By Mt. Toby Friends Climate Witness Committee Over the past three years a group at Mt. Toby Friends Meeting in Leverett, Massachusetts has studied the issue of climate change. In that time, the meeting made a number of structural improvements to reduce carbon use in...
Tom Small, Publications Clerk Quakers hold one another in the light. Summer Light holds us, enveloping and embracing us through long, quiet days. The very air is bright as the yellow flowers of July and August gather sunlight and offer, in return, an earthly...
Dear QEW Friends, Quaker Earthcare Witness encourages all Friends, monthly and yearly meetings to thank President Obama for his planned action on climate change. We see the need for a groundswell of support to counter expected strong opposition. These proposals are...
Statement to the Post 2015 Consultations Submitted by Quaker Earthcare Witness, July 10 2013 For more information about QEW please contact Anne Mitchell, General Secretary. As Quakers, part of our tradition is to remain open to all sources of wisdom and recognize that...
Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN I have never seen the like, not at the UN! The countries are taking seriously the threats human activity has brought to Earth’s ability to host us and other species. They get it! Best of all, they get that it is really one...
Shelley Tanenbaum, Clerk In keeping with Friends General Conference’s theme of “Our Growing Edge,” we explored the query, What is your Monthly or Yearly Meeting’s growing edge on environmental concerns? The query and responses were one of the 14 sessions we hosted in...
Anne Mitchell, General Secretary QEW held its Steering Committee meeting, June 27 – 30 at Boulder, Colorado. We were warmly welcomed and hosted by Boulder Monthly Meeting. Boulder Friends provided housing, transport, and their beautiful Meeting House in a...
Mary Gilbert A book review by Mary Gilbert Crisis of Global Sustainability, by Tapio Kanninen. #74 in the Routledge Global Institutions Series, Routledge, New York, NY, 10017, 2013. Maybe you’re like me; you’ve heard of the book Limits to Growth and its warning that...
Os Cresson One day in 1652 George Fox was concerned to demonstrate his unity with all creation. As he later described it in his journal, “[T]here came John Story to me, and lighted his pipe of tobacco, and, said he, ‘Will you take a pipe of tobacco,’ saying, ‘Come,...
David Millar For some years it has been clear that environmental doom-saying, because it is a poor motivator, is a dead end. However true the predictions of global overheating, climate chaos, resource wars, pollution, and disease (with consequent mass death or...
The Spiritual Nurturance Committee, QEW Dear Friends, As both Friends and environmentalists we on the Spiritual Nurturance Committee of Quaker Earthcare Witness hold a variety of personal views, beliefs and approaches based in the variety of our backgrounds,...
Shelley Tanenbaum QEW Friends are invited to visit our Earthcare Center at Friends General Conference this summer, July 1-5, 2013. We are planning an interesting range of presentations every afternoon (except Wednesday, the FGC day of rest, when we’ll show films)....
Anne Mitchell QEW is moving into an exciting period of its existence. At the October 2012 gathering, we reminisced about the first 25 years of the organization from its founding in 1987. Those at that first meeting in 1987 concluded, “There is a need for Friends to...
Katherine Murray My daughter and I drove through a dramatic April rainstorm to hear the gentle stories and powerful inspiration shared by Dr. Jane Goodall on April 17. Of the many beautiful and poignant ideas in Dr. Goodall’s talk, one in particular has stayed with me...
Judy Lumb Circles of Discernment and Leadings and Concern Groups give Friends the opportunity to deepen and share Quaker Institute for the Future (QIF), as a way to facilitate Spirit-led research and action in the manner of Friends using worship sharing and group...
Rory Short, Johannesburg Monthly Meeting Dear QEW Friends, I discovered your website today. It speaks to me. First some personal background: I am a member of Central and Southern Africa Yearly Meeting and within it I am a member of Johannesburg Monthly Meeting. I am...
Recently a Friend brought to our attention Sarah Moon’s original play, Tauris, which invites audiences to consider contemporary environmental concerns in the context of Greek drama. Tauris will soon have its world premiere as part of the 5th Annual Planet Connections...
By Os Cresson Recently several members of QEW visited Finca La Bella in the San Luis Valley in Monteverde, Costa Rica. Bill and Alice Howenstine were accompanied by their daughter, son-in-law, and two high school-aged granddaughters, and Os Cresson was with his...
By Louis Cox What do we call our planet? The earth? Or just Earth? It has long been common usage to say the earth (and to spell it lowercase) when talking about this planet in a scientific context. This goes along with the practice of referring to the sun and the...
By Mary Gilbert, QEW Representative to the UN The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) came out of the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. There are eight goals (see sidebar, right), intended to improve social and economic conditions in the poorest countries in the world by...