glorious gift of God’s Creation. Acknowledge also that with this gift comes responsibility. So contact your members of Congress to call for a national strategy to protect the earth from its most dangerous threat: global climate change. Our values of justice and stewardship compel us to make addressing climate change a national priority. As Christians we are called to proclaim good news to those living in poverty, sharing in Christ’s work of compassion and love. Global climate change poses one of the greatest threats to the most vulnerable among us, especially those who are hungry. Experts warn that changing weather patterns, an increase in pests and disease, and an increase in the frequency of extreme weather events resulting from climate change will lead to widespread crop failures, disruptions in food distribution systems and incite conflict as resources dwindle and people are forced to migrate.

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from climate change to hunger to war

Swords Into Plowshares has a great post about climate change and resource wars. There are only a few steps from climate change to war. They are unpredictable weather and harvest, environmental degradation, poverty, hunger and desperation. Those are the ingredients that fan the flames of conflict. Climate change must not be ignored or minimized. Not if we want to leave an inhabitable (for humans) planet for our descendents. See more connections between climate change and hunger.

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Food and climate change linked

Modern agriculture could easily be called fossil fuel farming due to the dependence on petroleum and natural gas for food production, processing and distribution. In fact, livestock production (beef, pork, chicken, etc.) accounts for 18% of all the global warming…

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