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  • April Worship Sharing

    Quaker Earthcare Witness hosts monthly online worship-sharing groups. This month, we will be meeting from 7-8 pm Eastern time/4-5 pm Pacific time on Tuesday, April 23rd. In worship sharing, we gather in small groups to focus on a particular query to explore our own experience and share with each…

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  • Fund Grassroots Earthcare Projects: QEW Mini-Grants

    0 Our Goal 0 Donors So Far 0 Amount Raised So Far Double Your Donation! Thanks to the deep generosity from a…

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  • Cloud Forest Regeneration Project

    Mini-Grants: Cloud Forest Regeneration Project Mini-Grants: Cloud Forest Regeneration Project…

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  • Book Group – Reading Nothing Lowly in the Universe

    Join us for a 5-part series of in-depth discussions on the book Nothing Lowly in the Universe by Jennie Ratcliffe. This QEW eco-book group will be led by avid readers and devoted facilitators/educators Ethan Smith and Nathan Kleban. We will provide a space for reflection on the ecological crisis we find…

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  • May Worship Sharing with Quaker Earthcare Witness

    Quaker Earthcare Witness hosts monthly online worship-sharing groups. This month, we will be meeting from 7-8 pm Eastern time/4-5 pm Pacific time on Tuesday, May 28th. In worship sharing, we gather in small groups to focus on a particular query to explore our own experience and share with each…

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  • March Worship Sharing with Quaker Earthcare Witness

    Quaker Earthcare Witness hosts monthly online worship-sharing groups. This month, we will be meeting from 7-8 pm Eastern time/4-5 pm Pacific time on Tuesday, March 26th. In worship sharing, we gather in small groups to focus on a particular query to explore our own experience and share with each…

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  • February Worship Sharing with Quaker Earthcare Witness

    Quaker Earthcare Witness hosts monthly online worship-sharing groups. This month, we will be meeting from 7-8 pm Eastern time/4-5 pm Pacific time on Tuesday, February 27th. In worship sharing, we gather in small groups to focus on a particular query to explore our own experience and share with each other…

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  • Spring Gathering

    Join Quaker Earthcare Witness’ Spring Gathering on April 25-28, 2024. QEW gathers twice a year to worship, enjoy fellowship, and conduct business with each other. Our spring 2024 meeting will be held online via Zoom. All Steering Committee members are encouraged to attend, and we warmly welcome visitors for any or…

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  • Nonviolent Direct Action Online Study Group with Earth Quaker Action Team

    EQAT is preparing for their largest mobilization in the Vanguard S.O.S. campaign to date this summer. They are running a 6-week training series to increase the campaign’s capacity to move Vanguard to action on climate change. This series will focus on building skills, relationships, and connections with partner organizations. Anyone…

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  • January Worship Sharing with Quaker Earthcare Witness

    Quaker Earthcare Witness hosts monthly online worship-sharing groups. This month we will be meeting from 7-8pm Eastern time, or 4-5pm Pacific time on Tuesday, January 23rd. In worship sharing, we gather in small groups to focus on a particular query to explore our own experience and share with each other…

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  • Our Own Worst Enemies: An Apostolic Exhortation on the Climate Crisis

    by Shelley Tanenbaum In 2015, the Pope’s message to the world, Laudato Si, amazed many of us, myself included, with his blunt comments about people, economics, and climate change. (QuakerEarthcare.org/Laudato-Si) He called for a radical restructuring of how we relate to each other and to the more-than-human world. This…

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  • See How They Love One Another

    Referring to the Romans’ view of early Christians, Tertullian wrote, “It is mainly the deeds of a love so noble that lead many to put a brand upon us. See how they love one another, they say.” This idea that our QEW community is rooted in addressing climate change through…

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  • Humans and Nature – The Yellowstone Model

    by Peter Husby To many people, the concept of “natural” is equivalent to a lack of human presence or measurable human influence. For example, the late ecologist E.O. Wilson believed that the only way to save our planet was to remove humans from half of the earth’s land surface! (Who…

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  • Community Choice Aggregation: Pennsylvania Boroughs are Ready for 100%

