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Community Monthly Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio

Sustainability Minute (Approved May 14, 2000) We of Community Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends believe that the web of life, and each being within it, are expressions of the Spirit. We further believe that all our actions resonate throughout the symphony of Creation, flowing through space and…

IIlinois Yearly Meeting

Minute on the Condition of Human Population and the Earth (approved August 2, 1997) Illinois Yearly Meeting website: http://www.ilym.org/ Today, we are confronted with interacting problems unique in their magnitude. Among the major problems are increasing numbers of people, excessive use of resources, environmental degradation, loss of biodiversity, and the…

Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting — Climate Change

Minute Regarding Global Climate Change (approved 2001) SAYMA Friends: http://sayma.org/top/ SAYMA Friends recognize that unprecedented rate of change in our global climate is causing rising global temperature, diminishing polar ice, changing local weather patterns, and increasing frequency of severe storms. We also recognize that human activity, largely the combustion of…

Acadia, Maine, Friends Meeting

Minute on Connection with God's Creation (Approved January 18, 1998) “For me, God is creative, responsive love, binding together all that exists in the universe, manifest to us in the experiences which can bind us, all parts of creation, together in a blessed community.” Bruce Birchard, “This is my Quaker…

Patuxent, Maryland, Friends Meeting

Minute on Ecological Sustainability (approved June 6, 1999) Patuxent Friends believe that ecological sustainability should be added to our existing Quaker testimonies—for the following reasons: The concept of ecological sustainability has a spiritual depth. It includes a resolve to live in harmony with biological and physical systems. It also includes…

Princeton Monthly Meeting

Minute on Sustainability (Approved October 13, 1996) We, as Friends, are disturbed by the increasingly numerous, and increasingly severe, environmental problems besetting our world. We deplore environmental degradation as well as attempts by groups and individuals to eliminate such protections of the environment as are already in place. As Friends,…

Reading Monthly Meeting

Minute on Sustainability (Approved February 16, 1997) We recognize that all lives, and the earth and its resources that sustain us, are gifts from God. We reaffirm that our Testimonies, Concerns, and Queries as considered together can help us realize the stewardship needed to sustain our communities as part of…

Santa Barbara Friends Meeting

Friends Called to Consider World Population (Approved June 13, 2004) In the middle of the seventeenth century, when Quakerism was founded, there were over 600 million people on Earth; now there are more than six billion. The human population is growing at the rate of 3,000 every twenty minutes, while…

Stony Run and Homewood Friends Meeting

Minute in Support of the Diversity of Life (approved 2001) The universal processes that establish and maintain the forms we find in nature, including those forms we call “life,” are a manifestation of the Divine in which we are blessed to participate. In the manner of continuing revelation we are…

Swarthmore Friends Meeting

Minute on Living in Harmony with Nature (Approved February 9, 1997) The world is undergoing a number of ecological crises that threaten the survival of many living things, including humankind. Ozone depletion, climate change, the widespread presence of toxic substances in the earth’s air, water and soils are among the…

Roaring Camp, Big Trees and Pacific Railroad Station, north big trees Park Road, Felton, CA, USA

Wellsboro Monthly Meeting

(Approved December 8, 1997) The historic testimonies of the Society of Friends concerning simplicity, stewardship, equality and peace are widely recognized. Not so widely recognized are the interrelationships among these testimonies. Overpopulation and the misuse and overuse of resources are inextricably intertwined with poverty, injustice and illiteracy. These conditions are…

Annapolis Friends Meeting

A Minute on Climate Change Concerns and Policies “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.” Psalm 24:1 The Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) testimonies of Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality and Stewardship are our guides in dealing with the challenges of global warming and climate change.

