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117 items

  • How to Green your Parish

    This article is about the importance of parishes to participate in environmentally sustainable actions based on Pope Francis’s Laudato Si’. It encourages parishes to strive to become more eco-friendly by taking work together as a community and focusing on change one issue at a time. The article focuses on three main areas: reducing the parishes greenhouse gas, sustaining food and land use, and preserving water.

  • Nature-Based Solutions Database

    As a part of the Equator Initiative and the UNDP (United Nations Development Programme), the Nature-Based Solutions Database connects communities through sharing thousands of viable eco-solutions from 500+ communities across five continents.
    Explore the Solutions Database to learn how outstanding local communities and indigenous peoples around the world are making possible the achievement of the UN Sustainable Development Goals through nature-based actions.

  • Conference of the Parties (COP)

    The COP is the supreme decision-making body of the Convention. All States that are Parties to the Convention are represented at the COP, at which they review the implementation of the Convention and any other legal instruments that the COP adopts and take decisions necessary to promote the effective implementation of the Convention, including institutional and administrative arrangements.

  • Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America (FEZANA)

    FEZANA is a non-profit religious group registered in the state of Illinois and formed to function as the coordinating organization for Zoroastrian Associations of North America. It serves as the coordinating body for 27 Zoroastrian Associations in the United States and Canada.

    On this website, you can learn more about the community of FEZANA , Zoroastrianism, their sustainability reports and other social activities.

  • The FEZANA Talks #9: Food Sustainability, Creativity & Conservation During COVID-19

    COVID has changed the way we eat, cook and live in many ways — good and bad. This discussion hosted by FEZANA (the Federation of Zoroastrian Associations of North America) focuses on the impact of the pandemic on the food supply chain, and how it affected the availability of the basics, leading people to get more creative in the kitchen. Everything from making our own bread to using leftovers to create new unexpected meals, has allowed people to ramp up their cooking skills, rely on sustainability and be more conscious of food wastage. Historically resembling the ways of our ancestors.

  • Laudato Si’ Gardens in Schools and Institutions across Italy

    The Living Chapel is expanding outreach for Laudato Si' Gardens to spaces managed by schools, governmental and non-governmental organizations encouraging participation in caring for our common home by supplying indigenous young plant species to various regions. This project distributes young plants throughout Italy for the recovery of degraded areas.

    Outside Italy, Laudato Si’ Gardens shared a Four Element Package that symbolizes Air, Earth, Water, and Fire.

  • The Living Chapel

    The Living Chapel holds the sacrality of life at its core. It embodies a call to hope: a hope for a world in which the sacrality of life is truly recognized and felt by every being to give rise to a kinder, more compassionate, more peaceful life.

    In partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, Plant for the Planet, and the Global Catholic Climate Movement, the Living Chapel will join the UN Environmental Programme's One Trillion Tree Movement, inspiring the public to reconnect with nature and providing a vehicle for intercultural and interfaith collaboration to restore our common home through the creation of Laudato Si' Gardens and Living Sacred Spaces.

  • Green Umbrella Impact Team: Faith Communities Go Green

    MISSION: Partnering with religious communities to create a more sustainable and equitable future for all by mobilizing their moral voice to reduce the risk of catastrophic climate change.
    VISION: Religious communities collaborating to integrate care for creation in their lives and society.

  • The Common Orchard Project (Incubated by Green Umbrella)

    The Common Orchard Project works to install and maintain hundreds of small orchard plantings across Greater Cincinnati and grows “commonly held” resources by educating communities on fresh food and urban land management. These common orchards provide increased food access, tree canopy, walkable greenspace and community building in neighborhoods that have experienced disinvestment. Founded in 2017 by Chris Smyth, the effort has planted 12 orchards across Cincinnati and two in Cleveland, with plans to install 50 more by 2024.

    In 2021, The Common Orchard Project was been adopted by Green Umbrella as an "accelerator project." Chris Smyth continues to serve as the director of the project as it incubates within Green Umbrella and will plant more orchards each year thanks to Giving Grove’s support. Learn more about the project at www.commonorchard.com.

  • The Giving Grove

    The mission of the Giving Grove is to provide healthy calories, strengthen community and improve the urban environment through a nationwide network of sustainable little orchards to dramatically increase access to healthy food.

