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| [Episcopal News Service] The Episcopal Public Policy Network (EPPN) has issued an appeal for church members to call on President Barack Obama to end the Coal River Mountain mining project. "Mountain top removal mining and valley fill practices cause significant social and environmental impacts, often devastating ecosystems and destroying human communities through water pollution and flooding," a Nov. 10 EPPN alert said. "We have confirmed that blasting has begun on Coal River Mountain, West Virginia, the highest peak ever slated for mountaintop removal mining, and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) confirmed that coal was being moved off the mountain.” The EPPN alert, which is emailed to about 25,000 Episcopalians and religious advocates, says the news has been "devastating" to local residents "who have rallied around a plan to build a wind farm on the peaks of Coal River Mountain." The proposed wind farm would provide enough wind potential to generate electricity for more than 85,000 homes, as well as clean, permanent jobs to the community. "Local residents have witnessed workers throughout this past week moving heavy equipment up to the mining zones, and blasting and plumes of smoke were seen and heard near the Brushy Fork coal slurry impoundment," the alert said. "The Brushy Fork impoundment is an enormous retention pond holding 8.2 billion gallons of toxic coal slurry waste. If the impoundment were to fail due to the blasting, hundreds of lives will be lost and thousands more will be in jeopardy from an enormous slurry flood." Through the EPPN website, individuals can send a letter to Obama urging an end to the Coal River Mountain mining project. The Episcopal Church's 73rd General Convention in 2000 passed Resolution D005 in opposition of "environmental racism," and called on the Office of Government Relations in Washington, D.C., to "track legislation seeking to eliminate the practice of locating polluting industries disproportionately near neighborhoods inhabited by people of color or the poor." The resolution also called on the Washington office to "monitor and issue policy alerts regarding the practice of mountain top removal and valley fill mining and other large scale mining operations that threaten the ecology and low income communities." "As people of faith, we believe that every creature is precious to God, but we have seen repeated disregard for citizens and the environment through mountaintop removal mining practices," the alert says. "As part of our call to be stewards of creation, we have a duty to use the land responsibly, to manage it so that it serves the good of all, and to protect it for future generations and for all life." » Respond to this article | |
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Take me home, country roads
Monday, October 12, 2009
The People Perish (2 legged and 4 legged, and creepy crawlies, furred, feathered, and finned too)
Anglican Communion News Service
A Statement from the Anglican Communion Environmental Network
The Hope We Share: A Vision For Copenhagen
In preparation for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Conference Of Parties (COP) Meetings to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark in December, the Anglican Communion Environmental Network (ACEN) has issued a statement to Anglicans Worldwide, to COP Delegates, Faith Community Representatives, Observer Organizations, and Friends of Creation.
Conferring by email, and using a draft text by Convener, Bishop George Browning, retired Bishop of Canberra and Goulburn in Australia, the network’s nineteen provincial representatives considered and amended a three-page statement seeking to address the moral consequences of climate change and to provoke UN delegates to combine hope with realism as they devise a political system which will take effect in 2012 when the Kyoto Protocol expires:
We look to the Copenhagen conference with hope but also with realism . . . there must be a desire on the part of every nation to do what they know they must, not because they are legally bound, but because they share a vision for a more just and sustainable future . . . We pray that each nation will come to the conference wanting the highest level outcome; that demanding targets will be set, not in an attempt to discipline reluctant participants, or to give some preferential treatment which undermines the whole; but that a greater vision might be shared.
The Anglican Communion occupies a unique position globally in terms of affecting and suffering from climate change:
From all points of the globe we point to the reality of climate change and to the very serious effect it is already having upon our people; from severe weather events, to prolonged droughts, major floods, loss of habitat and changing seasons.
Our position is faith-based:
Our faith and our ancestors have always taught us that the earth is our mother and deserves respect; we know that this respect has not been given. We know that like a mother the earth will continue to give its all to us. However, we also know that we are now demanding more than it is able to provide. Science confirms what we already know, our human footprint is changing the face of the earth and because we come from the earth, it is changing us too.
Our statement is framed in the context of hope channeled through a positive vision.
We have always known that “without a vision, the people perish”. The Copenhagen Conference can either produce a bland, minimalist set of non enforceable targets or it can sketch a vision to inspire the world and its peoples. Leaders lead, please . . . do not let us down.
A PDF of the Statement is available here
Contact Information
The Rt. Rev. George Browning, Convener
Statement Draft
The Rev. Terrie Robinson, Anglican Communion Networks Coordinator
Anglican communion Networks Context
Office of the UN Observer, New York
UN functions
The Rev. Ken Gray,
Communication
Notes:
ACEN
http://acen.anglicancommunion.org/index.cfm
As an official network of the Anglican Communion the ACEN strives:
- to encourage Anglicans to support sustainable environmental practices as individuals and in the life of their communities
- to provide information about policies embraced by synods, councils and commissions, and especially by the instruments of Unity (Statements by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Resolutions and Reports of the Lambeth Conference and the Anglican Consultative Council)
- to support local initiatives by providing information about ideas and best practices developed around the communion
- to share information about resources and initiatives that may be of value to Anglicans everywhere
- to provide an opportunity for interested Anglicans to meet both as a formal network, and informally via electronic media.
