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

Ecological protection fits well with core Catholic values

December 15, 2009
Irish Times

RITE & REASON: THE LIKELIHOOD of a climate change deal at Copenhagen is, unfortunately, receding mainly because neither the US nor China is willing to make the required cuts. While President Barack Obama has agreed to attend, the US offer to reduce carbon emissions by 17 per cent on 2005 figures by 2020 is derisory, writes Fr Sean...

Rich nations must assume environmental duties: pope

December 15, 2009
By Philip Pullella
Reuters

VATICAN CITY - Industrialized nations must recognize their responsibility for the environmental crisis, shed their consumerism and embrace more sober lifestyles, Pope Benedict said on Tuesday.

The pope’s call for more environmental commitments came in his message for the Roman Catholic Church’s annual World Day of Peace, to...

Faith Groups Build Giant Ark on National Mall

December 14, 2009
By Michelle A. Vu
Christian Post

WASHINGTON – A diverse group of religious people unveiled a giant ark on the National Mall Saturday to press world leaders in Copenhagen to create a strong, binding proposal to tackle climate change.

Organizers say the 19-foot-high ark is a warning that if world leaders do not come up with a strong plan to deal with the...

Copenhagen unites Anglicans hoping to combat climate change

December 14, 2009
By Matthew Davies
Episcopal News Service

As church bells rang throughout the world Dec. 13 to mark Christianity’s commitment to combating climate change, Anglican leaders were making their voices heard about global warming in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Environmental Destruction, Chaos Bleeding Across Haitian Border

December 14, 2009
By Nathanial Gronewold
Greenwire

MALPASSE, Haiti – In October, three Haitian men were shot dead and a fourth was wounded just across the Dominican Republic border from this dusty and impoverished town.

The men were gunned down, investigators say, by vigilantes or a rival criminal group for cutting down trees for charcoal. The remains of the three dead...

A religious perspective on climate change

December 13, 2009
By Stephen Scharper
Toronto Star

Long before Al Gore blazed an inconvenient trail into our collective moral imagination, and two decades before the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, United Church of Canada theologian David Hallman was clanging the tocsin of climate change, often to an indifferent public.

Archbishop of Canterbury says fear hinders climate change battle

December 13, 2009
By Riazat Butt
The Guardian

Rowan Williams tells Copenhagen service corporations and governments are afraid to make choices to bring real change

People are so paralysed by fear and selfishness they cannot save the planet, the archbishop of Canterbury said on Sunday during a church service in Copenhagen.

Matt Frei's diary: Evangelical and environmental?

December 10, 2009
By Matt Frei
BBC News

Washington – If the green movement truly wants to convert America it needs to convert more evangelical Christians. Let me explain.

According to a BBC News/Harris Poll, the number of Americans who worry that carbon emissions are slowly heating our planet like a lobster pot has actually declined in the last eight...

Copenhagen 1943 and Copenhagen UN 2009

December 9, 2009
By Rabbi Warren Stone
Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism

Sixty-six years ago, on October 2, 1943, when Jews were celebrating the High Holidays, Hitler ordered the arrest and deportation of Denmark’s 8,000 Jews. Danish Christian citizens were outraged and courageously rescued almost the entire Jewish population. In an act of collective resistance, the...

Stormwater solution: Rain gardens green a church parking lot

December 9, 2009
By Pamela Wood
The Christian Science Monitor

A church parking lot sent runoff into a nearby creek. Now it contains rain gardens to absorb and treat the stormwater.

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