    The Giving Grove envisions:
    - thousands of little orchards in food insecure urban neighborhoods across the nation;
    - a system of local food production that feeds people for decades;
    - a national network of neighborhood stewards trained in holistic methods for growing fruit; and
    - urban neighborhoods transformed by their own work and generosity.

  • Ecological Consciousness in Jainism: Exploring Realities, Constraints, and Traditions

    This paper explores the traditions and philosophies of Jainism and how that influences its connection to the environment. The author explains the Jainism cosmology and the distinction between different senses as they apply to animate and inanimate beings. Jain literature understands human connections to the world with an emphasis on the interconnectedness of life forms. To Jains, environmental concerns cannot be separated from socio-economic concerns.

  • A Bahá'í Compilation on Soil and Earth

    This compilation gathers a selection of references to soil, earth and minerals in the Bahá'í Writings, including the ways these are referred to both symbolically and literally.

    Contents:
    Mineral Kingdom
    Agriculture
    Metaphorical Uses
    Humility
    Earth as Tomb
    Rain on Soil
    Fertile versus Barren
    Cultivation - Divine Education

  • Indigenous environmental justice and sustainability

    Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability
    Volume 43, April 2020, Pages 35-40

  • Sacred Watersheds and the Fate of the Village Body Politic in Tibetan and Han Communities Under China’s Ecological Civilization

    Coggins studies the spiritual ecologies of Tibetan and Han communities in the People's Republic of China. The Tibetan animism focuses on the protection of landscapes because of their relation to various deities and spirits. Han communities worked on creating fengshui forests to find balance a balance of qi in all things.

  • Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI) Campaign Videos

    The Interfaith Rainforest Initiative (IRI) creates artistic and well-produced videos that accompany their programs on climate change education and awareness-raising in branch offices around the world.

    These videos are great resources for those looking for multimedia inspirations that amplify sustainability communications efforts.

  • ECHO Global Farm

    ECHO introduces sustainable plants, climate-resilient techniques, and technologies to farmers around the world who are struggling to feed their families.

    Through partnering with local NGOs, farmers, volunteers, and missionaries, ECHO is able to be efficient with their resources in providing aid where it's needed the most.

    Empty bellies and empty hearts lead to pain and suffering for individuals, families, and communities across the world. ECHO believes that as active participants in the Great Commission and stewards of great agricultural knowledge, it is their duty to grow and make disciples.

  • Should Rivers Have Right? A Growing Movement Says It’s About Time

    “Should Rivers Have Rights?," published through the Yale School of Environment, addresses not only the growing impact of river degradation but also the spiritual connection that indigenous cultures have with river systems around the world. Attributing legal rights to rivers and other bodies of water will contribute to their protection from further human pollution as well as restoration of these natural areas. Through legal policy, rivers can be brought back to a safe state of equilibrium while also being preserved for indigenous groups.

  • American Jewish World Service- Land, Water, and Climate Justice: Story Collection

    The American Jewish World Service compiled a website of their outreach stories from the US, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Reflections from work with Indigenous communities are included as well. The environmental activism showcased on their website also defend women and their crucial involvement with agriculture and the environment. From the website;

    "We aid communities and movements organizing to protect the land, water and natural resources that people depend on for their survival".

    More information on how to get involved is listed on their website.

  • Quench Their Thirst

    "Welcome to the Quench Their Thirst Fundraising Project!

    Water is a basic necessity of life, yet millions of people around the world lack access to this essential resource. By setting up a fundraising page, you can make a difference and help quench the thirst of those who need it most.

    The money you raise will build water wells, boreholes and water filtration plants in rural communities in Africa and Asia, where people currently have no choice but to walk for miles to collect dirty, contaminated water. This not only puts their health at risk, but also takes up valuable time that could be spent on education, work, or caring for family members."

