Dance at Blue Hole Focuses on Conservation and Climate Change

Sister Martha Ann Kirk reads a statement of concern over
the president’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the climate pact.
Photo: Billy Calzada /San Antonio Express-News.

Dance at San Antonio Spring focuses on conservation, climate change

By Jesse Pound, Staff Writer  Updated 9:41 pm, Saturday, June 24, 2017

Several dozen San Antonians gathered at the dry source of the city’s eponymous river Saturday evening, using a delicate dance and soft music to draw attention to water issues while also criticizing President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Accords.

The event, held at the Blue Hole on the campus of the University of the Incarnate Word, was part of Global Water Dances, in which people on six continents sought to draw attention to water issues. The dance and percussion accompaniment were provided by URBAN-15.

Giselle Luevano of the group Urban 15
performs a dance.  Photo: Billy Calzada /
San Antonio Express-News.

Deirdre Lacour of the Urban 15 dance group
performs.  Photo: Billy Calzada /San Antonio
Express-News

Two URBAN-15 members stood in the dry riverbed and waved a white and blue banner where the water would be running while others, dressed to match the banner, danced slowly on the riverbank.

The event comes two days after the San Antonio City Council voted 9-1 to adopt and support the Paris Climate Accord. Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement earlier this month.

Sister Martha Ann Kirk performs a water dance by the Blue Hole
headwater of the San Antonio River. 
Photo: Billy Calzada /San Antonio Express-News.

After opening remarks by Sister Martha Ann Kirk, chair of the Incarnate Word Sisters’ Justice, Peace and Integrity of Creation committee, and Alyssa Cook, an education intern for Headwaters at Incarnate Word, the attendees gathered around the spring.

“With the global community, we join in the movement for water — clean water for all,” Kirk said at the beginning of the ceremony.

After the dance was over, attendees recited in unison a statement from the nuns, criticizing Trump’s action.

“This decision will only increase the negative impacts of climate change already affecting vulnerable populations around the world,” the statement reads in part. “As one of the industrialized nations most responsible for climate change, the United States has a moral responsibility to continue working with the global community to reduce our impact and support those already affected.”

People sign a statement from  the Sisters of Charity of the
Incarnate Word expressing concern with President Trump’s
decision to remove the United States from the climate deal. 
Photo: Billy Calzada /San Antonio Express-News.

After the recitation, the attendees were invited to take a colorful marker and sign a large version of the statement, the top of which was pinned to a table by a large candle holder that read “compassion.”

Cook, who educates people about water conservation issues, said it is not abnormal for the Blue Hole to be dry. The reading at the J-17 well that monitors the Edwards Aquifer stood at 663 feet above mean sea level Saturday, down from 685.9 just six months ago. It was at 676.7 at this time last year.

“I’d really like people to know that the San Antonio River was crucial to the beginning of our city,” Cook said. “And it’s still crucial today. With tourism, a lot of people’s jobs rely on the San Antonio River, and a lot of people’s drinking water and jobs rely on the Edwards Aquifer.”

The Blue Hole headwaters is currently dry.
Photo: Billy Calzada /San Antonio Express-News

One of the performers from URBAN-15 was Gloria Barba, 67, who said her family is from Aguascalientes, meaning “hot water,” in Mexico and that concern for water and the environment has been passed down for generations.

“Environment has no fences,” Barba said. “I think everybody in the whole wide world should get involved.”

A statement from the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word expressing concern with President Trump’s decision to remove the United States from the climate deal and expressing solidarity with pro-climate stances of Pope Francis was read.  

The article appears in print: San Antonio Express-News, June 25, 2017, A-3

Join the People's Climate March - April 29

We encourage those who are able to join in the nearest solidarity march for climate change April 29, 2017.  The main march will take place in Washington D.C. with hundreds of sister marches happening around the country at the same time.  This is an opportunity to pray with our feet and take to the streets to protect and care for our common home! 

