Tikkun Daily Blog Archive (https://www.tikkun.org/tikkundaily/category/politics/environment-politics/page/8/)
About efforts to treat the environment as sacred, to save species and ecosystems. Biophilia.
At Mt. Sinai again Moses is given a message — this is not a message for Moses alone, this is a message for all peoples: how to live an ethical, spiritually rich, just, and environmentally sustainable life.
Local information buttressed Robichaud’s sense of the creature’s almost unearthly serenity. A Buddhist monk from a nearby temple told him that people in the area had dubbed the creature “sat souphap,” which translates roughly as “the polite animal.” Today, no one knows if the clock of extinction for the species stands at two minutes before midnight or two minutes after.
From saving water, to helping animals, to decreasing our carbon footprint, the single most effective change we can make is to eat a more plant-based diet. Just as Esther took action to save the Jews, so we can take action to save animals and our planet from extermination.
Check out the many divestment actions that are taking place around the world today–Global Divestment Day. The movement to divest from fossil fuels undermines the system that is causing climate change. The worldwide system of unrestrained free-market capitalism, dominated by global corporations and fueled by money, is based on the view that market forces will sort everything out. Those of us who are working to get our churches, synagogues, colleges, and other institutions to divest from fossil fuels are challenging this system by saying, “Money is not the highest value.” There are good financial reasons to divest from fossil fuels, but even if there weren’t, “If it’s wrong to wreck the planet, then it’s wrong to profit from that wreckage.”
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and USAID have been pressuring Uganda to change its laws to allow genetically engineered crops to be grown and consumed there. The most recent crop development: genetically modified bananas that would contaminate the heritage varieties that Ugandans treasure.
On the weekend that broke the driest January in recorded history, the Network of Spiritual Progressives partnered with student, labor, and community organizations for the March for Real Climate Leadership. Thousands marched through Oakland to highlight California’s climate crisis and call on Governor Jerry Brown to ban fracking in California.
It is not enough to work towards individual happiness salvation or enlightenment. We need new, skillful means to organize our spiritual communities in order to demonstrate that it is possible to actualize the truth of our inherent inter-dependence, interconnection and solidarity. If we are lucky, we will transition into a renewable energy planet sooner, more smoothly and more justly. If we don’t start doing that, chaos will not be far away.
This may be fine that Exxon Mobil Corp. has ever-so-reluctantly, though finally, added LGBT workplace protections. However, Exxon Mobil Corp. remains one of the primary environmental polluters in an industry that threatens the Earth and life as we know it. What good are workshop protections in a corporation and in an entire industry that has granted no such protections to our planet?
There’s a new threat on the climate change front, and it’s a big one. The recent midterm elections not only put Republicans in charge of the Congress, but the party of science deniers made dramatic gains at the state and local levels. This impressive victory was made possible by huge infusions of cash from oil, coal, and natural gas interests.
Two weeks ago, however, I made a big compromise with my long held principles. I purchased a small position in an electric utility with some plants that run on nuclear power. It was not an easy decision. I made it only because I can no longer see a happy solution to the problem of global climate change without an increased reliance on nuclear power in the short term.