    Join a webinar sponsored by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Environmental Justice Collaborative on Community Choice Aggregation on January 18th, 7pm Eastern. Presenters from the CCA for PA team will provide an overview of CCA, introduce participants to local leaders from the five boroughs that have already signed an MOU, and explain…

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  • Attention to True Climate Stewardship: Worship at Vanguard

    by Lina Blount On November 15th, I sat in a wooden folding chair on a grassy corner outside the Pennsylvania headquarters of the investment company Vanguard. I was surrounded by dozens of others, all of us in worshipful, contemplative silence. We had taken Quaker meeting for worship out of our…

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  • To Kneel and Kiss the Ground

    by Keith Runyan, Incoming General Secretary at Quaker Earthcare Witness In the fall of 2019, just after founding my podcast, A Future on Waxen Wings, I was invited to be a keynote panelist for the College Park Quarterly Meeting with Mica Estrada,…

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  • Steering committee members and staff at march to end fossil fuels

    No Faith in Fossil Fuels

    by Miche McCall On the second day of Rosh Hashana, the faith hub at the March to End Fossil Fuels was full of celebrations of Life on Earth. Last September, 75,000 people poured into the streets of New York City to call for our leaders to protect our communities and…

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  • Community Choice Aggregation: Pennsylvania Boroughs are Ready for 100%

    Join this webinar sponsored by Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Environmental Justice Collaborative on Community Choice Aggregation!  Presenters from the CCA for PA team will provide an overview of CCA, introduce participants to local leaders from the five boroughs that have already signed an MOU, and explain how this will work in…

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  • December Worship Sharing: Winter Solstice

    Quaker Earthcare Witness hosts monthly online worship-sharing groups, this month we are meeting closer to the solstice to reflect on the shortest days of the year. In worship sharing, we gather in small groups to focus on a particular query to explore our own experience and share with each other…

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  • Quakers and the Climate COPs: A Report-Back and Follow-Up

    The Climate COP (Conference of Parties) is an annual climate summit. This year, the COP will be held in Dubai from November 23 to December 12, 2023. The COPs can be hard to make sense of or to approach, and yet they are the world’s most organized effort to bring…

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  • DIVEST

    Climate and Money:  A Guide to Fossil Fuel Divestment & Reinvestment

    Created by Friend Jennie Ratcliffe and members of the Earthcare Witness Committee of Durham (NC) Friends Meeting. This guide provides resources on the what and why of divestment, which banks or funds to divest from, how to go about divesting, and how to reinvest in a more livable whole earth…

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  • November Worship Sharing with Quaker Earthcare Witness

    Quaker Earthcare Witness hosts monthly online worship-sharing groups. In worship sharing, we gather in small groups to focus on a particular query to explore our own experience and share with each other more deeply than we would in normal conversation. It seeks to draw us into sacred space, where we…

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  • Online Meeting for Worship with Attention to True Climate Stewardship

    The Earth Quaker Action Team is meeting for worship outside of the Vanguard headquarters in Malvern, PA, on November 15th. QEW is hosting a simultaneous online worship for those who cannot attend in person. Join us! Vanguard continues to be the world’s number one investor in fossil fuels, with about…

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  • Creation Vigil: Holding Earth in Prayer

    Let’s start the new calendar year with the living world at the forefront of our hearts, minds, and souls. Sister Confianza del Señor will lead us in a Spirit-filled worshipful experience that includes scripture, song, silence, and sharing.  Together we will celebrate God’s Creation, lament the harm and injustice humans…

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  • Not Just Smarter — Wiser! A Quaker Approach to Artificial Intelligence as Part of Earthcare

    In this workshop, Gray Cox will expand on the message of his recently published book Smarter Planet or Wiser Earth?: how Quakers must deal with the kinds of social change we need to address the challenges presented by the Sixth Great Extinction, Climate Change, and the threats of nuclear war…

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  • Save the Date: Fall Gathering

    QEW gathers twice a year to worship, enjoy fellowship, and conduct business with each other. In the fall, we we will be gathering in person at the Norbertine Spirituality Center at Santa Maria de la Vid Abbey in Albuquerque, New Mexico, from October 3rd to the 6th. All Steering Committee members…

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  • Stories the Land Holds for Us

