Category: Volume 34
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Keep 1.5° Alive The U.N. Climate Change Conference
by Hayley Hathaway. “For those that have eyes to see. For those that have ears to listen. For those that have a heart to feel. 1.5 is what we need to survive. 2 degrees is a death sentence for the people of Antigua &…
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Red Lake Treaty Camp: At The Crossroads
How do you ask a community to be the last to sacrifice their land to support the dying fossil fuel industry? by Shelley Tanenbaum. In September I had the privilege of spending about a week on the frontline at Red Lake Treaty Camp, a spiritual and ceremonial…
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North America the Beautiful: 30×30 Conservation Efforts
by Joseph Cotham. The United States and Canada have committed to the conservation of 30% of the land and waters of the United States by 2030. The U.S.’ 30×30 initiative has evolved into the America the Beautiful campaign, a national call to action that is noteworthy for its goal and…
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Canadian ClimateFast
by Lyn Adamson. I’m the co-chair of Canada’s ClimateFast, a volunteer-based non-profit dedicated to building strong, informed public pressure to take urgent, substantial and just action on climate change. Our group fasted on the first full day of COP26, November 1, outside of the U.S. Consulate in Toronto as…
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Finding Your Family—In the Forest
BOOK REVIEW by Tom Small. Suzanne Simard, in her first book, Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest, has a story to tell. She tells it very well, with a keen sense of the dramatic. And she plays many roles. Foremost, she’s the mystery-story detective. She follows…
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Fairy Creek Blockade
by Hayley Connors-Keith. Content warning: police violence and sexual abuse On August 21, my partner and I went to the Fairy Creek Watershed on Vancouver Island in British Columbia to support the land defenders on the frontlines and protect the last 2% of old-growth forests.
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Opening to Our Direct Connection with the Divine
by Marcelle Martin. When I was in my mid-twenties, my graduate school program was not meeting my great longing to understand the nature of reality. I began to seek inwardly. Yearning to know what life was about, I paid attention to my inner experience in a new way. I would…
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Loving Earth Project: Climate Crisis Textile Art for COP26
A series of exhibitions of textile art was on display in a variety of venues in and around Glasgow during COP26, including at the city’s Quaker meetinghouse. Made by people and communities in many parts of the world, the Loving Earth Project depicts places, people, and things that the artists…
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Frontline Communities & Workers Demand Real Climate Solutions, ‘No Net Zero’ and an End to Fossil-Fuels at COP26
It Takes Roots is a multiracial, multicultural, intergenerational alliance of alliances representing over 200 organizations and affiliates in over 50 states, provinces, territories and Native lands on Turtle Island (known as North America). It is led by women, gender non-conforming people, people of color, Black and Indigenous Peoples. This November,…
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From the Clerk’s Table
by Mary Jo Klingel, Clerk. “Art thou in the Darkness? Mind it not, for if thou dost it will feed thee more. But stand still, and act not, and wait in patience, Till Light arises out of Darkness and leads thee.” – James Naylor I know that…
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A Vision From Our Divine Source
by Jennie Ratcliffe. Any and all of us who’ve held a vision of transformation grounded in what really sustains us—remembering that we don’t live by bread alone, but by the divine All That Is, that bread is sacred too, and there is no ultimate separation between them—are being called to…
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Homecoming
by Mey Hasbrook. Stirring, sap rises into burgeoning buds whose edges unfurl, like fingers opening in friendship. Leaves reach between gaps, become mounds. Earth caresses every curve, sings across seasons: Awaken Love! Open wholly! Embrace Beauty! From slumber, undulate in…
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Human-Caused Climate Change is “Unequivocal”
by Shelley Tanenbaum. If the catchword for 2020 was “unprecedented,” then 2021 follows as “unequivocal.” That is how the 2021 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports scientific evidence that human activities are the cause of climate change, that the climate will be getting worse for several decades, and that…
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Red Lake Nation’s Path to Solar Energy
by Ralph Jacobson. The people of Red Lake Nation, in northwestern Minnesota, had been talking for over a decade about ending their dependence on electricity generated from coal. This is a story about their journey toward renewable energy. Mercury falls into the water of midwestern lakes from plumes of smoke…
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Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s Climate Sprint
At Philadelphia Yearly Meeting’s annual sessions this July, Friends came under the weight of the climate emergency as a yearly meeting priority and accepted and approved the Climate Sprint Report, “Moving Together in the Face of Climate Change,” excerpted below. To read the full commitment, visit PYM.org. This statement…
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Awakening to Earth: An Earth-Body Meditation
by Bill Cahalan. Bill Cahalan is an eco-psychologist. His booklet, Awakening to Earth, is currently being updated by Quaker Earthcare Witness and will be available to share and download. This meditation is an excerpt. Bill writes, “Here is one version of a guided experience which I have used with weekend…
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Fresh Energy for Our Witness
by George Lakey. Judging from news accounts of the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report, we can expect a fresh dose of anxiety about the future to show up among Friends, even while some of us are reeling from the effects of Covid-19. The report is partly about…
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Wildfire Lessons: QEW’s Work in 2021
By Shelley Tanenbaum. Dear Friends, Last year’s wildfires were different than in years past. In California, forests have evolved to not just live with fire, but to thrive because of it—fires clear brush and release seed for the next generation. Mature trees survive mostly intact. Yet this past…
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Engaging with Ecological Grief
By Gayle Matson. Recently a Friend in my Quaker meeting spoke movingly of her sadness upon visiting a favorite place that had been ravaged by fire last year. Many of us can relate to that shock and dismay of discovering that a landscape or ecosystem we dearly love has…
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Quaker Advocacy on Sustainable Energy & Environment: Interview with FCNL’s Clarence Edwards
Clarence Edwards leads Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL)’s work on sustainable energy and environmental policy as Legislative Director. He brings to FCNL extensive experience in government relations, issue advocacy, and strategic communications. Clarence joined Quaker Earthcare Witness for our April Steering Committee Meeting. Here Clarence answers questions from…
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Poem: Prairie Prayers
By Allen McGrew Keen-eyed at dusk, the owl o’er the prairie glides as though on the wings of prayer, and the prayer she prays is a prayer for prey. And the prey? Furtively, he through the tall grass slides like…
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Poem: Hope Springs Eternal for The Flimsy Soul
By John Heimburg You know him…. but not really. The one who never knew Unconditional Love. For whom the siren song of Transactionality calls………… a never-ending Quest for Acceptance…
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Rebuilding Infrastructure
By Muriel Strand Many people believe we must rebuild our infrastructure. Unfortunately, almost everyone believes we must rebuild our fossil fuel infrastructure—roads, bridges, dams, ports, rail, pipelines, etc. What we need instead is to rethink our relationship with energy and return to a human-scale infrastructure that puts our real…
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Peak Oil Has Come and Gone!
By Bob Bruninga For decades, peak oil has been a term used to describe the anticipated dwindling supply of oil with anticipated skyrocketing prices due to scarcity and competition for resources. It turns out that the opposite has occurred as the demand for this obsolete, inefficient commodity has…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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Equality -> Equity -> Justice: The Transportation Case Example
By Beverly Ward “Our equality testimony flows inevitably from our belief that there is that of God in every person. If we believe in Equality, we must work for Justice. British Friends remind us: ‘Are you alert to the practices throughout the world which discriminates against people on the basis…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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