Quaker Earthcare Witness - QEW

Youth-Led Quaker Grassroots Projects

Quaker Earthcare Witness is pleased to share the news about three mini-grant recipients in 2020 and 2021: New Garden Friends/Guilford College Environmental Justice Internship: New Garden Friends Meeting was awarded funds to match commitments from New Garden Friends Meeting, Guilford College, and North Carolina Interfaith Power and Light to…

Smiling group of people in front of Quaker Earthcare Witness sign

Where’s the Hope in That? A Message from Quaker Earthcare Witness

My name is Mary Jo Klingel, and I am a member of Quaker Earthcare Witness and have served as clerk. I want to share with you about a forum I facilitated on earthcare for my meeting in Charlotte, NC. Near the end of the forum, a man who had been…

QEW’s Favorite Books

We asked QEW members to share their favorite books. Happy reading! Books to Read for These Times: Climate: A New Story by Charles Eisenstein. “How changing the ‘climate’ of our thinking and rhetoric can influence how we deal with physical climate change.” The Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. “About…

Photo: “This is a photo from a socially distanced action where we were very nimble. The other side of the banner says ‘PECO: Forgive Bills Now.’”

EQAT AT 10: Finding Resilience in an Unimaginable Year

By Lee McClenon. In the last few decades, some social scientists studying organizations have recognized that organizations are healthiest when they embrace a bit of unpredictability. In this model, networks are more powerful than individuals. Resilience is more important than brute strength. And a groundbreaking idea can come from anywhere.

Examining Institutional Racism

By Lauri Langham. The intersection between environmental justice and racial justice is a busy one. We recognize how Black, Indigenous, people of color (BIPOC) and low-income people are the frontline communities that suffer the first and worst effects of planet destruction and climate change: from the placement of toxic dumps…

Contemplative Action in the Time of Climate Change

Share This Article This article is part of our Pamphlet for Sharing Series Download PDF By Tom Small and the QEW Publications and Spiritual Nurturance Committees. We live in the time of The Long Emergency, and the Age of Unintended Consequences. Every morning…

Flock of birds flying in front of moon and light purple sky

Pleasing the Divine with Evolutionary Love

By Jose Aguto History is littered with the graceless exits of despots clinging to the chimera of the temptation of secular power for personal glorification above the good of others. We know this from the Gospels as one of the three temptations the devil offered to Jesus, which he in…

Build Back Fossil Free

By Hayley Hathaway and Ruth Darlington. “If we’re going to Build Back Better, we need to do better. And that starts by putting Indigenous people and their voices first, before any [fossil fuels] project is put in place…It is our Indigenous right to protect what little we have left,” shared…

Permaculture: The Art of Designing Beneficial Relationships

By Carol Barta. Permaculture is said to be “the art of designing beneficial relationships.” Permaculture is a design science rooted in the observation of natural systems, the wisdom of traditional farming methods, and systems thinking. It uses both ancient wisdom and modern scientific and technical knowledge to create sustainable habitats…

Fracking 101 Glossary

Helpful Terms to Better Understand Fracking Clean Water Act of 1972 – national legislation which established the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters. (www.epa.gov) Energy Policy Act of 2005 (Halliburton Loophole) – legislation…

The Myth of a Century of Natural Gas in the U.S.

In arguing against fracking, it is important to debunk the myth that the U.S. has enough natural gas reserves to fulfill our need for the next 100 years. It is equally necessary to discuss the plan by gas companies to make the export of natural gas the next big…

Quaker PopOffsets

Are you concerned about your “carbon footprint”? QEW’s Population Working Group can help. QEW’s Population Working Group offers an innovative program to help confront climate change and other environmental problems. It is based on a similar program in England – “PopOffsets” – an offshoot of the British organization Population Matters.