St. Louis, MO

On Saturday, April 29, 2017, St. Louis will gather together in solidarity with the People's Climate Movement to show our local and national leaders that we are ready to fight back and stand up for our communities and our common home.  The event will begin at 12:00pm with a rally at Luther Ely Smith Square, which is between the Old Courthouse and the Arch, and then march to the Serra Sculpture Park, which is right near Citygarden.  The event is anticipated to last about two hours total. 

 

If you would like to march together as the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, please contact Jennifer Reyes Lay at jennifer.reyes@amormeus.org. 

Austin, TX

The closest solidarity march to San Antonio is being held in Austin, TX.  If you are interested in carpooling to the march in Austin, please contact Jennifer Reyes Lay at jennifer.reyes@amormeus.org to coordinate transportation. 

People of central Texas will unite to stand up for our communities and climate. We will rally and march at the Texas State Capitol at 1:00PM Saturday, April 29th. Organizations working to combat climate change will have tables with information and opportunities to make change happen.

If you are located somewhere else, you can find the nearest march to you on the People' Climate March Website HERE.  

This Disaster is Called Climate Change

By Paul E. Maquet

Peru is suffering at the moment from heavy rains, floods, and storms that are causing loss of life, as well as personal, material, and economic damages. Piura, Lambayeque and La Libertad are - this week - the regions most affected. At the national level, INDECI reports that this season of rains starting March 6, has caused 56,000 victims, 43 people killed, more than 100,000 homes affected, more than 2,000 kilometers of roads affected or destroyed, as well as about 15,000 Hectares of crops affected or lost.

In light of this disaster, responsibilities lie in lack of planning, lack of execution of prevention strategies, and lack of timely response to the emergency, both by local, regional and national authorities. These responsibilities are being highlighted -correctly- by the media as well as by the opposition, and by the authorities themselves who do not cease to pass the blame between another.

But there is an important element that everyone is ignoring, and it is vital to understand the current magnitude of the phenomenon, as well as the reality we will face each year: these disasters are not a casual or passing event, but are inscribed within the process of climate change which our planet is suffering because of the pollution and contamination produced by human beings.

The figures do not lie. In January, "NASA, NOAA and WMO confirmed that 2016 has been the hottest year since 1880. Last year the global temperature was 1.1 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial age.  In addition, it was 0.07 degrees warmer than 2015, whose high temperatures were already a cause for worldwide alarm.  Moreover, the recent month of January 2017 is the third warmest in 137 years.”

As predicted in all scientific projections, this global warming is associated with the increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. And in Peru we can attest to this: if a few months ago an emergency was declared in several regions due to the drought and "water stress" that was leaving the crops and cities without water, as well as allowing the proliferation of forest fires; today we are living one of the most violent rainy seasons recorded.

These are phenomena associated with "visible" climate change. There are also "invisible" effects, so called because they are slower and less violent processes, but no less harmful. The disappearance of glaciers, the loss of soil fertility, the appearance of new pests that damage agriculture, rising sea levels, among others, are phenomena that we have to face now and they will significantly impact our opportunities for ongoing development.

So it is not just a matter of worrying about the current emergency and the necessary solidarity with our compatriots, much less should the discussion revolve around whether to suspend the Pan-American games. It is to understand that we are immersed in a process of climate change and degradation of the natural environment, a product of human activity, particularly of productive and industrial activities. For this reason, the demands to the authorities must also include planning in the use of the land that takes this phenomenon into high consideration, that prioritizes the mitigation and adaptation to climatic change, that protects our basins and that assumes that the environmental concerns are not secondary, but on the contrary are a key element to ensure future development - that is, sustainable development. 

Get Ready for the People's Climate March April 29

(From our friends at Franciscan Action Network)

In 2014, we stormed the streets of New York City for the largest climate march in history. 50 days from now, we'll take that message to the streets of Washington, D.C. Join us in our nation's capitol on April 29th for the People's Climate March as we gather together to make our voices heard. Sign up here to attend!

