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

Decision on Canadian tar sands pipeline is chance for Obama to fulfill an environmental promise

September 1, 2011
By Russell Powell
New Haven Register

SIXTY-five people, including me, were arrested Aug. 20 and spent the weekend in jail for holding a nonviolent sit-in in front of the White House. It was the first day of a planned two weeks of civil disobedience, where thousands from across the country would sit down to demonstrate against the proposed construction of the...

Lessons From Central Cell Block

August 29, 2011
By Bill McKibben
The Nation

I’m a wuss.
 
I figured that out on August 20, when a guard was leading me down the cellblock in manacles and leg irons, and I looked through the bars of one cage, and there was Dan Choi, the former Army lieutenant turned gay rights activist.

An Appeal from Bill McKibben

 

August 29, 2011

Dear colleagues,

Green groups add to pressure on Obama

August 24, 2011
By Ben Geman
The Hill

Top officials with several prominent environmental groups are voicing support for demonstrations at the White House that call for President Obama to block a pipeline that would greatly expand...

Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers

August 21, 2011
New York Times

This page opposes the building of a 1,700-mile pipeline called the Keystone XL, which would carry diluted bitumen — an acidic crude oil — from Canada’s Alberta tar sands to the Texas Gulf Coast. We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of...

Vermont Law School Professor and Middlebury Scholar Arrested at White House Protest

August 21, 2011
By Kevin J. Kelley
Blurt: 7 Days Staff Blog

A Vermont Law School professor and a Middlebury College scholar were arrested in front of the White House on Saturday at the start of the environmental movement’s biggest series of civil-disobedience protests in decades.

The Religion and Ecology of the Blang Minority Nationality

August 16, 2011
By James Miller
Sustainable China blog

Holy Land Council in Jerusalem tackles climate change

August 1, 2011
China Daily

JERUSALEM (Xinhua) – The Council of Religious Institutions of the Holy Land (CRIHL), an interfaith committee situated in Jerusalem that includes the chief leaders of Islam, Christianity and Judaism, recently endorsed the Declaration on Climate Change to promote environmental sustainability, and some believe it might lead to positive spillover in regional...

World Sacred Forests Mapped Out

August 1, 2011
By David A Gabel
Environmental News Network

A team of scientists from the University of Oxford are working on a world map which shows all the land owned or revered by various world religions. This “holy map” will display all the sacred sites from Jerusalem’s Western Wall, to Masjid al-Haram in Mecca, to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City. Just as interesting,...

Coming Together to Pray, and Also to Find Reduced-Rate Energy Deals

July 30, 2011
By Mireya Navarro
New York Times

WASHINGTON — Like manna from heaven, thousands of dollars in new revenue is raining on a group of congregations here from the unlikeliest of sources: the utility bill.

The windfall arose after 11 churches and a nonprofit youth group got together to solicit reduced-rate bids for electricity — most of it from renewable...

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