What I’m Learning From the Pandemic

By Shelley Tanenbaum. EVERY YEAR WE Friends ask ourselves, “How has truth fared for Thee?” It is a way of refreshing ourselves, of self-evaluating personally and in our Meetings. It gives us an opportunity to change course and to respond to emerging leadings. What if we see the coronavirus pandemic…

United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent

United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent The United Nations (UN) commemorates international decades to focus world attention on a specific topic, and then mobilize resources to respond. In December 2013, the U.N. General Assembly proclaimed the decade of 2015 through 2024 to be the International Decade…

Black and white photo of two hands coming together

Truth Is Something That Happens

by Louis Cox. DO YOU SWEAR that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?… Early Quakers were known for their refusal to take such oaths in a court of law (often at the…

Why a Specifically Quaker Testimony on the Environment?

By William Beale. SINCE THERE ARE MANY excellent organizations actively working to improve our relation to the planet, is there any need or place for a specifically Quaker organization to address the same concerns? The fundamental environmental questions we face are essentially religious: What is our place in the…

A Shared Quaker Statement: Facing the Challenge of Climate Change

[Last update: June 2017] “It would go a long way to caution and direct people in their use of the world, that they were better studied and knowing in the Creation of it. For how could [they] find the confidence to abuse it, while they should see the…

Blue book cover with pink and green wheel

Q&A with Douglas Gwyn

Doug Gwyn, the author of A Sustainable Life: Quaker Faith and Practice in the Renewal of Creation, generously agreed to be interviewed for this issue of BeFriending Creation. Thanks, Doug! 1. You explain how your thought and interests developed through several books, always including the thread of your concern for the Earth. Was…

Review: Coming Back to Life: The Updated Workbook to the Work that Reconnects

by Quaker Earthcare Witness. Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown is expanded and updated from their book of the same name published in 1998 (New Society Publishers, 2014, Gabriola Island, BC). The Deep Ecology work of Joanna Macy, also called…

A frosty Sierra morning, about 10,000' elevation. Fall has arrived in the mountains,with its sweet morning light.

Important Reasons to Use Native Plants

Important Facts. 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 and often crowd…

Colors of Fall ~ Along McGee Creek in the Eastern Sierras.

The Spiritual Basis of Earthcare

QEW’s PROGRAMS and publications stem from a conviction and consciousness that the global crisis of ecological sustainability is at root a spiritual crisis. Even as individuals in our network or our steering committee support political and social action in numerous areas, such as globalization, population, genetic engineering, and toxic pollution,…

Ecological Principles of Permaculture

Three important ecological principles of permaculture are: The role that each organism plays, the niche it occupies; Understanding succession in natural ecosystems and using it to heal the soil and bring forth both annual and perennial crops; and including as much diversity in the garden space as possible, both of…

Yellow iguana on rocks in front of the turquoise ocean

Galápagos: Lessons from Finches, Marine Iguanas, and Islands

Now, as we careen into the Anthropocene era, the human species has seemingly become the prime mover of ever-accelerating change; but we are nonetheless subject to it. Subject to inexorable processes of evolution. “In this changing world everything is subject to change,” says the Isha Upanishad. The…

Divestment FAQ

Isn’t it hypocritical to divest of investments in fossil fuel companies on one hand, but keep driving our gas powered cars on the other? Actually, this question goes right to the heart of why many of us have decided to take the step of divestment. First, the point should be…

QEW Statement to the U.S. State Department on UNDRIP

United States Review of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Comments from: Quaker Earthcare Witness (QEW) www.quakerearthcare.org QEW is an organization of individuals and of Yearly Meetings of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) across North America Directed to: the Department of State at: S/SR Global Intergovernmental Affairs, U.S.

Statement to ECOSOC on Science, Technology, and Innovation

Statement to the High Level Segment of ECOSOC on Science, Technology and Innovation and the Potential of Culture for Promoting Sustainable Development and Achieving the Millennium Development Goals Science, technology, and innovation are moving ahead rapidly without due caution. Unintended consequences are being ignored, as the world was recently reminded…

QEW Statement on the Doctrine of Discovery

In the days of European exploration and colonization, governments relied on what we now call the Doctrine of Discovery to extinguish all rights of indigenous peoples. The doctrine has not disappeared or been revoked. Instead, it has evolved into common property law, providing the underpinning of US and Canadian chains…

Statement on Unity with Diversity

Dear Friends, As both Friends and environmentalists, we on the Spiritual Nurturance Committee of Quaker Earthcare Witness hold a variety of personal views, beliefs and approaches based on the variety of our backgrounds, traditions and experiences. We see it as good for QEW to endeavor to…

Looking up at many trees with blue sky peeking through

QEW Participates in Revisions to FCNL Policy Statement

About every 10 years, Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) revises its full Policy Statement. This is the document that “forms the foundation and vision for all of our work,” according to the instructions FCNL gave to Quaker churches, meetings, and organizations participating in revising the 2003 Statement.

