Earth Hour started with a question: How can we inspire people to take action on climate change? The answer: Ask the people of Sydney, Australia to turn off their lights for one hour.
On March 31, 2007, 2.2 million people and 2100 businesses in Sydney turned off their lights for one hour - Earth Hour. If the greenhouse reduction achieved in Sydney during Earth Hour was sustained for one year, it would be equivalent to taking 48,616 cars off the road for a year.
Earth Hour founder, Andy Ridley, said 371 cities and towns from Australia to Canada–35 countries in all–had signed up for the 60-minute shutdown at 8 pm on March 29, 2008.
Ridley, who began Earth Hour last year while working with WWF Australia, said the initiative was about individuals and global communities joining together to own a shared problem - climate change.
Cities officially signed on include Chicago, San Francisco, Dublin, Manila, Bangkok, Copenhagen and Toronto, all of which will switch off lights on major landmarks and encourage businesses and homeowners to follow suit.
“Switching off the lights for an hour is not going to make a dent in global emissions,” said WWF organizer, Charles Stevens. “But what it does do is it is a great catalyst for much bigger changes. It engages people in the processes of becoming more energy efficient.”
Catholics in Toronto who wish to express their love of Earth liturgically will have a chance on March 29th when St. Basil’s Church holds “Earth Hour” vespers.
St. Basil’s, located at Bay and St. Joseph Streets, will mark the occasion with candlelight vespers from 8 to 9 pm. The prayers and readings for the service will focus on creation and the Christian responsibility to be good stewards.
Last night I attended a private screening of “They Killed Sister Dorothy,” a documentary about Sister Dorothy Stang, S.N.D., an environmental activist who was murdered in Brazil in 2005. She began her ministry there in 1966.
A citizen of Brazil and the United States, Sr. Dorothy worked with the Pastoral Land Commission, an organization of the Catholic Church that fights for the rights of rural workers and peasants, and defends land reforms in Brazil. Her death came less than a week after meeting with the country’s human rights officials about threats to local farmers from loggers and ranchers.
After receiving several death threats, Sr. Dorothy commented, “I don’t want to flee, nor do I want to abandon the battle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest. They have the sacrosanct right to aspire to a better life on land where they can live and work with dignity while respecting the environment.”
The film’s producers are outreaching to Catholic groups, environmentalists like the Rainforest Alliance, and other socially-minded people and organizations who want to support the poor in finding sustainable livelihoods.
I found the film very timely, with a growing interest by Catholics around the world in environmental protection, and the ways its abuses fall disproportionally hard on the poor and marginalized.
Three senior Roman Catholic bishops stepped up their campaign against the mining industry saying it destroyed both the environment and the local communities.
“Mining in the Philippines not only destroys the environment but has become the vehicle for the violation of human rights, enthnocide of indigenous communities, and even deaths,” said Bishop Sergio Utleg as they launched “Anti-Mining Solidarity week.” 
Utleg, chairman of a special commission on tribal communities on the influential Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines, charged that encouraging mining investment in this impoverished country was a violation of human rights.
Bishop Ramon Villena also said only foreign and local investors were benefiting from the resurgence of the mining industry which President Arroyo has been promoting.
Fellow Bishop Deogracis Iniguez said he hoped the anti-mining week would drum up support for opposition to the industry.
The mining industry, which employs about 140,000 people, has enjoyed a revival in recent months, thanks to the opening of the sector to foreign investment, a measure promoted by Mrs. Arroyo.
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Michael Heller, 72, a Polish cosmologist and Catholic priest, has won the 2008 Templeton Prize. Reverend Professor Heller serves on the Faculty of Philosophy at the Pontifical Academy of Theology in Cracow. 
In his acceptance statement he said, “Things thought through by God should be identified with mathematical structures interpreted as structures of the world.” In a word, Professor Heller sees mathematics as the language of God.
Much of Professor Heller’s career has been dedicated to reconciling the known scientific world with the unknowable dimensions of God.