      Join us on Wednesday, February 21st for Cai Quirk’s workshop Stories the Land Holds for Us. Cai Quirk (they/them or ey/em) is a trans and genderqueer multi-disciplinary artist who focuses on the intersection of gender diversity throughout history, its erasure, and contemporary reclamation and restoryation. Every inch of our…

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  • Earth Awareness, Earth Activism

      This is an excerpt from QEW’s Earthcare for Friends: A Study Guide for Individuals and Faith Communities. You can find this curriculum, as well as our Earthcare for children curriculum for your First Day or Sunday School at QuakerEarthcare.org/Resources. Written by Bill Cahalan and Ruah Swennerfelt…

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  • Young Friends for a Fossil-Free Future

    All photos by Sebastian DiMino With the local temperatures soaring to 96 degrees during the Friends General Conference Gathering and the global average temperatures breaking records, Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) gathered an intergenerational group of Friends from across the country in an action against JP Morgan Chase and Vanguard.

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  • Cold-Climate Horticulture and a Freed Bee

    Photo by Kathy Barnhart A Year as a Quaker Voluntary Service Fellow By Elsa Hoover I just finished as a Quaker Voluntary Service Fellow in Minneapolis Through QVS, I worked at the Minnesota State Horticultural Society, aka “The Hort”. To say I did not know what I was getting…

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  • The 2023 Farm Bill: Advocate for a Just and Faithful Bill

    Every five years, Congress takes up a massive piece of legislation called the Farm Bill. Right now, the 2023 Farm Bill has an expected budget of $1.5 trillion, which determines how food is grown, what food is grown, and who can afford it. The bill wields immense power in shaping…

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  • A Living Economy for a Livable Earth

    By Pamela Haines Most of us are intimidated by economics, made to feel too ignorant to understand, question, or challenge its system. But, just as we do with peace, we can step boldly into that arena with our faith and values intact, daring to imagine a living economy for a…

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  • The Sacred Depths of Nature

    Both Ancient and Modern Traditions Are Held Together by Mary Coelho We are invited to continually seek to discern the ways in which we are alienated, often without conscious awareness, from the sacred nature of the natural world. Considering two unexpected sources helps us become more aware of our…

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  • Front Cover of Smarter Planet or Wiser Earth?

    Smarter Planet or Wiser Earth?

    New Quaker Institute for the Future (QIF) Book on Human Ecology and Artificial Intelligence Current breakthroughs in Artificial Intelligence (AI) need to be evaluated holistically as part of serious, systematic threats to our human ecology. These threats are intimately related to the economic, political, military, technological, and ethical flaws…

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  • Big tree in front of blue sky and green grass

    Looking Past the Great Dying to the Next Great Living

    by Allen McGrew. Six months before I joined Quaker Earthcare Witness Steering Committee, I was stricken by a nasty infection that got into my blood and precipitated a near-fatal cascade of platelet death, septic shock, that plunged my blood pressure to 35/50, overwhelmed my kidneys, and induced a heart attack…

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  • Navy ship

    Conscientious Objection, Conscientious Protection

    by Jennie M. Ratcliffe. There are multiple interconnections between conscientious objection to militarism and what we can call the conscientious protection of all life on Earth. Conscientious objection, both to war-making and to militarism that seeks to maintain and assert our so-called national security or “interests,” has long been advocated…

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  • Friends Cut Up Credit Cards with Third Act

    On Tuesday, March 21, 2023, thousands of people across North America—led by older Americans who are Third Act supporters—gathered inside and outside branches of big banks and at climate-impacted sites as part of Third Act’s 3.21.23 Day of Action to demand that banks stop financing the expansion of fossil…

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  • Purple brain image

    ChatGPT: AI Writes 600 Words on Human Survival

    by ChatGPT. We asked ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot, to “give us a 600 word article that answers this question: will humans survive the climate crisis?” This is what it wrote: The climate crisis, also known as global warming, is one of the most pressing issues facing humanity today. The…

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  • Incentives for Green Energy:  Practical Impacts of the Inflation Reduction Act

    by Liz Robinson. With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), people in the US finally have the tools necessary to rapidly decarbonize our lives and help accelerate the transition to a clean energy economy. The law provides $369 billion dollars for climate action and clean energy, and is…