Trees in forest with light shining through

QEW Minute on Nuclear Power

Approved by the Steering Committee of Quaker Earthcare Witness in session, October 14, 2007, Burlington, Vermont. Quaker Earthcare Witness cannot support nuclear power as part of the solution to harmful climate change. As Friends, our peace testimony has long led us to witness against nuclear power because of its connection…

Comment Suggestions on Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for Keystone XL Pipeline

On March 1 of this year, the U.S. State Department released its draft Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) on the Keystone XL Pipeline, which is part of TransCanada’s application for a Presidential permit to build and operate the pipeline across the Canadian border into the U.S. A week later on…

NEYM 2016 Yearly Meeting Minute on Climate Change

New England Yearly Meeting Minute 2016-67 Friends at the New England Yearly Meeting Annual Sessions at Castleton, VT, August 6–11, 2016, have heard a Divine call to the witness of addressing climate change. We affirm the overwhelming scientific consensus that greenhouse gases released by human activity are causing…

A Shared Quaker Statement: Facing the Challenge of Climate Change

“It would go a long way to caution and direct people in their use of the world, that they were better studied and knowing in the Creation of it. For how could [they] find the confidence to abuse it, while they should see the great Creator stare them in the…

Recommendations for all Friends

To Friends Everywhere: Quaker Earthcare Witness developed some challenges, which are recommendations for Friends’ Churches and Meetings throughout North America. We ask local Friends’ fellowships and Yearly Meetings to prayerfully examine these challenges and to explore ways to act upon part or all of them. These are suggested actions to…

Host a Film Festival on Energy Options

One excellent approach to sharing both the concern for our future and the tremendous potential for renewable energy is to host a film and discussion series. Below we have listed a number of options to consider. SHORT VIDEOS ON THE PROBLEM AND THE SOLUTION Palo Alto: http://www.go100percent.org/cms/index.php?id=25#c943…

Introduction to Permaculture

The word “Permaculture” comes from two-word combinations: permanent and agriculture and permanent and culture. It is a design system that could potentially revolutionize what we call civilization. Largely used in homesteading or home and community gardens, rather than in large agricultural acreages, permaculture includes perennial vegetables and fruits, both bush and tree. In regards to culture,…

Butterflies on flowers and grasses with water in background

Planning, Planting, and Managing Your Butterfly and Pollinator Garden

NATIVE PLANT SELECTION, LAYOUT GUIDELINES, AND MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES FOR BUTTERFLY AND NATIVE POLLINATOR GARDENS Step 1: Location. Choose an appropriate spot for your garden. Step 2a: Strategies to Create Positive Public Perception Before Planting Consider the public perception of your native garden planting before you begin. Discuss your native garden…

Choosing Native Plants for Pollinators in Your Area

As Sophie explained in her article, Shrinking or Transforming Your Lawn, it is important to use plants from your native area so that the ecosystem will flourish. The non-profit organization Pollinator Partnership promotes the health of pollinators through conservation, education, and research. You can use the tool on their website…

Ecological Principles of Permaculture

Three important ecological principles of permaculture are The role that each organism plays, the niche it occupies; Understanding succession in natural ecosystems and using it to heal the soil and bring forth both annual and perennial crops; Including as much diversity in the garden space as possible, both…

Important Reasons to Use Native Plants

Important Facts. 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 and often…

Practical Permaculture Methods: Start Today!

