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

Free Articles on Religion and the Environment

August 6, 2016
Oxford University Journals

Amazon megadam denied licence over environmental, indigenous concerns

August 4, 2016
By Megan Darby
Climate Home

The 8GW Sao Luiz do Tapajos hydropower project is expected to get the thumbs down from Brazilian regulators, in move cautiously welcomed by activists

A mammoth 8GW dam in the Amazon rainforest is set to be denied a licence, in a sign Brazil could be shifting away from hydropower.

Prayer for a planet: Pope Francis and the politics of climate change

August 4, 2016
By Bill Blaikie
iPolitics

Last week, about 2 million young people — including nearly 4,000 Canadians — gathered in Poland to hear Pope Francis speak at Catholic World Youth Day. Even if, like me, you’re neither young nor Catholic, this was still an event with interesting ramifications for Canada and our politics.

Youth Urge Pope to Push Harder for Divestment

August 1, 2016
By Ruth McCambridge
Nonprofit Quarterly

On World Youth Day, celebrated this year in Krakow, Poland, an open letter signed by over 120 youth groups was delivered to Pope Francis, asking that he urge Catholic organizations of all kinds to divest from fossil fuels while continuing his own efforts to divest the...

Liberation Ecology: Interview with Leonardo Boff

August 2016
Great Transition Initiative

John Ahni Schertow shines a spotlight on indigenous resistance

July 30, 2016
By Stephyn Quirke
Street Roots News

Indigenous peoples’ struggles go unseen by much of the world. IC Magazine’s editor is working to change that.

On June 30, Carol Linnitt of the online news magazine DeSmog Canada reported that a controversial crude oil pipeline had just been defeated in British Columbia, writing “Enbridge Northern Gateway: ‘First Nations...

Vatican Gardens' gruesome past grows into green haven

July 30, 2016
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service

Vatican City – Today’s lush and immaculately manicured Vatican Gardens were once just a sprawl of mosquito-infested swamps, clay hillsides and hardy grape vines.

The wild, unpopulated landscape on the fringes of early Rome slowly shifted as it changed to accommodate historical events over the course of 2,000 years: the...

Living Green

July 28, 2016
By Kathryn McKenzie, Living Green
Santa Cruz Sentinel

Monterey Bishop Richard J. Garcia in June wrote a letter to priests and deacons within the Diocese of Monterey, calling on the 34 churches within the diocese to live the words set down by Pope Francis, above, whose 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si, urges humankind to act now to save the earth....

A Creator God and a Sense of Place: A Jewish Ecotheology

July 27, 2016
Chautauqua Institution

Ellen Bernstein, a Rabbi and Ecologist, is the founder of the first national Jewish environmental organization - Shomrei Adamah (Keepers of the Earth). Her presentation “A Creator God and a Sense of Place: A Jewish Ecotheology” outlines the necessity for balance between Man and Earth, and God’s oneness which connects them.

For more...

What It Takes to Clean the Ganges

More than a billion gallons of waste enter the river every day. Can India’s controversial Prime Minister save it?

By George Black
The New Yorker
July 25, 2016

More than a billion gallons of raw sewage and industrial effluent enter the river every day. The Hindu-nationalist government’s restoration initiative plays directly into India’s charged religious and caste...

More news...