Is our Climate Change & Population Growth
going to be the downfall of our civilization?
How we each can make a difference on that score?
Due to Climate Change & Population Growth we are going to be very water challenged in the future, so please use our water saving tips in this newsletter to save every drop you can.
“Climate change is the greatest human induced crisis facing the world today. It is totally indiscriminate of race, culture and religion. It affects every human being on the planet. Earth Hour is an opportunity for every man, woman and child from all corners of the globe to come together with a united voice and make a loud and powerful statement on the issue of climate change. If we all perform this one simple act together, it will send a message to our governments too powerful for them to ignore. They will know the eyes of the world are watching," Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa has said.
Archbishop
Desmond Tutu of South Africa has lent his voice to Earth Hour’s
global call for action on climate change.
As the recipient of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his work in advocating
civil rights equality, Desmond Tutu knows better than most the power
of individuals uniting for a common cause.
With over 500 cities in 75 countries already signed up to take part in the lights out campaign, Earth Hour 2009 is anticipated to be one of the greatest social movements the world has ever witnessed.
Using less water in the garden
Always water your plants during the early morning hours or in the evening. Between 10:00 and 15:00 you can lose up to 90% of water to evaporation.
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Focus on indigenous and non–invasive alien plants with low water demands.
Roof water can also be profitably stored in tanks for watering gardens. -
Use “grey water” from baths, washing machines and other safe sources to water your garden.
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Using less water in the home.
Showering could use up to 20 litres of water per minute. If you prefer a bath, don’t make it full. Taking a bath could use between 80 and 150 litres of water. -
Reducing the toilet flush volume alone can save 20% of total water consumption. Putting a 2-litre bottle filled with a little sand into the cistern can do this. Fix leaking toilets. It can waste up to 100 000 litres of water in a year.
Kettles should be filled with just enough water for your needs. This will reduce the electricity bill too. Reduce the amount of water you use per day: re-use water where possible.
With new cities signing up to the campaign every day, the support of
one of the world's most respected figures will resonate across the globe,
ensuring millions more people switch off their lights for one hour at
8.30pm on 28 March -2009. (It was a great sucsess.)
Earth Hour 2009 aims to empower citizens from all over the world with
the ability to voice their concern on climate change. Essentially, it
is the world's first global vote on the issue and casting your vote
is as easy as flicking a switch.
With the world's leaders due to meet in December at the UN Climate Change
Conference in Copenhagen, the Archbishop can see the importance and
the potential of Earth Hour 2009.
Earth Hour is a WWF initiative that began in Sydney in 2007 as a one-city
campaign, when over two million people switched off their lights for
one hour. In 2008 the lights out campaign went global, with over 50
million people in 371 cities, across 35 countries flicking the switch.
Earth Hour 2009 is well on the way to reaching out to one billion people
in 1,000 cities around the world.
All religions recognise and acknowledge the need to care for the natural
environment. It is all the more surprising that they have, until recently,
been significantly quiet in the face of growing environmental deterioration.
There is, however, a new awakening. Increasingly, faith communities
are becoming concerned and even alarmed about the present direction
of our world. It is necessary that faith communities are involved for
two reasons:
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The crisis we face is essentially moral and is strongly influenced by a lack of moral principle in our present economic structures. It is increasingly clear that our physical, emotional and spiritual wellbeing is dependent on a healthy environment.
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The economic injustices of our contemporary world are a primary cause of environmental destruction and degradation. Economic justice is needed. There is a call among most faith communities for economic justice.
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A moral base must be established for the economic systems of the world. A start can be made with ‘triple-bottomline accounting’, which takes into account social and environmental impacts of economic activity, as well as its profitability. However, we need to go further than looking at profitability only. The impact of development projects on the poor, the natural environment and whether it is morally right must become an important consideration.
Economic decisions have a direct impact on most areas of environmental
concerns, such as climate change, extinction of species, farming methods,
pollution and depletion of natural resources.
Because the current neo-con capitalist economic system encourages us
to be acquisitive, self-centred and greedy, we demand more and more,
regardless of whether a finite planet can provide the resources, such
as water, arable land, fish and, increasingly, fossil fuels.