If you are not able to make it to Washington for the March, you can still be part of the action by participating in one of many sister marches taking place across the country. Visit the People's Climate March website to find a march near you.

Additionally,  the weeks leading up to April 29 will be full of faith events sponsored by the Franciscan Action Network and partner organizations.

• We're kicking off things off with Global Catholic Climate Movement's #Mercy2Earth Initiative (Register Here). A webinar on March 15 will introduce viewers to the initiative, leading into a Lenten Fast for Climate Justice on World Water Day, March 22.  For additional events and more information, please contact Christina Leano.
• Franciscan Action Network, Climate Reality Project, and Interfaith Power and Light will sponsor a Catholics of Color Climate Justice Training on March 25 at Shrine of the Sacred Heart Church in Washington, D.C. (Register Here). For more information, please contact Chiara Klein.
• If you are traveling to Washington D.C., we strongly encourage you to make the most of your time by meeting with your Senators and Representative on Friday, April 28th.  For those interested, Catholic Climate Covenant will offer anadvocacy training session on Friday morning, April 28th (Register Here). Even if you can't make the training in person, register using the link and you will be sent a recording.
• To get your energy up for lots of walking and chanting, come out to thePeople's Climate March Potluck on Friday evening before the march, April 28at the Stuart Center, in Washington, D.C. Bring your friends, bring a dish, and meet some fellow marchers. For more information and to RSVP, please contactJason Miller.
• There will be a mass on Saturday morning, April 29 at 9am, at St. Dominic Church, in Washington, D.C. Come pray with us for the transformation of hearts and minds as we prepare to demonstrate peaceful resistance.

When the oppressors come for any of us, all of us will rise up in solidarity because all of our fights - from refugee rights to Indigenous sovereignty to climate justice - are connected. 50 days from now, join us as we take this message back to the streets of DC.

We will see you on the streets of DC at noon on April 29th for the People's Climate March!

Letter to President Trump to Take Action on Climate Change

LCWR is partnering with the Catholic Climate Covenant to collect signatures on a petition to be delivered to President Trump shortly after the inauguration. While we do not have a delivery date set, we are aiming for a signature deadline of February 1. 

As President-elect Donald Trump assembles his cabinet and advisors, we are facing major uncertainties for the future of U.S. climate policy. The President-elect has said he will withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement—a commitment by 193 countries to solve the climate crisis. This agreement is supported by Pope Francis and is the result of years of negotiations.

Catholic Climate Covenant has prepared a petition to be delivered to the President shortly after the inauguration on January 20th. The petition calls upon our next president to honor our international commitments and to act to solve the climate crisis. As Catholics, we recognize our responsibility to advocate on behalf of creation and the poor. Our advocacy is now more important than ever.



Please distribute the petition widely. Share this sign-on link with friends and family, your community and in your parish bulletin. For more ideas about how to promote the petition download our toolkit.

We have a very short window to gather as many signatures as possible. Please share the petition with friends and family, community members, gather signatures by tabling after Mass or during other church or school events, etc. Our goal is to deliver a petition signed by thousands of  Catholics calling on President Trump to honor the Paris Agreement, the Green Climate Fund, and the Clean Power Plan!

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Here's the text of the Petition:

"Dear President Trump,

As members of the Catholic community in the United States, we are praying that your presidency may be blessed with wisdom and compassion. As you take office, we urge you to demonstrate bold leadership in addressing the climate crisis by honoring the Paris Agreement, contributing to the Green Climate Fund, and implementing the Clean Power Plan.

Because climate change is already harming millions of people across the U.S. and around the globe, Pope Francis has called national leaders to work together to address this crisis. Similarly, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) strongly supports a national carbon pollution standard as essential to effective implementation of the Paris Agreement.