Southeastern Yearly Meeting

Minute on Climate Change Southeastern Yearly Meeting approved a minute on climate change at our most recent Gathering, in April 2014. The minute is the result of a full year’s work. It was first read at our Gathering in 2013. Our Earthcare Committee asked each Monthly Meeting to season the…

Chena Ridge Friends, Fairbanks, Alaska

(Approved January 21, 1996) We applaud the efforts of Federal and State governments to address the current deficit problem. However, we fear that, in their haste to cut budgets, they have focused on programs critical to the well being of millions of Americans. Budget cuts in the areas of social…

Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting

Minute on Climate Change and Divestment from Fossil Fuels Climate change is a real and urgent threat to humanity’s current way of life. As Quakers, we see it as imperative that governments must take immediate action to curb climate change. When governments are unwilling to take swift action, then we…

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…

Sharing Love and Knowledge in the Time of COVID-19

An Interview with Beverly G. Ward. “IT’S LIKE PEELING an onion: layer after layer of pandemics and it all makes you cry,” shares Beverly Ward. She’s referencing the built-in injustice of her home state of Florida, where she works as Field Secretary for Earthcare for Southeastern Yearly Meeting (SEYM) and…

Cedar Green holds up greens as part of mutual aid project

Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Mutual Aid Experiment

By Keith Runyan and Rebekah Percy. WHEN the shelter-in-place order took effect throughout California earlier this year, a small group of Young Adult Friends from Pacific Yearly Meeting organized a mutual aid project with the goals of sharing resources and creating greater equity and self-sustainability within our communities during the…

The colorful diversity of plant species is preserved in the restored, Schulenberg Prairie, at the Morton Arboertum.

Plowing the  Prairie

By Pamela Haines Leaning into the plow— an enduring symbol of virtuous work Pioneers breaking virgin ground, bent on mastering the prairie whatever the cost. The harder the work the more noble the cause. And subdue the prairie they did— along with all the beings that called it…

I am a tree

By Cai Quirk. I am a tree, rooted in the bedrock of divine love. I am no longer trying to be a stone wall or surround myself with one. Walls are strong but they divide, are inflexible, less connected to the earth and the divine. A tree is rooted, grounded,…

Black and white photo of six police officers in Washington DC in riot gear

Collective Community Resilience: Thinking Through Climate Change and Defunding the Police

By Sara Jolena Wolcott. ONE OF THE MOST important lessons I learned when working in sustainable development overseas is to listen to the people most impacted by the problems to appropriately co-create viable solutions. Sometimes they would prioritize things that seemed strange to me. But over time, I would realize…

Connected Crisis: COVID-19 and Climate Change

By Alicia Cannon. WE ARE LIVING IN A TIME of concurrent global crises. There is the COVID-19 pandemic at the forefront of our minds. It is forcing us to stay home, constantly wash our hands, and wonder when this time of uncertainty will end. Despite this immediate threat, there is…

Weeding out Systemic Oppression in Our Garden

By Katie Breslin. THIS YEAR, I started a garden at a local farm. I didn’t know what I was doing when I signed up, just the basic principles like make sure the plants have water and to pull weeds, but that was about it. Thankfully friends and my plot neighbors…

Population is Personal

By Stan Becker. Here Stan Becker shares his spiritual and professional journey initiated by his early concern for the growth of human population on Earth. It is a story of his initial “vivid visual experience” in Mexico, which led him to search for an academic program that would allow him…

Love in the Wilderness: A Path for Climate Action

By Mey Hasbrook. LOVE SPEAKS OUT to me from the Biblical account of Exodus as a way to face climate breakdown. I hear this as someone of Cherokee Celtic-Irish descent and a Quaker carrying a ministry about Right Relationship, connecting care of the Earth and human communities. The mythology tells…

Master Chinese herbalist Joe Hollis with young apprentice in his apothecary at Mountain Gardens, Celo, North Carolina.

Mutual Aid & Local Food Sufficiency in the Era of COVID-19

By Bob McGahey. South Toe Mutual Aid is an organization of people in the South Toe/Celo, North Carolina area who are collaborating in a variety of activities with intent to strengthen our community’s capacity to meet our resource needs for overall well-being. As a hub of Co-operate WNC, a regional…

A tall person walks hand in hand with a child in the golden leaves

If I Were a Poet

By Allen J. McGrew, for Heidi S. McGrew. If I were a poet,  I would summon for you the cold creak of the board walk beneath your booted feet, And the gentle caress of the cool breeze on the back of your neck. My words would paint for you the…

Screen capture from Resource Generation's sharemycheck.org

How Will I #ShareMyCheck?

