Tree Hugin Catholics

The Catholic Church has many teachings on the environment. They are firm believers in the fact that God gave us the world, and that we are supposed to be good stewards of all his creations, being the superior beings on the earth. The fact that we must take care of the earth corresponds to a lot of God's teachings. Thou shall not steal; thou shall not covet thy neighbor’s goods, and treat others the way you want to be treated. Because God gave us the control over the world and everything that cohabits it. By disrespecting his earth we are stealing. Likewise, by ruining the earth you are not only making it worse for yourself, you are also affecting others.

-EnergyTurtle

Air Conditioning Problamo

Hey! Its "The BlueSlurpy"! :]

Kyle T. Kramer lives on a little organic vegetable farm in the Ohio River Valley. It is mid-summer and near or over 100 degrees outside. Most of us would just turn to our air conditioning right? Not the Kramer family. No, the Kramer family lives in this unbearable 100 degree weather with no A.C. "They feel that we will not navigate our way toward a socially and ecologically sustainable future without personal and communal sacrifice." (That means sweating through the summer for God.)

Everyone has a different opinion on the matter of A.C., but since I can't go and get EVERYONE'S opinion here are our fellow blog members opinion on the use of the famous Air Conditioning.
"The EnergyTurtle" - "It's a good idea and I guess his heart was in a good place, but there are better ways of doing this. It's okay to sacrafice something but not if it is affecting you health or well-being. I think he is being a good catholic, but he doesn't have to be this extreme."
"EnvironmentalGooru" - " Whether people think his actions are just or unjust it is his opinion that only matters. It is his A.C., he is paying for is, so why does our opinion matter? I do not think it is such a big deal. It is a good and environmentally friendly way to serve God so let him do it."
"MusikalLvr" - "I this his heart is in the right place, but I dont think it will really help. As long as he doesn't pressure others into his way of like I don't think he's causing any harm, because he's trying to find different ways to conserve, he is following Catholic teaching."

RCS- An Enviromental Estate

When wondering what in the world you should do to make your school a better place, what conclusion do you come to? Mine was to improve the "Go Green" attitude of our students and faculty.
First, the teacher who assigned this project: Mr. Brock Banks. When talking to Mr. Banks, he seemed rather excited about the aspect of improving Earth-friendliness in our school. I started every interview off with a question about what each person did in their own life to take care of the environment. Banks, an ACE teacher at our school, mentioned the fact that Ms. Jeffcoat, a fellow ACEr, was usually in charge of the environmental footprint at the ACE house and that they usually indirectly recycled through her. Seeming to think he had picked up a few tricks from her, Banks told of the conservation techniques he personally uses (turning out lights and appliances, not leaving the water on when brushing his teeth). Many of this he learned at home. His chore as a child was to "stop on pop cans," Banks said. To help improve what we do in this school Banks suggested using plastic trays and teachers making sure to turn off their lights.
Next up was Pati Kerry*, a fellow sophomore. She spoke of how they recycle in their household. When asked about improving the school she tried to associate the recycling tricks she had learned at home with work here. "We don't need recycling bins for cans, as long as teachers bring their [trash] home," she said. “We really need paper bins because we use it so much here.”
I then moved to Mrs. Brenda Martin, the school secretary. When I found out everything she did at home to help conserve, I was shocked and very interested. Not only does she recycle and make sure unused appliances are unplugged, she has stopped buying paper plates, has timed lights in her living room, and recycles scrap paper at our school. I was even more interested at her answers for what we could do in our school. Mrs. Brenda mentioned printing double sided, keeping the tops on markers, and making sure the lights are off. These simple things could really help.
Mrs. Davis was my next target. She recycles, keeps aerosol use to a minimum, and uses green cleaners. The environment friendly cleaners would help us here at school, we agreed. Davis also gave a reminder to use the board, not runoffs.
Lastly, I spoke to my little brother, Ross Baker, an elementary student at RCS. Ross doesn’t do much for the environment, but he does take the newspaper down to the recycling bin. “Even when my favorite show is on!” He said every school should recycle and maybe that we could find different lights for the schools, “like the ones on discovery channel”.

Awesome Green Quotes

Have you ever thought what the most powerful people in the world think about the environment? What about what your favorite author thinks? You favorite president? Actress? My goal is to find a bunch of quotes from famous people about the Earth and our environment!
Love, MusikalLvr

Thank God men cannot as yet fly and lay waste the sky as well as the earth!
-Henry David Thoreau, (1817 - 1862).