Like the vidio above shows: Global warming could do more than just melt polar ice. It could change our maps, and displace people from cities and tropical islands. See all National Geographic videos: http://video.nationalgeograpic.com
Some maintain that Climate change is a natural phenomena that drives evolution; some species may disappear, but others will adapt. That man's contribution to greenhouse gasses is negligible compared to nature. Climate change is natural, it is the driving force of evolution and all humans can do is try to adapt or die out as a species. Who is right?
These areas of concern point to the need for faith communities to take responsibility for caring for the world, which we believe our almighty creator has brought into being.
How it's done in our world of intricacy and infinite variety – whether by working through evolution or other means – is not at issue. What is clear is that it is not for this generation of people to cause the Sixth Great Extinction..
The new film "Crude Impact" explores the human impact on non-human
life since the Industrial Revolution, and how some scientists equate
it with other great historical extinctions. A very good video, although
man is not the first organism to alter the world on a global scale.
The title holder in global change may rest with cyano bacteria. These
little guys changed an atmosphere that had no oxygen to one that contained
22% oxygen. That was a global impact that literally altered the course
of life on earth. But if we are not first we are definitely second and
this is not a race I think we should be trying to win.
How connected are we with nature?
this below video shows Elton's version of his song 'circle of life', that was used in the film The Lion King. That said it all to me.
The development of our own spiritual dimension and our spiritual connection
with nature is very importand. We are part of the natural world that
surrounds us. In spite of the alienation brought about by townships,
cities industries and other commercial practices, we cannot separate
ourselves from the rest of creation. We are spiritually renewed and
restored through experience with the natural environment, particularly
in wilderness places. Such experiences are psychologically healing.
We must all make sacrifices to our personal comfort in order to ensure
the survival of future life on earth. We must learn to live a much simpler,
less luxurious lifestyle if our children are to be able to appreciate
a world of the beauty and wonder we know. At present, particularly because
of the insatiable desire of the affluent for more comfort, luxury and
wealth, which require more and more fossil fuel energy, we are destroying
the book of the natural world. Our own spiritual impoverishment, as
well as more precarious survival, will be the consequence.
African Traditional Religion
The great gift African Traditional Religion gives to the world is to break down the divide between the sacred and secular. In Africa the sacred pervades all, so meetings and events start with prayer and land itself is sacred. No distinction can be made between sacred and secular, natural and supernatural. All is one and is pervaded by divinity. An individual finds his meaning by maintaining harmonious relationships within his cosmos.
According to some myths, human beings emerged out of a reed bed, a cave or a hole in the ground together with their animals (other beasts and birds are included in some myths with cattle emerging first). The so-called ‘Creator’ or originator is conceived as enabling them to emerge. Animals therefore have as much of a right-to-be as human beings and must not be exterminated indiscriminately.
Because people emerged together there is a strong sense of community,
and community with nature. ‘I am because we are.’
The
chief held the land in trust for his people. The land houses the sacred
places of the ancestors and the burial sites and therefore must be held
for all and cared for by all. There was no concept of dividing the land
up as we have done in capitalist societies.
The author Stephen Bluwett cleverly uses the archetypes of African animals in stories that reflect our ways of thinking, making it real to the reader. We are conditioned to think in single-dimensional patterns, but this book encourages us to think three dimensionally. It presents tools and techniques that really work and are not just once off suggestions.
The present economic system is bringing about alienation from land and tradition.
Development will not be sustainable unless linked to spiritual and
moral development. Integral to spiritual maturity is our awareness of
the majesty and wonder of our creator.
Visit the unspoilt kloof on the Wild Coast, where one of our communities
will be built. It is surrounded by cascading waterfalls and flowers
and trees with vultures soaring overhead and waves crashing in great
plumes on the rocks and whales and dolphin offshore, and be aware of
what an intricate wonder creation is. Wildlife and wilderness areas
are necessary, not only for our physical, emotional and spiritual renewal,
but for a sustainable future.
Join us in our collective intent, to bring about a change within the
population on the planet that will have such a impact on each individual,
it will bring about a massive full blown awakening!
Namasté
Toon