By Hayley Hathaway. MY BANK ACCOUNT looked good after I received my Economic Impact Payment of $1200 this spring. I felt grateful for the money Yet, I still have a job, unlike the 25 million people who have applied for unemployment in the US since the pandemic started. I got…

Quakers Caring for God’s Creation: A Kessler Family Journey

By Jim Kessler. SERENDIPITOUS moments are transformative intellectually and spiritually. In 1970, close to the first Earth Day, I was finishing a Masters in Biology at the University of Northern Iowa. I bought a Sierra Club book entitled A Moment in the Sun. Its clear description of the environmental crisis…

Endless War, Endless Environmental Harm

By Emily Wirzba and Alicia Cannon. THE QUAKER VALUE OF PEACE calls us to advocate for a reduction in Pentagon spending and military interventions abroad. The value of stewardship urges us to address climate change and seek an earth restored. While it might seem surprising, these two issues are intrinsically…

In Uncertain Times: Wisdom for the Pandemic

By Mary Jo Klingel. I HAVE HEARD the conventional wisdom that the business community needs certainty to function, and that the stock market needs certainty to grow. When I hear that, I think, “Well, what you are really saying is that you need to know that you will continue to…

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…

Photo of Gulf of Mexico from space at Night

Collective Evolution in the Face of Climate Crisis

By Keith Runyan. FROM THE EMERGENT PATTERNS of a monarch butterfly’s wing to the fractal branchings of a mycelial web, we find ourselves, as 21st-century Friends awash in a fundamentally beautiful world, unveiled. We find ourselves not in the universe, but of it, in a state of interbeing. Every day…

Philadelphia Friends Confront Climate Crisis

By Patricia Finley, Ruth Darlington, Liz Robinson, and the Eco-Justice Collaborative of PYM. MORE THAN 50 FRIENDS gathered on a snowy morning at Germantown Monthly Meeting on January 18 to learn, share, and discern how to effectively address environmental injustice and the climate crisis. Over the course of the Thread…

Book Review: Nothing Lowly in the Universe: An Integral Approach to the Ecological Crisis by Jennie M. Ratcliffe

By Ruah Swennerfelt. MANY, MANY YEARS ago, after having a deep-felt conversation with my father, who wanted to blindly trust his government, I gave him Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. I chose that book because Dad lived in Southern California, a desert turned into a false oasis of millions of homes using…

Poems: “The Earth is Us” and “gifts”

By Mary Ann Iyer. The cells of this earth are our cells. The wind that blows across its surface is the self same air that we breathe. Our life blood courses through our veins with no less certainty than the rivers cascading…

Roadmaps to a Better Future: Analyzing Climate Change Solutions Without Geoengineering

By Judy Lumb. HOW DO WE ensure a future on Earth for humans and other creatures? Three recent reports analyze solutions to climate change that meet the ambition of the Paris Agreement. The Climate Urgency: Setting Sail for a New Paradigm Coopération Internationale pour le Développement et la Solidarité (CIDSE)…

Is (the) Paris (Agreement) Burning?

By Shelley Tanenbaum. THE MOST RECENT Conference of the Parties (COP), held in Madrid, Spain in December, appeared to balance the Paris Climate Agreement of 2015 on a knife’s edge, a sharpened knife’s edge. Lindsey Cook of Quaker United Nations Office (QUNO) referred to this conference as “the COP25 of…

Interfaith Earthcare Touchstones

Compiled by Beverly G. Ward. “A touchstone transcends any one religion, thought, or spiritual tradition and serves as a guide. These touchstones provide examples of specific prayers, passages or scripture, or inspirations from various sacred texts or philosophical writings associated with diverse traditions.” Last year I joined faith leaders at…

