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Prospects warm for worldwide climate accord

16 Nov 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

This Sunday’s psalm extols the blessings that may come to a couple with a close relationship with the Lord, such as children gathered “like olive plants around your table.” Those worried about climate change, who have for a generation urged industrial nations to think of the environmental damage we are leaving to our children, had reason to cheer this week as President Obama and Chinese president Xi Jinping publicly committed to substantial cuts in their nations’ carbon emissions.The agreement has given a fresh jolt of optimism to negotiations aimed at reaching a new international climate treaty next year in Paris, where the American and Chinese targets are expected to be the heart of the deal. “For the world’s biggest emitters to be coming together and announcing concrete numbers, serious numbers, sends a signal to the world,” said David B. Sandalow, who was Obama’s assistant secretary of energy for policy and international affairs until May 2013.Nearly two decades ago, the world’s first climate change treaty, the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, failed to stop the rise of planet-warming carbon pollution in large part because of a standoff between China and the United States, which never signed the deal. For the world's two largest economies--and largest emitters of greenhouse gas--to announce a sustained commitment to reducing carbon emissions by almost a third by the year 2030 is a watershed moment for climate politics.Homily hint: Perhaps you’ve heard the shorthand NIMBY applied to dangerous or unsightly structures and projects—Not In My Backyard. Policies toward pollution for decades reflected this attitude—until we began to realize that the planet is everyone’s backyard—and our children are playing in it. Let’s make sure that when they grow up and have children of their own, they still have a yard to play in. Source: Articles by Coral Davenport for The New York Times and David Holmes for CNN

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Fracking fraught with risks, report concludes

21 Dec 2014 - Preaching the News for Sunday

Mary was at first “greatly troubled at what was said” by the angel Gabriel, we hear in this Sunday’s gospel account of the Annunciation. Troubled by the potential health risks associated with hydraulic fracturing, Governor Andrew M. Cuomo’s administration announced on Wednesday that New York State will ban the disputed method of natural gas extraction.State officials concluded that fracking, as the method is known, could contaminate the air and water and pose inestimable dangers to public health. The announcement was made amid increased calls by environmentalists nationwide to ban fracking, which uses water and chemicals to release oil and natural gas trapped in deeply buried shale deposits.The question of whether to allow fracking has been one of the most divisive public policy debates in New York in years, pitting environmentalists against others who saw it as a critical way to bring jobs to economically stagnant portions of the state.Acting state health commissioner Dr. Howard A. Zucker said Wednesday that a lengthy health study found “significant public health risks” associated with fracking. Zucker listed concerns about water contamination and air pollution and said there was insufficient scientific evidence to affirm the long-term safety of fracking.Zucker said his review boiled down to a simple question: Would he want to live in a community that allowed fracking? He said the answer was no. “We cannot afford to make a mistake,” he said. “The potential risks are too great. In fact, they are not even fully known.”Homily hint: Those who support fracking say it brings jobs, and people need jobs. But on a more fundamental level, people need clean air and water. There are other ways to promote economic development, whereas clean water and air have no substitutes. Let’s get our priorities in order. Source: An article by Thomas Kaplan and Jesse McKinley for The New York Times

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Homily stories

22 May 2022 - Sixth Sunday of Easter, Cycle C

Today's second reading, from Revelation, offers the image of the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven. This powerful image has entered religious and popular culture in many ways over the years. In 1804, William Blake wrote a poem using this image in which he lamented the destruction of nature because of England’s industrialization, the “Satanic mills” in the poem’s first stanza: “And did the Countenance Divine / Shine forth upon our clouded hills?/ And was Jerusalem builded here / Among these dark Satanic mills?” While the damage done to the environment by industrialization in 1804 was confined to a few urbanized cities, such as Blake’s London, today the reality of environmental degradation is global. Because we can’t turn the clock back on industrialization, where is the solution to be found? Blake resolved to use the tools of human intelligence and creativity to find a way forward that not only avoided destroying our natural habitat, but actually brought us closer to the celestial vision of the New Jerusalem. His poem ends: “I will not cease from mental fight; / Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand / Till we have built Jerusalem / In England’s green and pleasant land.”

Authors Daniel Grippo

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