  • Saving India’s Rivers: Ecology, Civil Society, Religion, and Legal Personhood

    "Abstract: In recent decades, India’s environment has been severely compromised by riverine pollution combined with large-scale dams and exacerbated by diversion for irrigation. Most prominent among the rivers so affected has been the Ganges and its tributaries in northern India, which for Hindus include the country’s most sacred bodies of water. This paper examines three campaigns opposing dam construction, arguably the most widely publicized and analyzed efforts of this kind since independence in 1947. One campaign was essentially secular with virtually no religious component, the second mostly secular with some religious support, and the third almost totally a religious initiative. In the end, only the third attained any real success, and that rested on circumstances unlikely to be replicated. The possibility that future campaigns of this scale can be taken up again appears remote. Meanwhile, riverine pollution has continued to increase everywhere despite massive governmental programs to reduce it. Theoretically, it would seem that environmentalists and Hindu devotees with their veneration of nature should be able to work in common cause to reduce pollution, but any large-scale cooperation seems unlikely between these two disparate realms. More recently an effort to protect rivers by endowing them with legal personhood enjoyed an initial success, holding the promise that lawsuits could be brought on behalf of a river against those polluting it. The paper concludes that while the legal personhood strategy is currently stalled, it offers the best chance for eventual success in attenuating riverine pollution. In the course of the paper, a comparative theoretical framework for assessing anti-dam protests will be tested."

  • Its promised land drying, Mormon Church works to save the Great Salt Lake

    Due to overuse and climate change, the Great Salt Lake is drying and is estimated to disappear in about five years. In response to this, the Mormon Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has started public conservation and water-saving efforts. This article describes these efforts and the role of the Great Salt Lake in the local environment and culture.

  • The Intellectual Martian Society of “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert Heinlein

    This chapter from the student-written book “Emerging Perspectives on Religion and Environmental Values in America” explores the environmental ethics and spirituality of the book Stranger in a Strange Land. Specifically, the author discusses the importance of water and the environmental impact of the book. Below is the first paragraph of the chapter to introduce the discussion.

    "In 1961, the accomplished science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein shared his latest work with the world. In the fashion of a fairytale, Stranger in a Strange Land begins 'Once upon a time,' and goes on to describe the fantastic culture of Mars and its impact on human society. The timing of its publication in the early 1960s allowed for a short digestion period, so that it was ripe in the mind of the counterculture in the latter half of the decade. Themes of religious reform, free love, and a oneness with the cosmos permeate the book, and coincidentally rose to popularity during this time. The alignment of the novel with the counterculture cannot be understated: in 1967, the Freak Scene recorded a song entitled 'Grok!,' an homage to the word coined by Heinlein in Stranger in a Strange Land, and a year later the Byrds referenced water brotherhood in their song 'Triad.' The verb 'grok' even found its way into the vernacular of the counterculture (Blackmore, 1995). Messages about the sanctity of clean water and the positive potential of religion reached tens of millions, securing the legacy of Stranger in a Strange Land as one of the books which shaped religious and environmental values in the United States (Library of Congress, 2012)."

  • The Spirit of the Rillito

    This article explores the ideas of animism and new animism. Animism is the belief that all things, living and non-living, have a spiritual essence. The author connects this system of beliefs to their local river, the Rillito.

  • Catholic Diocese of Columbus: Creation Care Guide

    The Creation Care Team of the Catholic Diocese of Columbus has created a Creation Care Guide based on the teachings of Laudato Si’. This guide contains information on energy conservation and efficiency, purchasing and recycling, transportation, and water conservation. Additionally, they have a section on making Laudato Si’ more accessible to younger generations. The inspiration for this guide came from the Archdiocese of Atlanta who wrote a document titled, An Action Plan for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Atlanta.

  • EPN Breakfast: Recognition of historical injustices in agriculture and the importance of environmental experiences for racial healing

    "This program, on the 8th annual National Day of Racial Healing, addresses land access and explores the human connection to the environment through farming, gardening and other active outdoor activities and the ability for agricultural experiences and acknowledgement of historical injustices to serve as healing towards racial equity. The National Day of Racial Healing, part of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Truth, Racial, Healing & Transformation efforts, is a time to contemplate our shared values and create the blueprint together for #HowWeHeal from the effects of racism. Launched on Jan. 17, 2017, National Day of Racial Healing is an opportunity to bring ALL people together in their common humanity and inspire collective action to create a more just and equitable world."

    1/16/2024, 7:15-9:30 a.m.
    Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4H Center
    Columbus, OH

    $25 for non-students, $5 for students, free for virtual participants