Group sitting in circle at Ben Lomond Quaker Center

Young and Old for Climate Justice

By Hayley Hathaway. GEORGE LAKEY, lifelong civil rights activist, and Friend, hosted “Young and Old for Climate Justice: A Dialog” at Quaker Center in Ben Lomond, CA this January. Forty Friends, ages ranging from 15 to 80, joined the weekend-long retreat in the redwoods. Shelley Tanenbaum, QEW’s General Secretary, and…

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…

Cultivating the Next Generation of Naturalists

Fayetteville Arkansas Quakers Create Native Plant Garden for Ozark Natural Science Center By Eric Fuselier. The Fayetteville Monthly Meeting recently planted a native plant garden at the Ozark Natural Science Center (ONSC) located south of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. This native plant garden was a gift to ONSC, which is a…

Emma Condori from Bolivia, Barb Adams from Richmond VA and Hayley Hathaway IMYM

“We Had Something, Now We Don’t.” Bolivian Friends Face the Climate Crisis

By Emma Condori Mamani. My name is Emma Condori. I am from Bolivia. I was born near Lake Titicaca. Most of my childhood was very beautiful because I was raised in community life in one of the indigenous communities we have in Bolivia, called Aymara. One thing I really appreciated…

Three people stand in front of light pink house with porch

Casa Pueblo: Truly the People’s House

By Liz Robinson. THIS STORY STARTS with Hurricane Maria and our Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting’s decision to select Casa Pueblo as the beneficiary for our 12th month charitable giving. Because of its outstanding reputation, and its amazing hurricane-disaster recovery work providing solar energy to restore power to vital community services…

The Call and Response

By Mey Hasbrook. THIS SUMMER at the Friends General Conference Gathering’s Earthcare Center, I spoke on “Transformative Earthcare: 18th-century Benjamin Lay for Today.” I shared how this third-generation Quaker lived a radical life at the intersections of concerns that continue to weigh upon us today. In the 2017 biography The…

When Climate Change Gets Personal

By Gayle Matson FOR 60 OF MY 65 YEARS I lived in Seattle and Portland, surrounded by snow-capped mountains and lush forests. The natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest is truly spectacular, though climate change has brought even rainier winters to the area. Last year, after pining for sunnier weather…

School’s Out

Shelley Tanenbaum This past June was the hottest June on record, ever. This July was the hottest month ever recorded. Earlier this summer, temperatures were so high in France that exams were cancelled. You might not realize how significant this is, so let me put it in perspective by telling…

Green sweat bee on New England aster. Photo by Dave Crawford

How to Help Pollinators in Your Own Neighborhood

By Dave Crawford. Robin Wall Kimmerer (Braiding Sweetgrass, 2014) suggests humans can restore natural landscapes as a gift to Earth in exchange for the gifts nature provides to humans. She suggests that Earth might say “thank you” to humans for doing this. I’ve done this in my yard, and Earth…

An Easter Reflection with Joanna Macy

By Sara Jolena Wolcott. “What do you envision for the future?” Joanna Macy—Buddhist eco-philosopher, scholar of deep ecology and systems theory—asked me last night, over a dinner of orange yams and tofu and lemon broccoli. Every time I visit her in her Berkeley home, she feeds me these bright orange…

Image: Councilman Derek Green (right),a public banking advocate, addresses local lobbyists at Philadelphia City Hall on Lobby Day (Rita in blue and Pamela in teal). Photo: Stanley Shapiro.