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  • Moving Money Publicly to Move Vanguard

    by Eileen Flanagan. In response to right-wing pressure, Vanguard, one of the world’s biggest investors in fossil fuels-, announced in December 2022 that it was backing away from one its few public climate commitments, the Net Zero Asset Managers initiative. This was disappointing for Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT), which…

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  • Show your support for BeFriending Creation

    Support BeFriending Creation

    Contribute to the Campaign We did it! Thanks to everyone who gave this April! We had a goal of raising $4,000 this month to support the creation, printing, and distribution of our newsletter, BeFriending Creation, which reaches thousands of friends and hundreds of meetings each quarter. Help create…

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  • We're Hiring : Communications & Outreach Coordinator

    Job Opening: Communications & Outreach Coordinator

    Passionate about environmental justice and faith-based social change? Are you a storyteller committed to inspiring action in your community? Quaker Earthcare Witness is hiring! Communications & Outreach Coordinator Download Job Announcement & Description Position Summary Quaker Earthcare Witness is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, lifting up ecological integrity and…

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  • Flipping the Narrative to Earth Regeneration

    by Sheree Cammer. On a train trip back east last year, my cousin and his wife introduced me to the Wild Winds Buffalo Preserve in Fremont, Indiana. Bill “Three Paws” Elias drove our tour in a pickup truck. I had the best seat: front seat passenger. The herd was placidly…

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  • Ode to a Coast Live Oak

    by Carl Grant. Bark of alligator skin, moss laden Your strong, contorted arms spread wide What faith you have in dropping Your children to the earth Where brother squirrel buries some To grow up down the road And of others makes a feast. Bark…

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  • What We’re Reading (And Listening To)

    We asked our QEW network about their favorite books, podcasts, and media from 2022. Here’s what they said. Multiple Friends recommended The Nutmeg’s Curse by Amitav Ghosh about abusing nature’s bounty and colonization, and also Wilding: Returning Nature to Our Farm by Isabella Tree. Pamela shared, “I loved Healing Grounds:…

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  • New Jersey Meetings Organize To Stop Export of LNG From Gibbstown

    by Ruth Darlington. When Priscilla Adams and Maria Esche learned about the plans of New Fortress Energy to export Pennsylvania fracked gas from a terminal in Gibbstown, NJ, they took notice, and then they took action. It all started when organizers at Food & Water Watch (FWW) asked Medford Friends…

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  • How to Host a Climate Potluck

    by Pamela Haines. As I was pondering how to release more energy for addressing climate and environmental justice issues in our Quaker meeting, I had the idea of setting up an informal gathering where we could hear what others were doing and support each other to take a next step.

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  • Holding Space for Ecological Grief

    by Hayley Hathaway. In fall 2022, QEW launched its first 10-week course on ecological grief. The course came after organizing two popular online workshops on the topic: over 200 Friends registered from across North America. At these workshops, Friends shared about feeling alone with their emotions of dread, fear, and…

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  • orange sunset with profile of a flock of birds flying above

    Waking Up

    by Nan Fawcett. Imagine a future where we are all heard, where we all listen to each other, not only to our human siblings but to everything, the large and small inhabitants of our home planet, listening to everyone’s voice. Imagine a life where we are…

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  • Taking Collective Action with Third Act

    by Kathy Barnhart. At the beginning of each Meeting for Business at Strawberry Creek Meeting in Berkeley, California, a committee responds to one of the Advices and Queries in our Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Faith and Practice. Last month our Communications Committee responded to the advices and queries on “Harmony with…

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  • The UN’s COP27
: Where Are We Now?

    by Shelley Tanenbaum. After 27 United Nations Climate Conferences, and even earlier conferences and agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol (1997) and the Rio Earth Summit (1992), why are we so far behind in dealing with climate (and biodiversity and desertification)? That is the question that hovered over Quaker Earthcare…

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  • Green grass on the left with a strip of dirt in the center and then black charred ground on the right

