News Items

The Forum regularly posts news articles of interest here from a variety of sources and news outlets. You can check back here or view the most recent ones from the homepage. We also archive these articles here, for those doing research, with news going back to 2006. Use the menu on the right to explore the archived articles.

News

Climate change is a threat to rich and poor alike

November 6, 2017
By Achim Steiner, Patricia Espinosa, and Robert Glasser
National Catholic Reporter

Editor’s note: COP23, the annual United Nations climate change negotiations, opened Nov. 6 in Bonn, Germany, with Fiji as the presiding nation. NCR publishes the following op-ed from U.N. officials as part of its coverage of the international climate summit...

Trump's environmental rollbacks lack 'moral compass,' Catholics say

Planet, people take back seat to business since election

By Brian Roewe
National Catholic Reporter
November 7, 2017

After a September visit to Florida to survey damage waged by Hurricane Irma, President Donald Trump was asked whether the storm, along with Hurricane Harvey in the Gulf Coast, had changed his views on climate change.

“We’ve...

From better bulbs to more trees, Italy's Assisi takes on climate change

November 5, 2017
By Alex Whiting
Reuters

ASSISI, Italy (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The small medieval Italian pilgrimage town of Assisi, birthplace of Francis, Catholic patron saint of ecologists, is embarking on a quiet revolution.

Mayor Stefania Proietti, an energy expert, plans to cut carbon emissions 40 percent between now and 2030, and hopes the “city on the...

Our Moral Opportunity on Climate Change

November 3, 2017
By Justin Welby
New York Times

As a global family of churches, the Anglican Communion has stood alongside other faiths in prayerful solidarity and compassion with victims and survivors of the recent extreme weather in many places around the world.

'For us, the land is sacred': on the road with the defenders of the world's forests

November 4, 2017
By Jonathan Watts
The Guardian

Of the many thousands of participants at the Bonn climate conference which begins on 6 November, there will arguably be none who come with as much hope, courage and anger as the busload of indigenous leaders who have been criss-crossing Europe over the past...

Major new alliance of religious investment funds creating a better and fairer world

Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC)
Press Release
November 2, 2017

ZUG, SWITZERLAND: A global movement aimed at shifting billions of dollars of faith-based investments into initiatives supporting sustainable development and the environment has been launched following a unique three-day meeting of faith leaders and financial investors in Zug, Switzerland.

How Indigenous Land-Use Practices Inform the Current Sharing Economy

November 1, 2017
By Aaron Fernando
Shareable

The concept of ownership is a social contract that allows certain individuals and groups to have rights to certain resources or items while excluding others from that access. Under the mainstream conception of private property, both the ownership of land and anything built on top of it are combined into one. This bundling of land...

Jordan Water Crisis Worsens as Mideast Tensions Slow Action

October 31, 2017
By The Associated Press
New York Times

SHARHABIL, Jordan — From a hillside in northern Jordan, the Yarmouk River is barely visible in the steep valley below, reduced from a once important water source to a sluggish trickle overgrown with vegetation. Jordan’s reservoirs are only one-fifth full, a record low, and vital winter rains are becoming more erratic....

The Grassroots Social Network Documenting Real-Time Climate Change

October 31, 2017
By Benjamin Powers
Pacific Standard

The LEO Network is bringing together scientists and citizens to monitor climate change and spot trends.

For Milwaukee Muslims, solar is an act of faith and service

October 30, 2017
By Kari Lydersen and Yana Kunichoff
Midwest Energy News

Burhan Clark points out the young fruit trees planted just above the steep, bramble-covered creek bed next to the Dawah Islamic Center on the North Side of Milwaukee. Planting trees is a form of sadaqah jariyah, or ongoing charity, he explains as his young sons scramble down to the creek and then help...

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