In order to limit the impacts of climate change on creation and on the human family, we urge you to:

1. Maintain the United States’ moral leadership on climate change by honoring the Paris Agreement (COP21) and taking swift action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions between 26 and 28 percent compared with 2005 levels by 2025;
2. Support sustainable development and address the underlying causes of migration by honoring the United States’ initial pledge of $3 billion and further supporting the Green Climate Fund to help poor countries adapt to the effects of climate change;
3. Support job creation and economic opportunity by encouraging states to craft plans to reach and exceed their Clean Power Plan carbon reduction goals by transitioning to renewable energy sources like wind and solar power and enacting energy efficiency and conservation standards.

An overwhelming majority of Catholics in the United States (73 percent) believe that government needs to do more to address the issue of climate change – a sentiment repeatedly expressed by Pope Francis and our Bishops.

As the leader of the most powerful country in the world, you have a critical role to play in solving this crisis. We urge you to take swift and meaningful action before it is too late."

Connections Between Climate Change and Child Marriage

Child marriage happens in many places around the world. In fact, about 10% of the global population has been married before they turn 18.  And while some of these marriages are driven by mutual choice and respect, in other cases, particularly when one party has been forced into the marriage, exploitation and coercion within the marriage can make it synonymous with slavery. When factors such as poverty and the environment are present, distinguishing the point at which child marriage becomes child slavery is tricky.

At Walk Free, we look for a number of indicators that help us decide when child marriage is slavery. For example when a child is given in marriage against his or her will; is subjected to control, a sense of “ownership” through abuse and threats, and is exploited for their labour and/or non-consensual sexual activity once within a marriage; and the inability of a child to leave a marriage he or she no longer wishes to remain in. The younger a child is, the more vulnerable they are to being enslaved through the practice of child marriage. 

Unfortunately, it’s not just girls in Bangladesh like Brishti and Razia who are struggling with the pressures of forced marriage brought about by climate change. It affects many others around the world too.

(original source: WalkFree)

Climate change will push 42m people to hunger by 2050

By Alex Whiting

ROME, Oct (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Farmers urgently need help to adapt their methods of growing food if the world is to curb greenhouse gas emissions and prevent climate change pushing millions into hunger and poverty, the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said on Monday (Oct 17).

Small farmers who produce the bulk of food in developing countries are some of the most vulnerable to changes in climate and need help adapting to a warming planet, FAO said in a report.

Climate is expected to hit crop yields and livestock production and make the price of food more volatile, putting poor families at greater risk of hunger, the U.N. agency said.

"Unless action is taken now to make agriculture more sustainable, productive and resilient, climate change impacts will seriously compromise food production in countries and regions that are already highly food-insecure," FAO director-general Jose Graziano da Silva said in the report.

"Hunger, poverty and climate change need to be tackled together. This is, not least, a moral imperative as those who are now suffering most have contributed least to the changing climate," Graziano da Silva said.

The U.N. agency estimates that, with climate change, an additional 42 million people will be vulnerable to hunger in 2050. This figure does not include the growing numbers affected by extreme weather events.

The number of weather and climate-related disasters more than doubled in the last two decades compared with the preceding two, the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction said last week.

"Climate change is already happening, there is an increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events," said Kostas Stamoulis, head of FAO's Social and Economic Development Department.

These climate shifts are reinforced by the recurring El Nino weather pattern, which happens when water in the Pacific Ocean becomes abnormally warm, altering global weather patterns.

More than 60 million people - two thirds of them in east and southern Africa - faced food shortages this year because of droughts linked to El Nino.

"We all know that El Nino will happen, but the intensity by which it happens is really scary," Stamoulis told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Smallholder farmers in Africa and Asia are already affected by rising temperatures, changes in rain patterns, frequency of droughts, and rising sea levels.

"Larger farmers have the means to cope with those temporary threats, whereas small farmers can be totally wiped out because they don't have the savings ... or assets," Stamoulis said.

DON'T PLOUGH THE LAND

Climate change is also expected to affect the nutrient content of food. The higher the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere, the lower the nutritional content of crops like wheat, Stamoulis said.

