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

Churches go green

November 2011
KNTV

Many sanctuaries are switching to solar power. KNTV’s Scott Budman reports.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/45187404#45187404

Tutu to host Durban rally on eve of climate summit

November 9, 2011
The Mercury

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu has urged South Africans to join world faith leaders, political leaders and music stars at an “extraordinary” mass rally and concert at Durban’s King’s Park Stadium on the eve of the COP17 climate change summit.

The archbishop is to host the We Have Faith – Act Now for Climate Justice rally and concert on November...

Holy cities face threat from polluting pilgrims

November 8, 2011
By George Webster
CNN

(CNN) – An estimated 2.5 million pilgrims have descended on the city of Mecca for the Islamic Hajj, said to be the largest annual gathering of people in the world.

Every fit and able Muslim is obliged by their faith to make the journey at least once in their lifetime. But with the rising threat of climate change, there are now...

Top Honour For International Animal Pioneer

November 3, 2011
By Sam Calvert
Religious News Servies

Oxford animal theologian Professor Andrew Linzey has been awarded a top university honour for his pioneering work around the world.

The University of Winchester is to recognise Professor Linzey with an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree in recognition of his work in animal theology in a graduation ceremony on 9...

New UNEP Report Tracks the Changing Global Environment over the Past Two Decades

November 1, 2011
United Nations Environment Programme

Nairobi - The environmental changes that have swept the planet over the last twenty years are spotlighted in a new compilation of statistical data by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), released today in a report entitled “Keeping Track of our Changing Environment: From Rio to Rio+20”.

The Green Profile of the Grand Mufti of Egypt

October 2011
By Moshe Terdiman
Green Compass Research

Introduction

Sheikh Ali Gomaa is the Grand Mufti of Egypt since September 2003 and one of the highest ranking and respected religious authorities throughout the Sunni world. He holds the second highest religious position in Egypt, after that of Sheikh al-Azhar. As the Grand Mufti...

Climate change is at its root a spiritual crisis

October 28, 2011
World Council of Churches

Member churches of the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Canada join hands with faith leaders, politicians and civil society actors to stress a “moral responsibility to address global warming”, which they call “a spiritual crisis”. Together they prepared a “Canadian Interfaith Call for Leadership and Action on Climate Change” on...

Sacred natural sites raise interest of scientists in Zurich

October 27, 2011
SacredNaturalSites.org

Religion and Environment

By Willis Jenkins and Christopher Key Chapple

Annual Review of Environment and Resources

Vol. 36: 441-463 (Volume publication date November 2011)

First published online as a Review in Advance on August 1, 2011

Abstract:

Simchat Torah: Remembering Creation One More Time

October 19, 2011
Rabbi Lawrence Troster
Huffington Post

Simchat Torah is the last celebration of the Jewish High Holiday season. Created in Babylonia during the early middle ages, it is a holiday that marks the end of the yearly cycle of reading the Torah with end of Deuteronomy and then beginning the new cycle of reading with Genesis 1 once more.

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