    Regeneration: A Matter of Life and Breath

    by Tom Small. Breath is what unites us. It unites us with the “other.” With all of creation. Breath is the rhythm, the flow of life itself. Call it Ch’i. Or ruah. Or spiritus. Or rta. The universal breath, life force, or rhythmic pattern of all being. When we interrupt…

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  • TIme for healing is now: Support the truth and healing commission on US Indian boarding schools with image of lines of native american children and logo at bottom right

    Minute on Native American Boarding School Healing

    Southeastern Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, meeting as Winter Interim Business Meeting, approves adding a line item to the budget for a recurring annual donation to the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition of a minimum of $300.00 with the hope of increasing that amount in…

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  • Minute of Support for Indigenous People

    The North Pacific Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends repudiates the Doctrines of Discovery: the religious basis for European colonization around the world. We acknowledge and regret Friends’ role in the ensuing genocide, land theft, and forced assimilation of the peoples indigenous to this continent, including Friends’ role…

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  • The Legacy of Quaker Boarding Schools for Native Americans: On the Debts We Owe the Past and the Ghosts of Our Becoming

    by Allen McGrew. Convinced Friends may wonder why they should accept responsibility for the abuses of Quaker boarding schools that received native Americans over a century ago. If so, they might also ask whether they can claim the heritage of John Woolman, George Fox, Margaret Fell or other historical Friends.

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  • Family Planning Helps the Planet

    by Susan F. Newcomer. Addressing population growth in human terms, not as the bugbear “overpopulation,” necessitates addressing sexuality and childbearing, two particularly sensitive topics. Over the years, Quakers have addressed “episodes of sexual activity” as “sacred, as an expression of a couple’s love for each other” and addressed contraception by…

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  • World Population Reaches 8 Billion

    by Stan Becker, Tom Cameron, Dick Grossman, Roy Treadway. As ecological disasters of all kinds threaten our planet-—disasters worsened by increasing population—the number of humans on the Earth reached 8 billion in November, according to the United Nations Population Division. This marks the continuation of the very rapid growth of…

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  • Inspiring the World to Come Together Along the Blue Ridge

    Introducing the Friends Wilderness Center & the China Folk House Retreat by Kimberly Benson. About 300 million years ago, the Earth demonstrated that unity is physically possible. Laurasia and Gondwana merged, forming a world with one continent and one ocean. The convergence uplifted the Central Pangean Mountains, raising the depths…

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  • Prioritizing Environmental Justice as We Transition Into A Green Economy

    by Jus Tavcar. With the historic passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August, a significant amount of funding has been issued for developing green technologies that are set to advance the U.S. economy. We join with the rest of the environmental community in celebrating this monumental legislation, which…

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  • Faces of 11 people with green background

    Quaker Earthcare Witness in 2022

    This year, the effects of climate change and ecological collapse have been more than evident. Starting in June, torrential rains flooded Pakistan, with many areas still under water leaving tens of millions at risk. In September, Hurricane Fiona devastated Cuba and Puerto Rico (with Puerto Rico still recovering from Hurricane…

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  • Worship with Attention to Climate Finance

    Quakers Join Across Continents to Call on Vanguard to Stop Funding Dirty Fossil Fuel Projects On Friday, October 7, 150 Quakers gathered in-person and virtually to “worship in action” at strategic locations to call on Vanguard, one of the world’s largest investment companies, to make better on its commitment to…

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  • Almost 50 Quakers & allies are preparing to hold meeting for worship outside the home of Vanguard CEO, Tim Buckley, as dozens more are simultaneously worshipping outside Vanguard’s London office and joining in virtually from across North America.

    Quakers Concerned with Climate Change Worship Outside the Main Line Home of Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley

    Quakers Concerned with Climate Change Worship Outside the Main Line Home of Vanguard CEO Tim Buckley British Quakers held their own worship service outside Vanguard’s London offices, while Quakers across the United States joined both groups over Zoom. WAYNE, PA – On Friday, October 7, almost fifty…

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  • Quakers Campaign for Ethical Investing

    “As people of diverse faiths and spiritualities, we call on the world’s asset managers to stop financing the profoundly immoral destruction of our climate.” -the rev. abby mohaupt, GreenFaith People of faith, environmental groups, and frontline communities and organizations are uniting to call on financial institutions to “stop the money…