In doing so, he has argued against a “God of the gaps” strategy for relating science and religion, a view that uses God to explain what science cannot.
Heller said he believed, for example, that the religious objection to teaching evolution “is one of the greatest misunderstandings” because it “introduces a contradiction of opposition between God and chance.”
In a telephone interview, Professor Heller explained his affinity for the two fields: “I always wanted to do the most important things, and what can be more important than science and religion? Science gives us knowledge, and religion gives us meaning. Both are prerequisites of the decent existence.”
Heller’s current work focuses on noncommutative geometry and groupoid theory in mathematics which attempts to remove the problem of an initial cosmological singularity at the origin of the universe. “If on the fundamental level of physics there is no space and no time, as many physicists think,” says Heller, “noncommutative geometry could be a suitable tool to deal with such a situation.”
His philosophical hero is 17th century German mathematician-philosopher Gottfried Leibniz. In the margin of his work Dialogus there is a short handwritten remarks in Latin that says, “When God calculates and thinks things through, the world is made.” “My philosophy is encapsulated in that,” said Heller.
Carbon taxes in the world’s richest countries should be used to offset the effects of global warming in the world’s poorest countries, said an Irish bishop.
“Climate change is undermining the fight against poverty,” said Bishop John Kirby of Clonfert, chairman of the Irish bishops’ overseas aid agency, Trocaire. “Developing countries haven’t caused global warming, but the world’s poorest people are left to cope with the consequences for three reasons: They live in areas that are seeing the biggest impact of global warming, the depend heavily on the weather for their livelihoods, and they are already living in poverty, therefore they are less able to cope with the impacts of climate changes.
Kirby said he wants a significant share of carbon-tax revenues to go to the newly developed U.N. Adaptation Fund, created to help poorer countries adapt to climate-change threats.
Africa, by far the lowest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, is projected to be among the regions hardest hit by climate change.
As a global problem, all countries have a common and shared responsibility to tackle climate change. Rich industrialized countries, however, bear particular responsibility for action,” he said. “Any action we take must take the rights of developing countries into consideration. Poorer countries with low carbon emissions must be allowed to continue their economic development and mustn’t be punished for the sins of the developed world.”
The British group Catholic Concern for Animals has enlisted British TV chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and another celebrity chef, Jamie Oliver, to persuade the bishops of England and Wales to promote their dioceses as “free-range” users.
The animals rights group - whose members include Bishop Malcolm McMahon of Nottingham - wants all parish, rectory, school, convent and retreat centre dining halls to use only free-range poultry and eggs.
A talented writer, broadcaster and campaigner, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall is widely known for his commitment to seasonal, ethically produced food. His books, journalism and television series have earned him a huge popular following. He is also a strong supporter of the rights of local farmers and principals of fair trade.
Determined to start growing and rearing some of his own food, in 1998 Hugh started living in the original River Cottage farm in rural Dorset. His steep learning curve was documented in the Escape to River Cottage series (1999) which won him a big audience.
Originally a collection of mucky cow sheds, the property was transformed into a rustic, welcoming venue with a professional kitchen, thriving vegetable garden and small collection of livestock. It became the location for a range of River Cottage events and courses designed to promote the “grown your own” philosophy and provide an environment where people could dicuss, eat and learn about really good, well-produced food.
There was a delightful article in the December 20, 2007 New York Times on labyrinths. Written by Ann Raver, it chronicles the experience of Pamela White, a garden designer, who built a labyrinth in the woods in Maryland.
This ancient form has been used for walking meditations in which those who enter shed their emotional burdens, fears, sorrow, and even evil spirits. According to Robert Ferre, a labyrinth builder and teacher in St. Louis, fishermen had a great belief in labyrinths. “They would walk the labyrinth before going to sea, to shed the evil spirits that sank their ships or made the weather bad.”
Labyrinths are easy to draw, find and research, as shown on the Labyrinth Society’s website, a good source of historical and practical information.
