Category: Minutes on Earthcare
A minute is a statement of belief that an individual or group would like to record for others to see, both now and in the future, about a certain topic or person. It is held as a permanent record of our meeting’s convictions. (Thanks to Fairfield Friends for this definition). This is a collection of minutes on earthcare from across North America.
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Friends Meeting at Cambridge
Divestment Minute from Friends Meeting at Cambridge Following is the divestiture minute the Friends Meeting at Cambridge passed in early October. The minute is to Friends Fiduciary Corporation in Philadelphia where we have meeting funds; at the time of the writing of this minute, FFC had more than 6 percent…
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Canadian Yearly Meeting
Minute on Harmony with Nature (approved August 2001) Canadian Yearly Meeting website: http://quaker.ca/ Friends believe we are all manifestations of the Creator, the Divine Spirit, God. As our knowledge has grown, we have come to realize that indeed all life forms are exquisitely interrelated and independent. We envision a Religious…
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Minneapolis Friends Meeting
Minute on Voluntary Carbon Tax Peace and Social Concerns Committee statement regarding the voluntary carbon tax and the goals of peace, racial justice, and economic justice: Quakers have taken the lead in saying that the US and other nations need a mandatory carbon tax, something to encourage people to buy…
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Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting
Sustainability Minute (approved August 2, 2002) Ohio Valley Yearly Meeting website: http://ovym.quaker.org/ We of Ohio Valley Yearly 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…
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Netherlands Yearly Meeting
Sustainable Development as a Quaker Testimony? A Challenge to All Friends (approved 1997) In 1988 Netherlands Yearly Meeting agreed on a minute in which our representative to the 1988 Triennial was asked to request the Triennial in Japan: as a matter of urgency, that the theme of the ecumenical Concilliar Process—Justice,…
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Philadelphia Yearly Meeting
Minute on Relationship to God's Creation (approved at the January 1998 Session of Interim Meeting) Philadelphia Yearly Meeting website: http://www.pym.org/ The world is God’s creation. How we treat the earth and all its creatures is basic to our relationship with God, and of fundamental religious concern to the Society…
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New England Yearly Meeting
Minute on Connection with All Creation (approved 1991) New England Yearly Meeting website: http://www.neym.org/ Cultivating a deeper awareness of our connections with all of Creation enables us to live more Spirit-filled lives. Such awareness brings us great joy, reminds us of God’s presence in everything around us, leads us to…
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Baltimore Yearly Meeting
Minute on Global Warming Approved August 2000 Baltimore Yearly Meeting website: http://www.bym-rsf.org/ Protecting God’s Earth and its fullness of life is of fundamental religious concern to the Society of Friends. The links between human activity, the dramatic rise in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and the rise of average global temperature…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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,…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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.
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Reflections on Standing Rock
Sacred Stone, Clean Water, Gathering People By Shelley Tanenbaum, QEW General Secretary. The gathering at Standing Rock, with more than 280 indigenous tribes represented, is historic and has been an inspiration to all of us. The ongoing gathering is being held to block construction of the Dakota pipeline that threatens…
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QEW with Friends World Committee for Consulation in Pisac, Peru
By Mary Gilbert and Judy Lumb The Friends World Committee on Consultation (FWCC) brought Friends from all over the globe together in a loving and somewhat challenging mix. From January 19-27, 2016, more than 300 of us gathered in Pisac, Peru. Do you wish you had been there?…
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