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  • Two teenagers point at solar inverter with text "Support QEW Mini-Grants

    Fund Grassroots Earthcare Projects: QEW Mini-Grants

    We did it!! Thank you so much for your help raising over $3,000 to fund grassroots projects! Quaker Earthcare Witness has distributed dozens of “mini-grants” over many years to Friends meetings, churches, and groups to support creative projects that foster earthcare and address environmental justice, climate change and involve young…

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  • Cityscape as seen through a broken, rusty fence

    Moving Corporate America Toward a Sustainable Economy

    By David Ciscel. How do we get to a livable and sustainable world, starting from the economy that we are living in? That is an incredibly difficult job for many reasons. But one issue rises above the many others. The key institution in the modern global economy is the large,…

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  • Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation

    Oil, gas and coal are the root cause of the climate crisis and despite the destructive reality of fossil fuels, as well as the constant warnings of the scientific community, there is no binding mechanism to limit their production. The Paris Agreement, important as it is, does not reference fossil…

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  • New Jersey Friends Take Action At Home

    by Alice Andrews and Laird Holby. The idea for Medford Meeting’s Earth Day workshop “Green Your Life: Where to Start” came from a member of our Climate Change Group who, only too aware of the bad news, wanted to learn about changes she could make in her own life immediately.

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  • Power Shift Network logo, teal lettering with three entwined triangles

    The Climate Justice Movement Must Be Anti-War: Notes from Antiwar Organizers

    by Jasmine Butler, Power Shift Network.  Power Shift Network is an intergenerational network of organizations and campaigns that center the diverse young people most impacted by the climate crisis. They generously let QEW reprint this article. No matter your specific organizational or ideological affiliation, anyone who cares about…

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  • Hands digging in dirt with plants and roots visible

    Simplicity and Right Relationship

    by Bill Cahalan. I agree with Wendell Berry, who wrote in his 1977 book, The Unsettling of America, that the United States is an unsettled country. We, not only in North America but in all the industrial world, are disconnected from our natural sources. So most of us only vaguely…

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  • Following Spirit, Despite Fear: Remembering John Woolman in the Vanguard Campaign

    by Eileen Flanagan. On October 7, Delaware Valley Quakers and other members of Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) will gather on a suburban street in front of a large white home with black shutters and a manicured lawn. One of us will be designated to assure the waiting police that…

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  • A Native American Land Reparation Pledge

    by Gail Melix and Lewis Randa. Reparations to Indigenous Peoples can take many forms. Through our work with Massachusetts’ Peace Abbey, we have developed one action that might work well for others, the Native Land Reparation Pledge (NLRP). The pledge states one’s intention to donate 1% of the sale price…

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  • August Earthcare Engagement For Your Community

    Dear Friends, Please join us in August for our monthly workshop and see additional resources below. Thank you! Hayley Hathaway, Director Quaker Earthcare Witness ____ ONLINE WORKSHOP Ecological Grief: Engaging with the Emotional Impacts of Climate Change with Gayle Matson & Hayley Hathaway Thursday,…

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  • Beverly Ward Interview on Northern Spirit Radio

    Co-Clerk Beverly Ward Interviewed on Northern Spirit Radio! Beverly Ward is Field Secretary for Earthcare of SEYM, doing all kinds of work to motivate, inform, & unite around work for care for the planet. She offers a range of tailored Earthcare workshops, including topics like Angelic Troublemaking, Climate Equity/Climate Justice, Racial…

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  • June Earthcare Engagement for Your Community

    Dear Friends, As Shelley wrote to you earlier this week, “Our strength and stamina come from our spiritual connection with the living world, and with each other.” Thanks for being part of this community. Here are a few June updates: UPCOMING EVENTS More on…

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  • City photo by Lerone Pieters-Unsplash

    Cause & Effect

    By Christopher Haines. Rhyme and Reason There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children. She didn’t know what to do. But try as she would…

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  • Flying fighter jet with blue sky background

    Military Jets & Environmental Restoration

    By Katherine van Wormer. An issue of immediate concern to the Madison (WI) Friends is government’s selection of our airport as home for the notorious F-35 fighter planes. The Madison Friends’ Minute begins: As Quakers, we seek to remove the circumstances that foster war, based on…

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  • Photo by Kathy Barnhart. She writes, “Chinese Houses, California Poppies, Lupines, Tidy Tips amidst the oak trees make such a wonderful palette. This area in Shell Ridge Open Space Preserve [CA] is tended by a large group of volunteers, encouraging native flowers and plants and weeding out invasives. What a gift they have given to all!”

