By Elizabeth Boardman. PERHAPS, IF WE HAD ASKED THEM, our grandchildren could have told us before we came here to Friends House what benefits we would accrue by moving out of the big family home to a small apartment. And now we could tell them the advantages of a...
Cynthia Barnett, the author of three books focused on water: Rain: A Natural and Cultural History, Blue Revolution: Unmaking America’s Water Crisis, and Mirage: Florida and the Vanishing Water of the Eastern U.S., shares her insight on climate and water with QEW...
By Margo Waring. JUNEAU, ALASKA COULD BE A MODEL for cities across the nation. A new non-profit called Renewable Juneau is trying to make this happen. Our mission is to “Promote local, renewable energy to create a healthy, prosperous, and low-carbon future for...
By Karie Firoozmand. ON APRIL 4, Maryland’s Governor Larry Hogan signed legislation prohibiting fracking in the state. This is a huge success for the individuals and organizations that have been working together for this goal for several years, as well as a precedent...
Shelley Tanenbaum and Hayley Hathaway Make a Donation to QEW Today Support for earthcare is growing. Many of us were part of the March for Science, and QEW led the Quaker contingent at the Climate, Jobs, and Justice March in D.C. in April. Polls show that the number...
By Tom Small. “THERE’S A CALL, from both within and beyond FCUN, for a more radical witness.” That’s the first sentence of an article I wrote twenty years ago for BeFriending Creation. What was true for the Friends Committee on Unity with Nature in 1996 holds true...
By Janet Soderberg. Divine Creator, Spirit in All Things, Your kingdom is Here, and Now. Your creativity is manifest everywhere I look on this heavenly Earth. Nourish us Body and Soul in this earthly Paradise. Forgive us for not noticing, for overlooking, the tiny,...
Mary Jo Klingel ON THE DAY that my new meeting found out that I am a member of Quaker Earthcare Witness, one of the men from the meeting approached me to talk. He asked about QEW. Soon he began to speak about his own feelings and his fears for his three young children...
“I didn’t set out to make a film,” says Andy Burt, the creator and director of the new documentary film, Down to Earth: Climate Justice Stories. “I set out to go collect stories. It was young friends who said ‘you should do a video.’ So that’s why you have this...
By Jeff Kisling. IN INDIANAPOLIS we have been working on defunding the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) for several months. On November 15, 2016, a crowd of about 200 of us alongside Native Americans in traditional dress marched through downtown Indianapolis with our...
By J.T. Dorr-Bremme. IN JULY 2009, I had things pretty well figured out. I had, after six years of on-and-off study, achieved a Bachelor of Science degree in nursing. I had been hired into a new-graduate program, an increasingly rare opportunity in the...
By Shelley Tanenbaum. TWO OF MY RECENT READS have made a strong impression on me as I ponder how I as an individual and how Quaker Earthcare Witness as an organization can best use our resources in these times. Van Jones succinctly sums up the two opposing world views...
“What canst thou say” about spirit-led efforts on behalf of Earth in relation to the vision of Quaker Earthcare Witness? Hello, A few years ago on a lovely summer morning, I was resting after a workout on a park bench. As I looked up into the leafy brocade above my...
By Bob McGahey. FROM MY PERSPECTIVE as a climate journalist and activist, the ascension of an outright climate denialist as the President, with cabinet choices of a half-dozen more, completes the campaign of disinformation mounted by the fossil fuel industry, aided...
Letters to Share January-February 2017 Dear Quaker Earthcare Witness, I see that the Indian Affairs minute from New York Yearly meeting is attached [in the November-December edition of BeFriending Creation]. There are many things I like about this minute, but when I...
By Shelley Tanenbaum, QEW General Secretary QEW PLANS AND PROJECTS are well underway or about to be launched as we face rapidly changing earthcare politics and policies in 2017. We are excited about this upcoming work and at the same time remain committed to...
Stan Becker, Clerk, and Roy Taylor, Alternate Clerk Katherine Murray has been our publications coordinator for the past four years. She is leaving our employment to move onto another path in her life. She has done an excellent job with Befriending Creation, providing...
By Shelley Tanenbaum. AMIDST THE 2016 END-OF-YEAR bad news all around, you might have missed this: utility-scale solar is now the least expensive way to install new sources of electricity. Onshore wind is a close second. Currently, solar and wind are at just about the...
By Brad Stocker, Miami Friends Meeting. FOUR YEARS AGO, the Southeastern Yearly Meeting (SEYM) Earthcare Committee (EcC) brought forth a Minute on Climate Change that was approved the 14th day of the fourth month, 2014, which reads in part: “We, the Friends of...
By Tom Small. PETER WOHLLEBEN TELLS THE STORY of a professional forester’s awakening from calculations of board feet to realization of a forest as an intelligent, feeling community. Sharing information and resources through what Wohlleben calls the “wood wide web,”...