Public Banking, Divine Vocations, and Fertile Ground

By Pamela Haines. THE ECO-JUSTICE Collaborative (EJC) of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting has endorsed an effort in Philadelphia to create a public bank. Similar to credit unions for individuals, a public bank would hold public funds in the city to be directed toward local needs, rather than paying for big banks to…

A Story of Interbeing: A Book Review of Climate: A New Story By Charles Eisenstein

By Ruah Swennerfelt. I’VE JUST FINISHED reading Climate: A New Story by Charles Eisenstein and am so moved by the wisdom I found between the covers. Eisenstein critiques the climate movement, arguing that the reliance on numbers, such as 350, facts, and data will not bring about the changes that are needed…

Southern Appalachian Quaker Youth Respond to Climate Crisis

By Robert McGahey. ARTHUR MORGAN SCHOOL and Celo Monthly Meeting recently hosted Southern Appalachian Young Friends (SAYF) for their annual retreat here. The Quaker Earthcare Witness Outreach Committee contacted the organizers to share about our work, leading an afternoon session with the youth. After a rigorous hike to idyllic Strawberry…

Feeding Us with Love and Local Tradition

By Bonnie Peace Watkins AS THE TWIN CITIES Friends Meeting Fellowship Committee, we were excited about the Quaker Earthcare Witness Spring Steering Committee meeting here in mid-April. We have long felt that food and fellowship are vital parts of witnessing, sharing, and caring for our beautiful planet. As we prepared…

Awaking Across the Branches of Friends

By Shelley Tanenbaum. SOMETHING SPECIAL happened at the March 2019 Friends World Committee on Consultation Section of the Americas meeting. Friends from across the branches of the Religious Society of Friends came together to express our love for the land and our dedication to environmental justice, with each of us…

Quaker Teachers Take on Climate Change and Restore Mexican Cloud Forest

By Paula Kline. Alan Wright and Paula Kline first took students to the Mexican Cloud Forest in 2003. Teachers at Westtown School in southeastern Pennsylvania, the couple had initiated the Quaker school’s agriculture program for its bi-centennial in 1999. Inspired by the ground breaking work of John Jeavons’ approach to…

So You’re Ready to Take Action Against Climate Change

Josephine Ferorelli created this flow chart—a helpful resource for anyone who doesn’t know where to start. Josephine is the co-founder and co-director of Conceivable Future, a women-led network bringing awareness to the threat climate change poses to reproductive justice, and demanding an end to US fossil fuel subsidies. Click…

The Changing Context of United Nations Climate Negotiations

By Philip Emmi. It is increasingly clear that we have gotten off on the wrong foot when addressing climate change. It can not be primarily a matter of nation-state cooperation on international policy, as once thought. Rather, addressing climate change requires a multi-pronged approach including attention to climate science, finance,…

The Bare Minimum: COP Climate Change Conference

By Lindsey Fielder Cook. THE AIM OF THE DECEMBER climate change conference in Poland, known as the Conference of Parties 24 (or COP24), was to define an implementation ‘Rulebook’ for the Paris Agreement. After two weeks of exhausting, if not ‘fierce’ negotiations, how did it all go? It depends on…

Pachamama Alliance Promotes Grassroots Drawdown Action

By Keith Voos. I’M SURE THAT MOST readers of this newsletter hold it to be true that the human race now faces the biggest threat to its survival since its near extinction in the last ice age, when the population of the earth was reduced to between 15,000 and 18,…

Project Drawdown In Practice

By Ruth Darlington. WHEN PAUL HAWKEN’S book Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming came out in 2017, many hailed it as the “new Green Bible.” I rushed to get a copy. When I held it in my hands, it felt like proof that there really was something…

Let Nature Teach

By Dan Kriesberg. AN EXCELLENT MEASURE of how much children are learning is to count the number of times the teacher says “Pay attention.” The fewer “pay attentions” the more learning. In my own experience of 30 years as a science teacher, a 4th-grade teacher, and even as a swim…

Finding Peace in Troubled Times

By Jay O’Hara. ON CHRISTMAS EVE I went out with my in-laws to church service in upstate New York. The big crowd gathered in the chapel on the campus of Cornell University, and the minister hit all the right notes for this presumably liberal crowd: alluding to the occupant of…

Changing Together? The COP24

By Frank Granshaw and Annette Carter. IN DECEMBER 2018 the 24th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (COP24) met in Katowice, Poland. Their task was to hammer out the rulebook by which the world could achieve the goals set forth…

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.