    Spring is Here: Time to Plant Native Plants

    By Jim Kessler. Native plants are adapted to the local area and its climate. Unfortunately, many of our beautiful non-native garden flowers provide little or no food for honeybees, native pollinators, songbirds, and other wildlife. Non-native plants have the potential to become invasive species, weeds that spread rapidly…

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  • FWCC Asks: What’s Happening in Spirit-Led Climate Action Among Quakers?

    Epistle from Friends World Committee for Consultation, Section of the Americas (FWCC). To all Friends Everywhere: On Saturday, 19th day of the 3rd month, a Consultation was held by FWCC entitled: Spirit-Led Climate Action Among Quakers: What’s Happening? This Zoom event was attended by approximately 40…

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  • Kipuka Refuge Photo by Yumi

    Rainforest Restoration in Hawaii

    By Yumi Teresa Radtke Kawano. Editor’s Note: Yumi invited the Quaker Earthcare Witness Steering Committee on a virtual tour of her home in April, and I had the opportunity for a longer tour and conversation a few weeks before. I invite you to imagine you are there with…

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  • Earth at night with light visible more from the Northern half of the hemisphere

    The North-South Divide

    By Brad Stocker. Context is everything. Context shapes the meaning of our words and thoughts. Recently I attended a workshop called “What’s Missing (and Needed) Post COP26?” hosted by the Quaker United Nations Office and the Quaker Council for European Affairs. During this event, the “North” and the…

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  • Moral Standards for Asset Managers?

    By GreenFaith. Religious leaders spanning diverse faiths and continents, representing over half a billion people globally, are making an unprecedented demand this spring on the leaders of large asset managers such as BlackRock and Vanguard. The demand is for these companies to recognize the universal moral values that…

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  • FCNL logo Friends Committee on National Legislation

    Climate Doomism Calls On Us To Act, Not Despair

    By Rosalie Ruetz. As with any divisive issue, there are numerous perspectives on climate change. One that has gained traction in recent years is “climate doomism,” the belief that, short of a miracle, nothing we do can prevent us from reaching a cataclysmic tipping point for the environment…

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  • Drawing of car with large smoke cloud coming out of exhaust with red line drawn through it

    No More Idling

    By Wayne Michaud. As a member of Sacramento Friends Meeting’s Eco-Spirituality Committee and as executive director of a non-profit that advocates for and educates about transportation efficiency, I would like to reach out to Friends on an issue I have been passionate about for 15 years: vehicle idling. …

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  • Purple flowers in a bouquet with grey background

    May Earthcare Engagement for Your Community

    Earthcare Engagement for Your Community The end of April marked the 10th anniversary of the Kabarak Call for Peace and EcoJustice and we’re reflecting on its faithful words: “We dedicate ourselves to let the living waters flow through us – where we…

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  • Connection With the Living World

    Dear Friends, There is an awakening going on about climate, ecological collapse, and environmental justice both within the Society of Friends and beyond. People are opening up to our message of love and connection with the living world. Our QEW network has expanded over the past…

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  • QEW’s 2021 Annual Report

    A Life Giving Future For All We’d like to share with you Quaker Earthcare Witness’ most recent annual report. We’re pleased to say that we are growing steadily and building momentum. And we couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you for your generous support of Quaker Earthcare Witness.

