Action Alert

June 2013 
World Environment Day 

June 5 is World Environment Day with the theme, “Reduce Your Footprint.”  While heard several times before, this phrase continues to challenge individuals to slow down and reflect upon the fact that every choice matters. Last month, the global community was alerted to the fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide gas in the atmosphere rose to 400 parts of carbon dioxide per million parts of air (ppm) for the first time in millions of years. 

• What do individuals and communities do with this information? 
• Where have we seen this number acknowledged and what actions have been made as a result?

Many individuals and communities around the world know well the consequences of this rising number.  Less water and more droughts, storms being pulled together in ways that would describe carbon dioxide had a role to play, rising waters, and arctic sea ice at the lowest level seen yet.  While these do not describe all consequences, they are becoming more catastrophic.  As Rose Marie Berger in For God So Loved the World implies, we use multiple resources and move heaven and Earth to make some effort at the tragedy of terrorism, how might we gather the same ambition with regard to the tragedy of too much carbon dioxide within the air?  Governments are not solely responsible as this crisis demands the responsibility of EVERYONE.

Another way to promote sustainability is to reduce food waste and loss.  According to the World Environment Program statistics, approximately 1.3 billion tons or 1/3 of all food produced ends up spoiling, largely due to transportation and harvesting practices.  Additionally, individuals in the global community are seeing food prices at a forty year high.  In developed countries, almost half of the discarded food would feed Sub-Saharan Africa.  Where can individuals do to reduce this waste of food?  One’s ancestors and certainly traditional cultures have much to teach today’s individuals about preserving and conserving food.

Pope John Paul II stated in his 1990 World Day of Peace address, “education in ecological responsibility” is needed to address the ecological crisis.  This “entails a genuine conversion in ways of thought and behavior.”  He also states that, “Modern society will find no solution to the ecological problem unless it takes a serious look at lifestyle.”  While not speaking directly the words of, “reduce your footprint,” calls Catholics to become active!  How might this be done?

Potential actions can include:

• Share infrequently used tools and garden supplies. Start a community tool shed.
• Hold a clothes swap at work, at your house of worship or on your street.
• Visit someone instead of the shopping plaza/market.
• Exchange music, art, or cooking lessons.
• Start a skills exchange in your community.
• Educate your local community with a book read or other activity.
• Reduce number of lights when necessary.
• Package items for transport in wadded up newspaper rather than plastic.
• Use a clothes line when weather allows.
• Arrange a cooking day among friends where you all get together and prepare food in bulk.
• Cook everything in one pot as often as possible.
• Use pedal-a-watt to make your own electricity for computers, lights & fans & get healthy.
• Open windows, use the basement and find a shade tree when it gets hot.
• Walk or ride a bike when possible.
• Make your own cleaning products from Earth friendly products.
• Get statements and bills electronically.
• Don’t purchase disposables, find an original and reuse.
• Use imagination to determine how an item can be reused.
• What other actions help reduce our footprint and share?

Since every choice matters, individuals and organizations must consider their role in the choices they make that impact our environment.  Creative actions at the individual and communal level occur when creative people come together.  Reflecting upon every choice invites individuals to slow down and reflect upon what is the best for the common good of the environment and creation.  Individuals and organizations who choose options with the least impact (i.e. reducing their footprint) will over time, form habits that bring all Earth and those that depend on Earth for survival into greater peace. 

Reflections/Actions: 

• A prayer service for World Environment Day from the Justice Peace Integrity of Creation is here.  
• Reflect upon the words of Pope John Paul II, what aspect of the current lifestyle lived still calls out for reducing the footprint?
• How am I noticing the impact of greater carbon dioxide in the air as impacting those in my community?
• How does the call to live simply so that others may simply live invite greater reduction of footprint? 
• What impact does this have on sisters and brothers around the world?
• World Environment Day activities for students are here and here.
• The World Environment Day website has many resources.
• Measure your human demand on nature or ecological footprint and learn even more ways to reduce here.
• Methods of preservation from your own culture are located here.    
• Other green tips for living are here and here.    