Going Green is Easy and Cheaper Now

A Peek into Quaker Institute for the Future’s new book Energy Choices: Opportunities to Make Wise Decisions for a Sustainable Future by Bob Bruninga Review by Judy Lumb. WE ARE NEVER MORE than a few years away from making a major personal energy decision: • when we pay our electricity bill •…

Report from the Global Climate Action Summit

By Larry Strain. I attended the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) in San Francisco this September as a delegate of the American Institute of Architects (AIA). I also attended two affiliated events – The Carbon Smart Building Day and Climate Heritage Mobilization. I’ve been working on reducing Green House Gas…

A few people walking ona very straight, flat highway

First Nation – Farmer Climate Unity March

An Introduction By Jeff Kisling. Iowa Yearly Meeting (Conservative) Friends Peter Clay and I recently walked on the First Nation-Farmer Climate Unity March. A group of about thirty that included nearly a dozen Native Americans walked 94 miles along the route of the Dakota Access Pipeline from September 1 –…

Birds, Bees, and Butterflies: Monthly Meeting in Fayetteville, Arkansas Creates New Habitat for Wildlife

By Eric Fuselier. LAST YEAR FAYETTEVILLE Monthly Meeting’s Quaker Earthcare Witness Committee started a project to improve the grounds at our meetinghouse, the OMNI Center for Peace, Justice & Ecology, to include more habitat for wildlife, with the ultimate goal of the Center becoming certified as a wildlife habitat by…

A Fight for The Yintah

By Daniel Kirkpatrick. THE THIRTY OF US STOOD in a quiet circle in the gravel on a sunny, cool morning. Wood smoke rose toward the sky from the adjacent lodge, and boreal forests surrounded the clearing. A First Nations elder, Lht’at’en, spoke in her Wet’suwet’en dialect, offering a prayer before…

Community Monthly Meeting, Cincinnati, Ohio

IIlinois Yearly Meeting

Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting — Climate Change

Acadia, Maine, Friends Meeting

Patuxent, Maryland, Friends Meeting

Princeton Monthly Meeting

Reading Monthly Meeting

Santa Barbara Friends Meeting

Stony Run and Homewood Friends Meeting

Swarthmore Friends Meeting

Wellsboro Monthly Meeting

Annapolis Friends Meeting

Southeastern Yearly Meeting

Chena Ridge Friends, Fairbanks, Alaska

Strawberry Creek Friends Meeting

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

Sharing Love and Knowledge in the Time of COVID-19

Pacific Yearly Meeting’s Mutual Aid Experiment

Plowing the Prairie

I am a tree​

Collective Community Resilience: Thinking Through Climate Change and Defunding the Police

Connected Crisis: COVID-19 and Climate Change

Weeding out Systemic Oppression in Our Garden

Population is Personal

Love in the Wilderness: A Path for Climate Action

Mutual Aid & Local Food Sufficiency in the Era of COVID-19

If I Were a Poet

How Will I #ShareMyCheck?

Quakers Caring for God’s Creation: A Kessler Family Journey

Endless War, Endless Environmental Harm

In Uncertain Times: Wisdom for the Pandemic

Human-Induced Climate Change

Collective Evolution in the Face of Climate Crisis

Philadelphia Friends Confront Climate Crisis

Book Review: Nothing Lowly in the Universe: An Integral Approach to the Ecological Crisis by Jennie M. Ratcliffe

Poems: “The Earth is Us” and “gifts”

Roadmaps to a Better Future: Analyzing Climate Change Solutions Without Geoengineering

Is (the) Paris (Agreement) Burning?

Interfaith Earthcare Touchstones

Young and Old for Climate Justice

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

Cultivating the Next Generation of Naturalists

“We Had Something, Now We Don’t.” Bolivian Friends Face the Climate Crisis

Casa Pueblo: Truly the People’s House

The Call and Response

When Climate Change Gets Personal

School’s Out

How to Help Pollinators in Your Own Neighborhood

An Easter Reflection with Joanna Macy

Plowing the  Prairie

I am a tree