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  • April Earthcare Engagement for Your Community

    April marks the beginning of yearly meeting gathering season for many of us in North America. We’re sharing a few resources to help strengthen the connection between Friends in your region and Quaker Earthcare Witness. Please consider taking the following actions as you prepare for your summer events: 1. Invite a …

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  • International Climate Policy: From Quiet Diplomacy to Youth Activism

    The video is available of the March 15th discussion with Kallan Benson (Fridays for Future USA Director and Friend from Annapolis, MD) and Lindsey Cook (QUNO Representative for Climate Change and Friend from Bonn, Germany). Both Kallan and Lindsey participated in COP 26 in Glasgow, approaching the situation from…

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  • Yellow flower from the underneath with green fuzzy background

    March Earthcare Engagement for Your Community

    Here are this month’s events along with other resources and a link to our future events. In addition, here is a one page introduction to Quaker Earthcare Witness. Please share this page with your monthly…

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  • Quaker Earthcare Witness News & Updates

    by Shelley Tanenbaum. Quaker Earthcare Witness’ primary goal is to nurture a spiritual transformation in our relationship with the living world. Our efforts include projects, events, and other resources, all aimed at reaching a wider circle of Friends and like-minded individuals and organizations. Over the past two pandemic years, we…

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  • Protecting the Last Hope Wildlife Corridor

    by Carol Bradley. One need only look down from a plane, or check out the satellite view of any Crown land forest in Nova Scotia to see just how much clearcutting is going on. Total massacre. Logging roads growing like a cancer across the province. – The Stop Spraying and…

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  • Book Review of Paul Hawken’s Regeneration: Ending The Climate Crisis in One Generation

    by Ruah Swennerfelt. Degeneration of land, water, forests, biodiversity, and human health are causes of climate change. And climate change is yet another cause of poverty. Turning this vicious circle to a virtuous one is crucial to addressing the climate crisis. In 1998, my husband Louis and I represented Quaker…

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  • Mind the Gap: Quaker Engagement at COP26

    by Frank Granshaw and Annette Carter. Our recent trip to Glasgow, Scotland for the UN climate conference for 2021 (COP26) involved a lot of travel by train. We had constant reminders to “Mind the gap when alighting the carriage.” This phrase felt very much in line with the genteel friendliness…

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  • Vanguard Customers Have an Important Role to Play, so Don’t Move Your Money (Yet)!

    by Eileen Flanagan. As soon as Earth Quaker Action Team (EQAT) announced that we had joined the international campaign to pressure Vanguard to become a climate leader, we started hearing from Quakers and others who were Vanguard customers that they were eager to move their money to funds that are…

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  • Green EQAT Logo Earth Quaker Action Team

    Earth Quaker Action Team Takes on Vanguard

    by Jonathan Ogle. The world’s biggest asset managers have a big problem. Companies such as BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street manage trillions of dollars of investment on behalf of millions of investors. Even while they sign commitments to make their own office operations carbon neutral, they have been investing hundreds…

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  • Recognizing a Human Right to a Healthy Environment

    by Lindsey Fielder Cook. Recognition of a human right to a healthy environment can have, in the words of the UN Special Rapporteur, “life-changing potential.” The 2010 UN recognition of water and sanitation as a human right led to significantly improved access to clean water and sanitation…

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  • Midwifery

    by Pamela Haines. A regular high point in my week is being in touch with a handful of young climate activists. Through a young man who stayed in our spare room while doing student fossil fuel divestment work and then went on to be one of the founders of the…

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  • Witnessing the Sacred Depth of Nature

    by Mary Conrow Coelho. There are remarkable discoveries now offered to Quaker Earthcare Witness that can greatly strengthen its work and witness. One evening in the early 1990s, a small group gathered to listen to a talk in a video series describing the changes in worldview brought by discoveries in…

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  • Kayakers at sunset, Albany Bulb, California

    Young Adults’ Workshop: Exploring Ecospirituality

    Join Hayley Hathaway, of Quaker Earthcare Witness, for Exploring Ecospirituality: Old & New Ways to Imagine & Transform, a workshop for young adults (ages 18-40). The workshop will be held online, Thursday, February 17, 7:30 – 9 pm Eastern Time. “The world is not a problem to be solved; it…

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  • Spiderweb with black background

    Web of Care for the Earth

    Dear Friends, As our beloved outgoing clerk, Mary Jo Klingel, writes: “If the past two years of virtual meetings, workshops, and worship sharings have taught QEW Friends anything, it is how very precious our Earthcare community is.” She continues: Those who work every day for QEW, those who…

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