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 Torture Awareness Month

June is Torture Awareness Month, a time for each of us no matter where our residence on Earth, to examine the torture that exists around us and in institutions.  The National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) highlights this year’s theme as “Healing a Culture of Torture,” encompassing the need to reflect, pray, and act about the deep physical and spiritual harm caused by torture.  Additionally, twenty-five years ago the United Nations Committee Against Torture (CAT) assembled for the first time in Geneva, Switzerland, to provide effective monitoring on the implementation of the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT).

NRCAT materials state that, “torture is illegal, immoral and counterproductive. It is always wrong. Torture wounds the soul of the perpetrator, the victim, and inflicts great moral harm on our society. Yet, a recent poll showed that almost half of respondents accept torture as either sometimes or always justified (poll, December 2012). Healing a culture of torture requires us, as people of faith, to truly embody our common belief in the inherent dignity of each human being by ensuring that torture never happens again. One way to do that task is to learn the facts about torture.”

• Pause a moment and reflect upon where torture exists. 
• What do I know about torture in my country? What facts come to mind and heart?
• What do I know about the “average” prison in my country?
• Where might torture be endorsed in society?

According to NRCAT, “with just five percent of the world’s population, the U.S. accounts for 25 percent of the worlds incarcerated and the vast majority of all prisoners are held in long-term solitary confinement. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, over 80,000 people in the U.S. criminal justice system are held in some form of isolation.”

In the U.S., Guantanamo Bay is one of those places of isolation for many.  According to a factual sheet from NRCAT, a bipartisan “Task Force concluded that the United States indisputably engaged in torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment (CID) of 9/11 detainees in violation of U.S. and international law and for which there was no justification. Guantanamo Bay was at the epicenter of the U.S. torture program, with detainees subjected to myriad forms of torture including water boarding, sleep deprivation, sexual degradation, sensory deprivation, induced hypothermia, and solitary confinement.”

• What do I know about the short-term and long-term effects that can result from isolation or solitary confinement?
• What might I do to learn more about these effects?
• What apparent biases exist in who the victims tend to be?

As Catholics, the period of days called Triduum offers us an opportunity to reflect upon torture as it relates to Jesus’ life.  Jesus experienced prison and death as a prisoner of conscience.  There were those who plotted against and betrayed him as friend.  He was tortured, beaten, humiliated, and sentenced to an agonizing death.

• What insights from Jesus’ experience of torture do I have as a result of this reflection?
• What action(s) do I feel called to as a result of walking the way of the cross with Jesus?

Reflections/Actions:

• Has my country ratified the UN Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT)? 
• The World Organization Against Torture (NGO) has international information on torture here.    
• Ideas, activities, and prayers for Torture Awareness Month are located here.    
• A prayer for those being detained in Guantanamo Bay is here.      
• U.S. citizens are invited to urge President Obama to release the senate intelligence report on CIA torture is here.
• A Guantánamo Bay Detention Center Fact Sheet is here.
• U.S. citizens are invited to sign a petition to close down Guantanamo Bay is here and may be downloaded for community signatures here. 

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U.S. Immigration Reform Update 

In May, the Senate Judiciary finished their work and passed by a vote of 13-5 the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013 (S. 744).”  While more than 150 Amendments were offered, other Amendments related to tax, Social Security and health benefits for immigrants were not offered in committee, but will be among those offered when the bill comes to the floor.  Advocate groups worked hard to stop bad amendments and were quite successful for the most part.  However, those amendments may come up again when the legislation comes to the Senate floor.  The bill is scheduled to go to the floor of the Senate the week of June 10th, after the Congressional Budget Office determines the bill’s cost.  It is expected to be on the Senate floor for most of June.  In the House, Speaker John Boehner stated on May 23 that they will not vote on a Senate-passed measure and will instead produce their own legislation.

Reflections/Actions:

• The U.S. Catholic Bishops’ guidelines for comprehensive immigration reform are here.      
• Take action for comprehensive immigration reform here and watch the SCN Newsline for further action. 
• NETWORK has a fact sheet on immigration located here; a Nun’s on the Bus tour and a site to urge Congress that immigration reform is needed now.  
• The Immigration Policy Center has released State-by-State Fact Sheets on Immigration located here.