Browsed by
Category: the natural world

nrdc update: good news!

nrdc update: good news!

Comments 0 Comment

Good news on the endangered species front …

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will withdraw its decision to remove endangered species protections from the gray wolf in the Northern Rockies, according to press reports. Federal protections of wolves will continue for wolves in Yellowstone, Central Idaho and Glacier ecosystems. This development comes on the heels of a federal judge’s decision on a suit brought by NRDC and 11 other conservation groups that blocked the delisting decision. Recently the Department of Interior has been roundly criticized over proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act.

“More than 100 wolves were needlessly killed as a result of the government’s ill-fated delisting effort—and hundreds more would have been shot this fall if federal protections had not been restored,” said Louisa Willcox of the Natural Resources Defense Council. “One of the Endangered Species Act’s greatest success stories would quickly be undone if the killing had continued, And that death toll confirms the need for wolves to retain federal protection until their populations increase and state agencies can demonstrate that they are capable of managing wolf populations responsibly.”

Read the rest of the article: Wolves Win on the National Resources Council website.

sister earth

sister earth

Comments 0 Comment

Earth

The earth is not our mother. The earth is our sister, both it and we born from the same “womb,” both it and we sustained moment by moment through the vigilant care of our loving Father, both it and we living toward the day when all things will be made new.

nrdc update: 37 wolves killed

nrdc update: 37 wolves killed

Comments 2 comments

Two wolvesAn update from the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) on what has happened since protections for wolves were lifted in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana …

The government-sanctioned massacre of wolves is now under way.

A mere 30 days after the Bush Administration stripped Yellowstone’s wolves of their Endangered Species protection, the Northern Rockies have been turned into a killing field.

Thirty-seven wolves are already dead. Hundreds more are being targeted by Wyoming, Idaho and Montana, which have waited years for this chance to put their plans for extermination into action.

But today there is reason for hope: America’s best wildlife legal team is riding to the rescue.

Our partner organization, the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) — and 11 other groups — filed suit this week in federal court to stop the killing and restore the wolf’s desperately needed Endangered Species protection.

The court action comes not a moment too soon. Eyewitness reports of the latest wolf-killing rampage have been heartbreaking to people all over the world who care about wildlife.

On the very day that these wolves lost their Endangered Species protection, a crippled wolf named “Limpy,” one of the most photographed wolves in Yellowstone’s famous Druid Peak pack, was shot to death when he ventured outside the park.

Another wolf was stalked for over 35 miles by snowmobile before being overtaken and shot. Another was found dead on the side of the highway, his still-warm body torn apart by bullets.

And, tragically, at least four female wolves have been killed just prior to the denning season, which could doom some of the region’s wolf pups.

Wolves simply cannot outrun these relentless attacks. Their last, best hope now rests with the life-saving reprieve that NRDC is seeking in federal court.

You can learn more about the threats to the gray wolves in my earlier post, putting the wolf in danger. You can take action to ban wolf poisons here.

here!

here!

Comments 1 comment

This poem by David Wagoner, entitled “Lost” was posted on April 18th at the inward/outward website …

Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you.
If you leave it, you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.

Every place is a Here … and every place may be a home.

disconnected faith?

disconnected faith?

Comments 2 comments

Cool Congregations logoIn a couple of weeks, our congregation will be hosting a “Cool Congregations” workshop, intended to promote an informed and committed response by people of faith to the serious environmental threat posed by global warming. We sent out a mailing describing the event to churches of every denomination in the metropolitan area and to all the UCC churches in northeast Iowa.

This week I have been making follow-up calls to a selected list of churches that had received the mailing — I had the A’s and B’s and C’s!

I have been surprised — and disheartened — by the palpable disconnect between many of these faith communities and any sense of responsibility for the health of the planet. Maybe it’s because the issue of global warming has become so politicized, though it is most difficult for me to see how this is in any way a partisan issue. Or maybe it’s because churches believe that even talking about global warming means being co-opted by some broader “liberal” agenda.

That is what I find disheartening, and disturbing. Who better should care about this earth than those who believe God made it? Who better should be eager to do all we can to keep it beautiful and pristine and life-sustaining than those who believe God made it good and left us in charge of keeping it good? What is the value of a faith that serves only to prepare us for “another life” and largely neglects this one? Where is the integrity in a faith waits longingly for a “new world” while letting this one “go to hell?”

Life is God’s gift to us, a most precious gift indeed. And we honor God best by taking good care of that gift … in its entirety! Not just taking care of souls, but bodies too! Not just honoring the Word, but the Word made flesh! Not just valuing the Spirit, but all that the Spirit brings to life, all that the Spirit brought to life when it moved over the waters at the dawn of creation!

putting the wolf in danger

putting the wolf in danger

Comments 2 comments

Gray wolfThe gray wolf has just been de-listed from the Endangered Species list in three states: Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. All three states are already making plans to authorize wolf kills.

