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Environment and Climate Challenges, Advocacy, and Response

  • Writer: Profiles in Catholicism
    Profiles in Catholicism
  • 21 hours ago
  • 32 min read

Updated: 14 minutes ago

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A Message from the Editor

The Trump administration is attempting to revoke a landmark rule that allows the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from cars, power plants and other sources under the authority of the Clean Air Act. For over a decade, what is known as the “endangerment finding” has been one of the most important legal underpinnings in the federal effort to combat climate change.  Since it was instituted, says David Doniger of the Natural Resources Defense Council, “we’ve made a lot of progress” in reducing greenhouse gas emissions. “But now [EPA Administrator Lee] Zeldin is attempting, against the science, to revoke the determination that this stuff is dangerous.” This comes as communities across the United States deal with the effects of increasingly frequent and intense natural disasters, from floods to heat waves to major storms. “What we’re seeing play out, these extreme weather events, are a demonstration that carbon emissions do pose a danger to our health — in fact, to the health of the planet,” says climate scientist Michael Mann.


Reports from scientific organizations, research institutions, and environmental groups raise concerns about the potential health impacts of climate change and Trump's policies related to environmental protection and fossil fuels. 


Key points of concern:


  • Increased Air Pollution: Trump administration actions to relax regulations on emissions from power plants and vehicles could increase harmful air pollutants like particulate matter (PM2.5). PM2.5 is linked to various health problems, including respiratory and cardiovascular diseases and premature death.

  • Worsened Asthma and Respiratory Illnesses: Increased air pollution, particularly from fossil fuel sources, is projected to worsen asthma and respiratory illnesses, especially in vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly.

  • Climate Change-Related Health Risks:Policies that hinder climate change mitigation could exacerbate risks like heat stress, extreme weather events, and the spread of vector-borne diseases, all of which pose threats to human health and can potentially lead to increased mortality, especially among marginalized populations.

  • Rollback of Environmental Protections: Critics argue that weakening regulations on toxic chemicals, lead exposure, and other environmental safeguards could increase exposure to harmful substances and disproportionately impact communities already facing environmental injustices. 


As Rebecca Dore in The Conversation explains, PBS accounts for nearly half of first graders’ most frequently watched educational TV and video programs. Trump and his cult members in Congress stopped funding PBS, However, Trump is proceding to build a two hundred billion dollar ballroom - no funding to help chidden  but billions for a ballroom for his rich friends. If Dante is correct in his layers of hell, Trump should be in the Fourth Circle-Greed. This section of Hell is reserved for the money-grubbers and overly materialistic among us. According to Dante, those condemned to the fourth circle spend eternity fighting over money and valuables,

We have published many reports that thousands of thousands of deaths from the United States stop of funding to USAID. Here is one more. Malaria ‘back with a vengeance’ in Zimbabwe as number of deaths from the disease triple.

 


There are many terrible things that some politicians do. There are some who satirize politicians’ actions. We are now collecting them on our new webpage Funny United States Politician Articles.

 

French bishops have stated that priests who served time for rape of a minor not be promoted. Anyone who has sex with a minor should be jailed for a minimum of twenty years. The Vatican needs to reflect on more than $5 billion has been spent by Catholic dioceses, eparchies, and religious communities on sexual abuse allegations against minors between 2004 and 2023. The total spent on settlements and awards in the U.S. alone is over $3 billion with some estimating the true cost as nearly $1 billion higher, according to Bishop Accountability This money could have been spent on feeding the hungry and housing for the poor.



A quote to remember

The warnings about global warming have been extremely clear for a long time. We are facing a global climate crisis. It is deepening. We are entering a period of consequences.

by Al Gore.


Prayers


A prayer to protect the environment

 

“Incorporation”

 

Dear Lord, you grew from the gift of your nourishing mother, Mary,

Who had drunk from the water and eaten from the food of the land:

What splashes of light, dazzled, broke and burst from the jars, as they

Filled to the brim, were scooped off to drink and poured off to wash.

What sounds of work, whether choosing and carrying the wood of a

Carpenter, toiling in the heat and sheltering in the shade of the foliage.

What contrasts in the flowers, colored shadows, coolness in the night,

Nurturing listening, listening again, and again talking with the Father.