“The design of a labyrinth echoes spirals in nature, from a snail’s shell to the inner ear to the winding of a bean vine as it springs from the earth. Evidence of labyrinths has been found in Minoan Crete as well as Europe, India and the American Southwest, according toe Hermann Kern’s “Through the Labyrinth: Designs and Meanings over 5,000 Years.”
A famous church labyrinth in the United States is Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.
The Feast of St. Anthony the Abbott, the patron saint of the animal kingdom, is celebrated on the Sunday closest to January 17th. The ceremony celebrates and gives appreciation for the services provided to the human race by the animal kingdom.
St. Anthony lived in Egypt in the 3rd century A.D. In addition to being one of the inspirational leaders of monasticism, he has long been associated with the caring for and healing of animals.
His particular concern for their well-being stems from curing a pig of ergotism, a disease associated by eating bad grain. For this reason, St. Anthony is often depicted accompanied by a pig.
On the Feast of St. Anthony of Abad, both livestock and domestic animals are brought to St. Peter’s Square to be blessed, and to other churches in Rome’s historical center. In 19th century Rome, the Esquiline area still proliferated with sheep, cows, horses, chickens and other livestock that were led by herders to the churches to be blessed.
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, St. Phillip Neri’s former parish, has long welcomed dogs since the saint permitted them to be present at Mass in order to encourage their owners to attend the liturgy. On the Feast of St. Anthony, the four-legged congregation was blessed along with their human family members.
Saint Brigid was born in 450 A.D. in Faughart in County Louth as a daughter of a Christian slave and Dubhtach, a pagan chieftain who owned her. Brigid was raised by a female Druid. She grew up to embody the Celtic ideal - one who was generous, handsome and brave.
Saint Brigid became a powerful and beloved Irish religious figure, second only to Saint Patrick. She has been described as “a saint who was at least as interested in farming and domestic matters as she was effective in prayer in leadership.”
Known for her humility and concern for the poor, it has been written that “oftentimes when the very greatest sought her, they found her not in the hall nor the church, but, though it might be blowing or snowing, off in the fields herding the cattle that gave milk to the monastery, or the sheep that gave them wool.”
One delightful legend describes a time when Brigid was caught in a sudden rain shower while tending sheep. Taking off her wet cloak, she hung it on a sunbeam to dry…
Another legend describes the encounter of Saint Brigid and the boar.
“In olden times the ground around a monastery was enclosed and was regarded as holy ground; it was a sacred place and no one had any right to destroy or damage it. A criminal running from the law could seek sanctuary in the monastery and no one could do anything to him until he himself agreed to leave.
In St. Brigid’s time the animals of the woods seemed to know about this law also. One day a wild boar was being chased by hunters and was nearing capture when he managed to reach Saint Brigid’s convent at Cill Dara. The huntsmen were forced to halt outside the gates and wait. They expected the nuns to chase the boar out so that they could easily pounce and kill it.
Brigid was saddened to see the poor board stagger in, so she called to it and then sent a message to the hunters, saying the animal had the right of sanctuary just as human beings had. They sent back a message saying that animals are only animals and didn’t have the same rights as men. Could they please have their boar back? Brigid sent back another message saying that as far as she was concerned the animal had the same right of sanctuary and there the matter ended.
The disappointed hunters rode away. Then Brigid tended the wild boar; it was lying down, exhausted and bleeding from its long run and nearly frightened to death. She gave it a drink and then led it to her own herd of pigs on the monastery farm. At once the boar became quite tame and settled down with the other pigs and lived happily there for the rest of its life.
Perhaps the best known story of the saint is her visit to a dying pagan chieftain. While she stayed with him and prayed, she plaited rushes into a cross. The chieftain heard her account of the cross as a Christian symbol, and was converted and baptised before he died.
Saint Brigid’s crosses make of rushes are hung up in Irish homes on Saint Brigid’s Day (the old Celtic festival of Imbolc) on February 1. In Irish folk tradition, the cross is believed to protect the building and its inhabitants from fire.