Permaculture, as much as possible, is an imitation of nature. Nature does not like bare soil; it is quickly filled up. A permaculture garden, except for paths, is filled chock-full with growing life. Soil is alive and miraculous. Rocks and organic matter decompose with the help of microscopic animals and…

Planning a Permaculture Garden

Planning a permaculture garden is important; although much learning comes from experimenting with ideas. For instance, I tried planting potatoes in a “hugelkultur,” a pile of small sticks with a lot of compost over them (probably not enough in my case), and the yields were definitely smaller than planting them…

Birds, Plants, and Insects: What They Need

Today we are discovering new things every day about the relationships between plants and insects and humans. Chickadee babies eat thousands of caterpillars that their hard-working parents bring them. Around industrial farms, the insects have been killed with pesticides and there aren’t any caterpillars available. Even in our…

Shrinking or Transforming Your Lawn

Centuries ago, wealthy landowners in England, with lots of land and lots of sheep, pastured the sheep in front of their mansions and invented the present-day lawn. Eventually, more people adopted the practice of lawns, not with sheep, but with newly invented lawnmowers. Today, maintaining the lawns around our homes…

Friends’ History of Investing with Integrity

Friends groups have a long and proud tradition of ethical investing. As Friends, we have consistently sought congruity of our principles when we consider what types of investments we should hold. We understand that how we use our money and what we choose to own is always a moral choice.

Practicing Earth Activism

By Ruah Swennerfelt (Updated 2021 by Hayley Hathaway). To become more active on behalf of Earth, start by making yourself aware of the issues. Learn from sources in addition to the conventional news reports. Begin examining ways you can reduce your purchases, buy local, rather than transported, goods, walk or…

Earthcare, Energy, and the Right Use of Things

Visualizing the Better World That Is Possible by Louis Cox TURNING OVER A NEW LEAF. While casting about for ways to introduce this article about changing wasteful lifestyles, one of my favorite movies broke to the surface: A New Leaf (1971, **½) is about a middle-aged playboy…

Bobbi Block holding up Rockwool protest poster next to country road

A Toxic Factory Will Create a Toxic Future

By Bobbi Blok. Children deserve clean air, water, soil, and a safe healthy area where they can play and grow. But a factory that manufactures wool-like insulation from spun-melted rock in Ranson, Jefferson County, West Virginia, will make that impossible. Rockwool, a Danish company, is constructing a factory that will…

Human-Induced Climate Change

By the QEW Sustainability: Faith & Action Working Group What are the effects of human-induced climate change? Human-induced climate change threatens to overarch all the human misuses of creation, including rapidly growing human population, habitat destruction, over-exploitation of resources, and introduction of invasive species. Human-induced climate change is the…

Soil: Begin with the Beginning

Share this Article This article is part of our Pamphlet for Sharing Series Download PDF By Tom Small It begins with the land. And the land begins from the soil. Soil that lives. The soil is the great connector of lives, the…

Considering Limits to Human Population Size

Friends have long been concerned about how we live on our Earth and how we can best support a good life for everyone and all species. Sustainability requires that we use Earth’s resources at a level that provides a reasonable life for all now and maintains…

Farming for Social Change

By Sayrah Namaste “To forget how to dig the earth and to tend the soil is to forget ourselves,” Gandhi said. The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) has been addressing the impacts of climate change through programs in New Mexico, Los Angeles, New Orleans, and Baltimore, to name a few.

For the Love of the Land

By Pamela Haines. I’VE LOVED THIS bit of land for over fifty years. Coming up over the hill, my heart always opens anew to the jewel of a valley spread out below, part of the rolling farmland and woodlots of central New York state. My father bought an old farm…

Flows Repeatedly: Learnings from the Menominee Nation

By Tom Small. NAPANOH PEMECWAN—Menominee for “flows repeatedly.” In nature, there is no foreground or background, no hierarchy, only relations, patterns of change and repetition. Train yourself to see the repeated patterns, to understand, feel, and identify with the flow. With these two Menominee words and their implications, Jeff Grignon,…