It’s a bad idea, turning back the clock on the successful recovery of wolf populations and the restoration of better-balanced ecosystems. Wolves are, at worst, a minor nuisance, destroying a few livestock each year. They are, at best, a critical contributor to the health and diversity of the ecosystems of which they are a part, and, for us, a reminder of a wild and free — and even dangerous — world that is not completely under our thumb.

And that is a good thing! We need to remember that we share this earth with other living things, that we serve God well by serving all creation well, not by tampering with it and taming it and culling it for our own convenience! The wolf is a beautiful and valuable part of God’s creation and deserves better treatment from us.

What follows is an excerpt of a NRDC (National Resources Defense Council) discussion of the de-listing of the gray wolf. You can read the whole report here.

The Bush Administration’s proposal gives the states a free pass to kill hundreds of gray wolves, just when wolves are making good progress toward recovery. And another loophole would make it possible for states to kill wolves even while they are on the endangered species list: the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has also proposed to revise section 10(j) of the Endangered Species Act, known as the “killing rule,” which would allow the states to eliminate wolves if they are “a major cause” of numerical or distributional changes in elk herds. The fact that drought, shrinking habitat, other predators, and human hunting have been found to be the primary causes of elk herd changes becomes irrelevant under this new rule. In effect, wolves can be exterminated for doing what they are supposed to do—maintain a healthy ecosystem by preying on elk.

The federal government has failed to apply sound science to protect wolf populations. For the past five years, the federal government has been aggressively killing wolves, without solving the underlying conflicts with livestock that are prompting the slaughter of numerous wolf packs. After delisting, even more wolves will be killed. Although independent biologists agree that 2,000 to 3,000 wolves are needed in the Northern Rockies for a healthy, viable wolf population, the Bush Administration’s plan could reduce the number of wolves to as low as just 100 in each state.

For another take on the political motivation for the de-listing “as the settling of an old score,” see Jim Doherty’s article in the Washington Post, Wolves Are Back. Humans Are Howling. in the Washington Post.

ucc letter on science and faith

ucc letter on science and faith

Comments 1 comment

John Thomas, President and General Minister of the United Church of Christ, has this month released a pastoral letter written in consultation with the UCC Science and Technology Network entitled A New Voice Arising: A pastoral letter on faith engaging science and technology. The letter asks:

Can we dare to seek, to wonder, and if necessary to doubt until we believe anew, confident that in the end we will be filled with a fresh faith that engages the hunger in so many hearts and minds?

UCC poster: Who said God doesn't like science?The letter wants us to believe, “Yes, we can! Yes, we can dare, as people of faith, to seek and wonder and doubt. Yes, we can dare believe that our seeking and wondering and doubting will lead us to a deeper and truer and more relevant faith. Yes, we can dare hope that our readiness, as people of faith, to take scientific exploration and technological innovation seriously will engage the minds and hearts of this generation of spiritual seekers.”

The letter is companion to a new website and a new internet advertising venture all intended to stimulate conversation about the intersection of faith and science, and to continue to portray the United Church of Christ as a church ready and eager and able to engage this generation on its own turf. Or to put it in a another way, the UCC is seeking again to live out the implications of its faith a God who is still speaking, a God whose voice speaks in fresh and compelling ways to our world as it is and as it is becoming, a voice that is ever new and ever relevant.

UCC poster: God makes room for quantum mechanicsI think wise people have always known that science is not by nature anti-religious, and that religious faith is not by nature anti-science. It’s just that lots of folks have forgotten that. We have forgotten that the inquiring mind and the seeking heart are both essential elements of the human spirit, and that a keen mind makes faith deeper, and that a deep faith makes a mind keener. I am glad that the United Church of Christ is reminding us of that and I look forward to following the ongoing conversation.

“living with a sense of gratitude”

“living with a sense of gratitude”

Comments 0 Comment

Barbara Kingsolver was interviewed by World Ark, Heifer International’s bi-monthly magazine, about her newest book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. The book describes her family’s yearlong pledge to eat only locally-produced foods. In response to a question about “moments of miracle on this journey,” Kingsolver replied:

For me, the biggest miracle is the fact that this project, which may have seemed to us in the beginning to be an exercise in deprivation, very quickly guided us through a paradigm shift. Very quickly, we came to see this way of living with a sense of gratitude.

We moved from beginning each meal by asking. “What do I feel like?” to asking, “What do we have?” We would look at what’s coming in — what’s wonderful and abundant right now — and work from there. It was very valuable for our family, and it’s a wonderful way to live. It’s a paradigm shift that all of us could probably use in our lives.

We are easily seduced by convenience and quickly jaded by an overabundance of, well, just about everything. But convenience and overabundance mask the ongoing reality of a world where most folks don’t have even enough, and where we, who have more than enough, are often deprived, too. We are deprived of gratitude, because things come to us too easily, and we are deprived of joy, because the price of convenience is quality. What comes quick and easy and cheap IS quick and easy and cheap.

The Kingsolvers’ experiment is interesting — even if it was done for the sake of a book! — but what I find most interesting about it is this rediscovery of a sense of gratitude, of finding again the daily rhythm of prayer and thanksgiving to which Jesus invites us: “This is how you should pray … ‘Give us this day our daily bread.'”