Oh Creator-God, how amazing are the atomic particles which glue

As water whooshing, swirling and umbrelling into flowing shapes

Challenging us to think liquid, droplets, vapour and solid as the

Rise and fall of heat transports a “sticky” flow from state to state.

Dear Lord, you were baptised by the Baptist, in the Jordon waters

off mountains, passed by the land, into the liturgy of entering the Church:

What numberless times you healed broken hearts and bodies in Israel

So tendrils of praise reached, like in a lightning storm, to your Father.

What skies shone in the firmament, showing through from the Beginning,

the out of reach splendour of colouring swathes of heaven.

What time you gave to giving us a whole life, unhampered in the

Giving, taking into life all who came and did come and are coming.

Oh Creator-God, how human you have made us, making us to be 

Among each other, like the community that you are, giving each

One of us a unique identity, conceived-in-relationship, raised in relationship,

ready to meet you and us in this “place of meeting”.

Dear Lord, you were born into a family, extended over time by the welcome of others, whether their parents died or were too ill to care.

What gathering of others and being gathered, whether walking and

Working with Joseph, helping to bear the load of low-income living.

What is left of your garments, woven from plant threads, fibre science

Passed from generation to generation, woven well into a single whole.

What everyday delights in the spaces between home and being away,

In the fruit of the land, in the Synagogue and in the singing of psalms.

Oh Creator-God, how many gifts you poured into men and Women,

from the use of human hands to shape and write, sing, invent, to philosophise,

to understand, like good doctors, how to work with the grain of growth

and to give a word from you to help.

Dear Lord, you took to yourself the goodness of creation and there,

beheld, that wheat and grapes, worked by human hands, are changed:

What hours of work, from preparing the ground to planting, to

Carefully picking off the slugs and bugs and giving them another diet.

What suffering as a blight takes hold and defeats the ingenuity of man,

Who bleeds from his heart as the earth’s yield diminishes and drops.

What hope arises with the help of God to persevere and plant again,

Joined in so many ways to the help of others, sending grain-as-gifts.

Oh Creator-God, how intricately woven are the tiny organs,

Encased within seeds, embryonic unfolding of plants, shooting

Down and rising up, twirling around sticks, flowering orangy-red,

Hosting insects, losing colour and growing beans and flowering.

Dear Lord, how we wrought a thorny crown out of what had grown,

nails and hammer out of the ore of the earth and a cross from a tree.

What mangling of the human body we have practiced, especially

Upon the innocent, the vulnerable, the undefended, in denial of death.

What freezing, experimentation, plans of torment we have explored

In the flesh of the living, imagining we will not answer to our Maker.

What hidden wounds we have inflicted on ourselves at each turn of

The pain that wells up, when we are addressed by our very actions.

Oh Creator-God, how beautiful is the recreation of the lost,

the Poor and poor of heart, the broken and abandoned, the renewal of

Planet home, the replanting, recycling, revisiting the places of

Hatred with songs of reconciliation and understanding of wounds.

Dear Lord of the Resurrection let us rise with you in time,

hoping to begin the transfiguring ascent, taking what love everlastingly does!

 

by Francis Etheredge Profiles in Catholicism

 

Saving the planet Earth


The world is heating, we are cooking ourselves to death,

We are burning coal and oil and everything we can,

We are the arsonists of this planet and will bring it to an end,

We will soon return to the primeval state from where we first began.

So raise your banner and join the march,

Let your voice be loud for all to hear.

There is nothing more important than we stand,

As one against the intimidation and the fear.

The climate is a changing, the forests are burning and falling down.

The oceans are filled with plastic and the earth is turning from green to brown.

We must challenge the politics and the powers,

The tycoons of industry and corruption are all around.

We must cry foul, to save the Earth.

The climate is changing for the worst, that is the greatest threat.

I see the hope in the voices of the youth,

That demand with Greta that change must come.

I feel the strength and the mighty power of honesty and the truth,

The people are on the move, the children and the old,

The brave and courageous youth.

They will change the minds and hardened hearts.

They will restore the Planet green and blue.