Listening to Roots, Walking in Beauty

By Mey Hasbrook. IN THE MEADOW, I gave thanks beside a beech tree. Sunset neared after a beautiful day with Swarthmoor Area Meeting of Southwest Cumbria, England. This area is called “the cradle of Quakerism” and brings to mind The Valiant 60, the 17th-century law-breaking mystics and traveling ministers from…

Beckoned by Living Trees

By Marcelle Martin THE FIRST TREE that beckoned me silently, long ago, was a sapling on the far side of a lawn. When I investigated, I discovered it was being strangled by an orange plastic band encircling its trunk. After the sapling had been purchased from a local nursery, the…

Kallan Benson sits on her butterfly parachute

A Quaker Youth’s Journey in Climate Activism

By Kallan Benson. AS A 15-YEAR OLD QUAKER, I am accustomed to silence. I understand it is not empty; it can hold profound power. I have felt my spirit resonate in the silence of my Quaker community, but silence has recently taken me outside the meetinghouse to the steps of…

Eco-Justice: Ecological Responsibility Linked with Social Justice

“You can’t achieve peace unless it’s accompanied by a constant striving to address the issues of justice. This means that your work will never end. It will never end.” —John Mohawk, Seneca Nation This article is part of our Pamphlets for Sharing series produced by QEW’s Publications Committee.

Human Reproduction is in the Commons: The Case for Smaller Families

This article was created by the Population Working Group of Quaker Earthcare Witness and is part of our “Pamphlets for Sharing” series, essays on important topics researched, written, and edited using Quaker discernment and decision-making.. Download the PDF or order print copies by emailing info@quakerearthcare.org. “In past times God’s Creation…

Two people backlit by pink sunset sitting in chairs under a tree

Talking about Climate Change: A Practical Guide

This article is part of our Pamphlets for Sharing series produced by QEW’s Publications Committee. Download the PDF here or order print copies by emailing info@quakerearthcare.org. The way we communicate our message is critical so that the vast majority of people not only grasp what we are trying…

Image of two conversation buttons like the yin-yang symbol

Talking about Climate Change: A Call for Dialog

“It is good for thee to dwell deep that thou mayest feel and understand the spirits of people.” —John Woolman (1) “Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt,  that you may know how you ought to answer each one.” —Colossians 4:62 (2) “Whoever says Thou does not…

Three people in black and white: A woman, a man with glasses, and a child.

Adoption: An Option for Friends

This article was created by QEW’s Population Working Group and is part of our “Pamphlets for Sharing” series, essays on important topics researched, written, and edited using Quaker discernment and decision-making. We hope you use them as an educational tool with your community. Download the PDF here or order…

Friendly Farmers & Earthcare

By Suzanne Lamborn, Little Britain Monthly Meeting, Baltimore Yearly Meeting My husband and I can trace our roots for each generation from the beginning of the colonies in agriculture. Being farmers we were aware that our nation went from over 90 percent farming to the present 1 percent owning farms…

Back on woman standing on shore during sunset

Empowering Women: The Link to Population

This article was created by QEW’s Population Working Group and is part of our “Pamphlets for Sharing” series, reflections on important topics researched, written, and edited using Quaker discernment and decision-making. We hope you use them as an educational tool with your community. Download the PDF here or order…

A Witness on Sexuality for Friends

This article was created by QEW’s Population Working Group and is part of our “Pamphlets for Sharing” series, reflections on important topics researched, written, and edited using Quaker discernment and decision-making. We hope you use them as an educational tool with your community. Download the PDF here or order…

Closeup of baby with bottle in black and white

Seeking Clearness on Childbearing in a Crowded World

This article was created by QEW’s Population Working Group and is part of our “Pamphlets for Sharing” series, reflections on important topics researched, written, and edited using Quaker discernment and decision-making. We hope you use them as an educational tool with your community. Download the PDF or order print…

Shadow hands holding lit globe in their hands

Immigration in a Crowded World: A Friends’ Perspective

This article was created by QEW’s Population Working Group and is part of our “Pamphlets for Sharing” series, reflections on important topics researched, written, and edited using Quaker discernment and decision-making. We hope you use them as an educational tool with your community. Download…

Friends Witness on Population

This article was created by QEW’s Population Working Group and is part of our “Pamphlets for Sharing” series, reflections on important topics researched, written, and edited using Quaker discernment and decision-making. We hope you use them as an educational tool with your community. Download…

Friends Seeking Clearness on Abortion

This article was created by QEW’s Population Working Group and is part of our “Pamphlets for Sharing” series, reflections on important topics researched, written, and edited using Quaker discernment and decision-making. This text is intended as an aid to worship-sharing on this sensitive topic.