The world is changed. I feel it in the water. I feel it in the earth. I smell it in the air. Much that once was, is lost, for none now live who remember it.
-Galadriel

Come, my friends, 'T is not too late to seek a newer world.
-Alfred Lord Tennyson, "Ulysses" from Poems, In Two Volumes (London: Moxon, 1842).

The artist is a receptacle for the emotions that come from all over the place: from the sky, from the earth, from a scrap of paper, from a passing shape, from a spider's web. -Pablo Picasso

Beauty is all about us, but how many are blind! They look at the wonder of this earth and seem to see nothing. People move hectically but give little thought to where they are going. They seek excitement...as if they were lost and desperate. -Pau (Pablo) Casals

The issues are the same. We wanted peace on earth, love, and understanding between everyone around the world. We have learned that change comes slowly. -Paul McCartney

The land ethic simply enlarges the boundaries of the community to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land.
-Aldo Leopold

We of an older generation can get along with what we have, though with growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thoughtlessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for what we have used, but for what we have wasted...
-Theodore Roosevelt, "Arbor Day - A Message to the School-Children of the United States", April 15, 1907

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority.
-E.B. (Elwyn Brooks) White, Essays of E.B. White, 1977

There are two principles inherent in the very nature of things, recurring in some particular embodiments whatever field we explore - the spirit of change, and the spirit of conservation. There can be nothing real without both. Mere change without conservation is a passage from nothing to nothing. . . . Mere conservation without change cannot conserve. For after all, there is a flux of circumstance, and the freshness of being evaporates under mere repetition.
-Alfred North Whitehead, Science in the Modern World

This leads to the further reflection, that no other human occupation opens so wide a field for the profitable and agreeable combination of labor with cultivated thought, as agriculture
-Abraham Lincoln, Address before the Wisconsin State Agricultural Society, September 30, 1859

I know of no pursuit in which more real and important services can be rendered to any country than by improving its agriculture, its breed of useful animals, and other branches of a husbandman's cares.
-George Washington, Letter

.to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can’t imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven’t got the humility to try. We’ve been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we’re gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us…Let's be clear. The planet is not in jeopardy. We are in jeopardy. We haven't got the power to destroy the planet - or save it. But we might have the power to save ourselves.
-Michael Crichton, Jurassic Park

What angels invented these splendid ornaments, these rich conveniences, this ocean of air above, this ocean of water beneath, this firmament of earth between? This zodiac of lights, this tent of dropping clouds, this striped coat of climates, this fourfold year? Beasts, fire, water, stones, and corn serve him. The field is at once his floor, his work-yard, his play-ground, his garden, and his bed.
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

As long as the Earth can make a spring every year, I can. As long as the Earth can flower and produce nurturing fruit, I can, because I'm the Earth. I won't give up until the Earth gives up.
-Alice Walker

In the broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection.
-Walt Whitman, Song of the Universal, Leaves of Grass, 1891

Santuario Sisterfarm

This awesome non-profit organization that was founded in 2002 by a group of Latina women. It is located in the Texas Hill Country in south-central Texas. "Santuario Sisterfarm is dedicated to inspiriting the work of transforming human relationships with Earth and among ourselves, from dominance to co-creative partnerships." They believe that diversity is the main key to peace. "Cultivation of Diversity" is the heart of their three major projects. The three projects are "Living Lightly on Earth", "Sor Juana Press", and "Latinas in the Borderlands."

LIVING LIGHTLY ON EARTH- Santruario Sisterfarm do many things that environmentally friendly where their organization is located. These include: a variety of composting practices to help build soil fertility and recycle wastes, organic gardeningof vegetables and herbs, use of nontoxic and biodegradable household and office products, rain catchment, graywater, and other water convserving systems, and renewable energy and energy-saving devices, also environmentally friendly building materials.

SOR JUANA PRESS- The sisters established this newsletter in order to publish the works of women on topics related to Earth and spirituality.

LATINAS IN THE BORDERLANDS- This is a journey with Latinas in the Borderlands to create a multilingual, multiracial, multicultural space where mujeres can "go deep into the spirit of ancestral connections to the land, cultural traditions, women's ways of knowing, and struggles gor justice."
-EnvironmentalGooru

Santuario Sisterfarm Website: http://www.sisterfarm.org/