They will live and fight for what is so right, good and true

by Father Shay Cullen  Profiles in Catholicism


A Prayer for Children Who Died from Excessive Heat


Lord of Creation, The world is heating; we are cooking ourselves to death.

We are burning coal and oil and everything we can.

We are the arsonists of this planet and will bring it to an end,

We will soon return to the primeval state from where we first began.

So raise your banner and join the march.

Let your voice be loud for all to heart

There is nothing more important than we stand,

As one against the intimidation and the fear.

The climate is changing; the forests are burning and falling down.

The oceans are filled with plastic and the earth is turning from green to brown.

We must challenge the politics and the powers,

The tycoons of industry and corruption all around,

We must cry foul, to save the Earth,

The climate is changing for the worst, that is the greatest threat.

I see the hope in the voices of the youth,

That demand with Greta that change must come.

I feel the strength and the mighty power of honesty and the truth,

The people are on the move, the children and the old,

The brave and courageous youth.

They will change the minds and hardened hearts,

they will restore the Planet green and blue,

They will live and fight for what is so right, good and true

by Father Joseph Chamblain, O.S.M. Profiles in Catholicism

 

Prayer for those who died from heat--related illness.


Lord, so many of your people are suffering. Today we remember those who died because of the great heat we experienced. Receive them into your peace. Wash away every tear and give them comfort in your loving embrace. we ask this through Christ our Lord

by Father John O'Brien, OFM  Profiles in Catholicism



God of tender mercy,bless and heal the victims of violence and abuse.We ask your grace especially for the Tigray women who have suffered.Hold them close to you and bring them hope and holiness.Turn the hearts of their tormentors to repent for their sins.Make all of us instruments of your peace.Through Christ our Lord. Amen

by Father Louis Cameli  Profiles in Catholicism


Prayer for the victims of shootings in Nigeria


Let us pray for the victims of sectarian and ethnic violence in Nigeria. We pray that the God who calls us to “cooperate in righteousness and piety” (Qur’an 5:2) and to “love your neighbour as yourself” (Lev 19:19; Mk 12:31) may heal the wounds of sin and division and draw religious and ethnic communities to mutual love and cooperation in service of the One who made us all.

by Father Justin Glyn, SJ Profiles in Catholicism

 

A Prayer for the Children of Gaza

 

Lord of all,


You see how time ticks by.

Leaders posture and promise and demand and delay

While the children of Gaza suffer.

Surely you must yearn to gather them under your wings like a mother hen.

A little relief here and there, but time still ticks by.

Thousands of children killed; thousands injured; a million displaced.

When has the world seen anything like this?

We wait for peace; we wait for healing; we struggle for hope

While the children of Gaza suffer and time ticks by.

 

by Father Joseph Chamblain, O.S.M Profiles in Catholicism

 

A Prayer for Those Who Live with Fear


Be not afraid.

Be not alarmed.

Everything passes.

God is faithful.

With God by your side,

what shall you want?

His LOVE is bountiful.


by Santa Teresa de Avila


A Prayer for the United States Democracy


Oh Lord, our country is now dividedRather than united.Our politics is in disarrayAnd the political parties cannot seem to come togetherTo work for the benefit of all Americans,Especially those who are in need of help.

Oh Lord, help us to live up to the us to the saying on The Statue of Liberty,To welcome those in need and to help those in need,Both within our country and around the world.

Oh Lord, help to come together in dialogue and unity,To find bicameral solutions to our many problems and challenges.We pray that out of the many there will be one,One country united in peace, harmony, and love for all.

Amen

by Dr. Eugene Fisher Profiles in Catholicism


Environment and Climate Interviews



General Interviews

 


Papal Encyclicals

 


Our Friends and Colleagues Environment and Climate Articles and Commentaries

 


General Environment and Climate Articles and Commentaries

 

 

Medical Journal Articles

 


General Articles and Commentaries


Book Reviews, Commentaries, and Announcements

 

Film Reviews and Commentaries

 

 

Television Reviews and Commentaries

 


Videos

 

Fr. John T. Pawlikowski - A perspective on Laudato Si', Pope Francis' second Encyclical Letter

EarthBeat: Climate-conscious young Christian voters and the 2020 election - YouTube

 

On Care for Our Common Home: C. Vanessa White - YouTube

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