Nature preserve with green grass, purple flowers, and blue sky in the background with a few wispy clouds

Ecological Integrity and the Light Within

by Louis Cox and Ruah Swennerfelt. Ruah is the former General Secretary of Quaker Earthcare Witness IN THE COURSE of our travels to present on behalf of Quaker Earthcare Witness, we search with gathered Friends for ways we all can “walk more gently on the Earth” and…

Author: Quaker Earthcare Witness

Youth-Led Quaker Grassroots Projects

Where’s the Hope in That? A Message from Quaker Earthcare Witness

QEW’s Favorite Books

EQAT AT 10: Finding Resilience in an Unimaginable Year

Examining Institutional Racism

Contemplative Action in the Time of Climate Change

Pleasing the Divine with Evolutionary Love

Build Back Fossil Free

Permaculture: The Art of Designing Beneficial Relationships

Fracking 101 Glossary

The Myth of a Century of Natural Gas in the U.S.

Quaker PopOffsets

What I’m Learning From the Pandemic

United Nations International Decade for People of African Descent

Truth Is Something That Happens

Why a Specifically Quaker Testimony on the Environment?

A Shared Quaker Statement: Facing the Challenge of Climate Change

Q&A with Douglas Gwyn

Review: Coming Back to Life: The Updated Workbook to the Work that Reconnects

Important Reasons to Use Native Plants

The Spiritual Basis of Earthcare

Ecological Principles of Permaculture

Galápagos: Lessons from Finches, Marine Iguanas, and Islands

Divestment FAQ

QEW Statement to the U.S. State Department on UNDRIP

Statement to ECOSOC on Science, Technology, and Innovation

QEW Statement on the Doctrine of Discovery

Statement on Unity with Diversity

QEW Participates in Revisions to FCNL Policy Statement

QEW Minute on Nuclear Power

Comment Suggestions on Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) for Keystone XL Pipeline

NEYM 2016 Yearly Meeting Minute on Climate Change

A Shared Quaker Statement: Facing the Challenge of Climate Change

Recommendations for all Friends

Host a Film Festival on Energy Options

Introduction to Permaculture

Planning, Planting, and Managing Your Butterfly and Pollinator Garden

Choosing Native Plants for Pollinators in Your Area

Ecological Principles of Permaculture

Important Reasons to Use Native Plants

Practical Permaculture Methods: Start Today!

Planning a Permaculture Garden

Birds, Plants, and Insects: What They Need

Shrinking or Transforming Your Lawn

Friends’ History of Investing with Integrity

Practicing Earth Activism

Earthcare, Energy, and the Right Use of Things

A Toxic Factory Will Create a Toxic Future

Human-Induced Climate Change

Soil: Begin with the Beginning

Considering Limits to Human Population Size

Farming for Social Change

For the Love of the Land

Flows Repeatedly: Learnings from the Menominee Nation

Listening to Roots, Walking in Beauty

Beckoned by Living Trees

A Quaker Youth’s Journey in Climate Activism

Eco-Justice: Ecological Responsibility Linked with Social Justice

Human Reproduction is in the Commons: The Case for Smaller Families

Talking about Climate Change: A Practical Guide

Talking about Climate Change: A Call for Dialog

Adoption: An Option for Friends

Friendly Farmers & Earthcare

Empowering Women: The Link to Population

A Witness on Sexuality for Friends

Seeking Clearness on Childbearing in a Crowded World

Immigration in a Crowded World: A Friends’ Perspective

Friends Witness on Population

Friends Seeking Clearness on Abortion

Ecological Integrity and the Light Within