World Environment Day

World Environment Day - June 5, 2021

The dictionary defines environment as the natural world, the surroundings, or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives.

In the Encyclical, Laudato Si, Pope Francis writes ‘The earth herself, burdened and laid waste is among the most abandoned and maltreated of our poor.

The Torah and the Hebrew Scriptures are replete in giving glory for the gift of the Earth.  

• Genesis 1 in the Story of Creation we read, and God saw that it was good.

• Genesis 1:20 Then God said, Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly…

• Deuteronomy 10: 14 To the Lord belongs even the highest heavens; the earth is his also and everything on it.

• Job 38, God asks, Where were you when I made the world? If you know so much, tell me about it…  

• Isaiah 40: 12, Who has cupped in his hand the waters in the sea, and marked off the heavens with a span… 

• Psalm 8: 4 -9, When I see the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you set in place… All sheep and oxen, even the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the fish in the sea…

The New Testament                                                   

• Matthew 6: 26-29, Look at the birds in the sky; they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 

• John 15: 5, I am the vine, and you are the branches…                                     

• Romans 8: 22-23, We know that up to the present time all creation is groaning in labor pains…

• Revelation 21:1-5, Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth …God’s dwelling is with the human race.  He will dwell with them and they will be his people…

Indigenous Spirituality    

The Earth does not belong to us; we belong to the Earth. We did not weave the web of life we are merely strands in it. - Chief Seattle  

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors we borrow it from our Children.  - Native American Proverb

Muslim Spirituality

Where would we be if Allāh withheld His provisions for us for even a moment? Not just the food, and drink, but everything in the entire universe required to sustain life on earth. If that was paused even for a moment, the consequences would be disastrous.  -Sursh al-Mulk

Hindu Spirituality 

The Earth is our Mother, and we are all her children.  -Ancient Hindu Teaching Ahimsa – the principle of non-violence.  Most Hindus believe that all living things are sacred because they are part of God as is the natural world.

The destiny of humans cannot be separated from the destiny of the earth.  

Gardening is active participation in the deepest mystery of the universe. 

-Thomas Berry

“The human brain now holds the key to our future. We have to recall the image of the planet from outer space: a single entity in which air, water, and continents are interconnected. That is our home.” - David Suzuki

How can something as fundamental as life on Earth be treated with such neglect? We need to completely change the way we treat our home. We, as do all other living beings, deserve the right to a healthy natural world. -Bill McKibben

Earth provides enough to satisfy everyone’s needs but not everyone’s greed. -Mahatma Gandhi

Grown-ups have failed us. We live as if we had the resources of 4.2 planets.  - Greta Thunberg

World Environment Day

Submitted by Sister Ann Marshall, csj

TOGETHER WE CAN BE

 #GENERATIONRESTORATION

Critical Environmental Issues in Canada

The Saturday, April 3rd edition of The Globe and Mail contains three articles that should concern us all and call our government to account.

“Troubled Waters” by Alexandra Morton describes the disastrous decline of wild salmon populations on Canada’s west coast. The article states: “Salmon farming in Canada was born on the wrong side of the law more than 30 years ago, and it has continued to bend the spirit and intention of Canadian fishery laws, no matter the successful legal challenges to its practices or the science measuring the harm it causes to wild fish.”  Morton cites instances of senior bureaucrats playing down and suppressing science reports on the impact of salmon farms on wild salmon. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) refused to acknowledge evidence of their own and other scientists about a decimating virus traced to Norway that caused heart damage and the rupture of red blood cells of chinook salmon. Only 5% of the late-run Fraser River sockeye salmon lived to return to the river in 2020. Morton decries the government’s act of hiding evidence of an epidemic that could wipe out the last of the salmon in the Fraser River, the largest salmon river in the world. The renowned biologist issues a warning: This is a moment after which B.C. will never be the same.  Many wild salmon populations can no longer decline; if this abuse continues, they can only vanish.”

In this same issue of The Globe and Mail, “Delta in danger: Time is running out for Vancouver’s ecological wonderland” is equally troubling. Margaret Munroe, a Vancouver-based journalist describes abuses of journalists and wildlife photographers, and human traffic that has battered the Fraser estuary, one of the richest and dynamic ecosystems on earth.  In the past 200 years, the landscape has been transformed “Grizzlies and elk are long gone, and less than 30 percent of the wild habitat remains.”  The floodplain has been drained and diked to allow for farms and the sprawl of Metro Vancouver.  The Port of Vancouver’s plan for a 3.5 billion dollar expansion of a shipping terminal and a ship-to-ship LNG marine refueling service, and the continued development and encroachment of the estuary threaten the wetlands on which chinook salmon depend and the killer whales that, in turn, rely on the salmon.   A recent UBC study concludes that there is an urgent need for action to protect and restore the estuary in which two-thirds of the 102 species have less than a 50% chance of survival over the next 25 years.     

Finally, the third article by two-time Olympian, Scott Niedermayer, “Old-growth forests are an invaluable resource we can’t afford to lose” evokes sadness. These once vast forests which have been growing from the middle ages have been mostly lost. Less than 3% of the province’s forested land is made up of big tree, old-growth forests, an area of only about 400,000 hectares. Many species of animals are endangered. The role of the forests in storing carbon dioxide and mitigating climate change is critical. Unless these old-growth forests are no longer logged, they will be gone forever from earth, our common home.

We need a government that exercises its responsibility to the world in placing the protection of our environment above economic self-interests.  We also need each of us to demand that our government fulfill its responsibility.      

-Sister Pat McKeon, csj