Dear Editor, Carbon sequestration with regenerative organic agriculture (including well-managed grassing of grass-fed ruminants) could sequester all of the excess carbon dioxide now in the air. Soil not oil, Cook Organic, not the Planet. This can be done at low-tech...
By Ruah Swennerfelt Can we have hope in the face of the human-caused climate disruption that is threatening the very home where we live? Although many now believe that the trajectory of increasingly chaotic climate isn’t likely to be stopped through any likely...
Shelley Tanenbaum, General Secretary Amazingly, there is quite a bit of good news to start the year, among all the doom and gloom (not that these aren’t also part of our reality). Here are a few things that are making me hopeful and giving me ideas for how to shape my...
Review: Symphony of the Soil Reviewed by Adrian Ayres Fisher 2015 is the UN Year of the Soils. Anyone who would like to understand why living soil is so vitally important would do well to watch “Symphony of the Soil,” directed by Deborah Koons Garcia. This...
One beautiful morning last summer, my granddaughter Ruby and I stood side-by-side in the garden, picking first green beans and then blueberries. She had her favorite blue basket and I’d grabbed a colander, and as we picked, we talked about vegetables and things like...
Doug Gwyn, the author of A Sustainable Life: Quaker Faith and Practice in the Renewal of Creation, generously agreed to be interviewed for this issue of BeFriending Creation. Thanks, Doug! 1. You explain how your thought and interests developed through several books,...
Reviewed by Katherine Murray In 2014, we saw many hopeful and encouraging signs that the world is beginning to “get it” about climate change. We also saw heartbreaking events, species slipping closer toward extinction, major disruptive weather events, and...
Review: Climate, Food, and Violence: Understanding the Connections, Exploring Responses Reviewed by Keith Helmuth The nexus of climate disruption and food insecurity leading to societal breakdown and violence is one of the most fraught scenarios of our time. This is...
Mary Gilbert There I was, at the age of almost 13, away at camp for the first time. This camp ran a 24-hour recruitment program for being born again and baptized in the lake. There was a lot of pressure, so that none of us would leave at the end of the week without...
By Judy Lumb Coming Back to Life by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown is expanded and updated from their book of the same name published in 1998 (New Society Publishers, 2014, Gabriola Island, BC). The Deep Ecology work of Joanna Macy, also called the “Work that...
QEW has grants available for Quaker projects that have the primary purpose of benefiting the environment and/or promoting environmental awareness and education among Friends and the larger spirit-led world. All ideas that support QEW values will be considered, but we...
QEW, FCNL, QUNO “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...
Lindsey Fielder-Cook, QUNO Climate Change Representative This December, Jonathan Woolley, the Director of Quaker UN Office (QUNO) Geneva, and I travelled to Lima to attend the latest round of international negotiations held under the UN Framework Convention on Climate...
By Shelley Tanenbaum, General Secretary I experienced a great shot of inspiration and hope from the September People’s Climate March in New York —not just from the sheer size of the turnout (400,000!), but also from the diversity of the organizers and the...
From the QEW Sustainability: Faith and Action Working Group. Recognizing the urgency of reducing our carbon footprint and living sustainably on the earth, QEW’s Sustainability: Faith and Action working group will be reaching out to all monthly and yearly meetings this...
By Katherine Murray Many of us look forward to the holidays as a time of family togetherness and much-loved traditions. In addition to the deep spiritual significance, we enjoy cookies, eggnog, caroling—what’s not to love? But the holidays are also often a time when...
By William Beale Several years ago, my wife and I decided that it was time to act on the ever-rising threat of climate change. Climate scientists had repeatedly warned us that we must stop putting carbon into the atmosphere or face the high likelihood of a near-term...
COP 20 opened on December 1 and will continue until December 12, 2014 as organizations, individuals, government representatives, and participants from UN bodies and agencies gather in Lima, Peru, to work toward developing a global agreement to help pave the way for...
Reflections on the People’s Climate March: Prelude to the Mother of All Movements? by Bob McGahey Geeta and I joined the amazing People’s Climate March in New York in September 2014. We marched with Quakers amongst the faith communities, a cohort with a...
Considering the Consequences of Unchecked Population Growth By Roger Plenty I am a Quaker living in Stroud, UK, and I have been a Friend for about 50 years. My interest in population started at a precise point in 1958. During an economics course, the lecturer told us...