"So not only people's ability to acquire food will be reduced, but also the nutrient contents of whatever people will buy will be lower," he said.

Agriculture, forestry and changes in land use together produce 21 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making them the second largest emitter after the energy sector.

The raising of livestock alone produces nearly two thirds of agriculture emissions, FAO said on Monday.

The figures do not include emissions produced from farm machinery, or in the transport, processing and storage of food.

"Those emissions come from the way we plough our soil, fertilise our crops, the way we use chemicals and manure, the way we raise our livestock, and the way we ... deforest," said Stamoulis.

"If we don't change the way we do business ... every target ... to stabilise the climate will be missed," he added.

A global agreement to tackle climate change, reached in Paris last year, will take effect on Nov. 4. Work is due to start at U.N. climate talks in Morocco next month to hammer out the rules for putting the accord into practice.

The need for more sustainable agricultural practices will be an important part of that discussion, Stamoulis said.

These include growing crops which use less nitrogen and are more tolerant to drought, restoring forests, changing livestock feed, and ploughing the land less.

Soil stores carbon, so the more it is ploughed, and the deeper, the more carbon is released into the atmosphere.

(Reporting by Alex Whiting, Editing by Ros Russell.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org)

Prayer Resources for Lent

As we focus as a Congregation on the issues of Human Trafficking and Care for our Common Home, we encourage you to check out these prayer resources on those topics to help guide you in your Lentan practice this year:

Come pray, study, act with us.

The Lenten Reflection Guide from the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns contains reflections, questions, prayers, and actions based on each week’s Gospel reading and the teachings of Pope Francis in his latest encyclical, Laudato Si’.

Click here to download the Maryknoll OGC Lenten Reflection Guide.

Lent offers us all a special opportunity to grow in our relationship with God and to deepen our commitment to a way of life, rooted in our baptism.  Use this 16-page guide individually or in small groups to reflect upon our life patterns, to pray more deeply, and renew our spirits to face the realities of our world.

Lentan Fast for Climate Justice

For Lent 2016 (starting on February 10th) we are organizing another global Lenten Fast for Climate Justice (as we did in 2015). Catholics from around the globe will fast during each of Lent’s 40 days, joining the interfaith Fast For The Climate and the Green Anglicans’ Carbon Fast. We will fast and pray for bold action to solve the climate change crisis. Our fast coincides beautifully with the Pope’s February prayer intention to care for creation (see video).

During each day of Lent, Catholics from a different country will fast for climate justice. GCCM will highlight the impacts of climate change on that country through social media and other communications. 

Don’t see your country? Let us know here.

Following Pope Francis’ invitation above, this Lent let’s commit to overcoming our indifference to the climate change crisis and its victims. Let’s pray and fast for the renewal of our relationship with creation and with our brothers and sisters in poverty who are already suffering the impacts of climate change.

- See more at: http://catholicclimatemovement.global/lenten-fast/#sthash.nRGwxYJM.dpuf 

Unanima: Lentan Prayer Resources on Human Trafficking

Out of a reported 4 million people who are trafficked annually both within and outside their country, 80% are women and girls and 50% are children. Over 90% of trafficked persons are sexually exploited. As part of UNANIMA’s work on the NGO Committee to Stop Trafficking in Persons and the NGO Working Group on Girls, we pursue the recognition and protection of the rights of these women and children. We also have an ongoing international campaign to STOP THE DEMAND for Trafficking in Women and Children.

Lent Prayers on the Theme of Human Trafficking: Week 1 (DOC)
Lent Prayers on the Theme of Human Trafficking: Week 2 (DOC)
Lent Prayers on the Theme of Human Trafficking: Week 3 (DOC)
Lent Prayers on the Theme of Human Trafficking: Week 4 (DOC)
Lent Prayers on the Theme of Human Trafficking: Week 5 (DOC)
Lent Prayers on the Theme of Human Trafficking: Week 6 (DOC)

Way of the Cross - Human Trafficking Story