Sister Paula Gonzalez, SC, Ph.D., is nicknamed the “solar nun.” 
Sister Paula, 78, earned her doctorate in biology at the Catholic University in Washington, DC and was a biology professor at the College of Mt. St. Joseph in Cincinnati, Ohio for 21 years. She entered the Sisters of Charity of Cincinnati in 1954.
After learning about solar energy more than 20 years ago, Gonzalez designed and did much of the work in converting a former chicken coop to an apartment she shares with another nun. “Casa del Sol,” is a 1500 foot super-insulated, passive solar house built with recycled materials. She also renovated a building on campus that is heated in the winter entirely by solar and geothermal energy.
The first Earth Day in 1970 inspired Sister Paula to think seriously about energy and environmental issues and about how to incorporate them into her biology classes at Mt. St. Joseph. Later, when a proposed nuclear plant received strong opposition, she realized that resistance alone can not solve energy problems - or any problem for that matter. It is also vital to develop creative, life-sustaining alternatives. She firmly believes: “We have to reach the moral cores of people, as well as their brains.”
The American Solar Energy Society’s Ohio Chapter, Green Energy Ohio, gave Sister Paula their Lifetime Achievement Award in 2005.
Jason Burnett, 31, a Stamford-trained economist, was until June 9 a senior official with the Environmental Protection Agency. He resigned, and is spending some time working for the election of Barack Obama to the presidency.
Apparently, he wasn’t regarded highly by environmentalists on his appointment to the EPA, but he should be one of their biggest heros, now.
Burnett charges that Vice President Cheney’s office urged him to delete or water down testimony to Congress by top administration officials on the impacts of global warming.
Burnett also said the White House blocked an effort by EPA to issue an endangerment finding, a conclusion that climate change is a threat to the public. Under a Supreme Court ruling last year, the finding would have forced the administration to cut emissions.
In October 2007, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Julie Gerberding was scheduled to testify before the Senate Environmental and Public Works Committee. Burnett said he was asked by Cheney’s office and the White House Council on Environmental Quality to “work with CDC to remove from the testimony any discussion of human health consequences of climate change.”
Burnett refused, saying the testimony was “fundamentally accurate.” It included examples of how climate change is likely to have “a significant impact” on public health.
But the Office of Management and Budget later deleted six of twelve pages of testimony, including sections suggesting climate change could lead to a rise in infectious diseases, air pollution, food and water scarcity and extreme weather events.
The issue of whether greenhouse gases endanger public health or welfare is significant because a finding by the EPA that they do would require the agency to regulate them under the terms of the federal Clean Air Act, spurring new rules across a range of industries.
Environmentalists, Congressional Democrats, and officials in more than a dozen states have sought to prod the EPA to reach a decision on the matter, following a Supreme Court ruling last year that greenhouse gases are pollutants and can be regulated under EPA’s existing authority.
But the Bush administration has resisted, arguing that the economy-wide regulations of such emissions could cripple the U.S. economy.
Burnett said he was told to retract the document because a bill to raise fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, which was moving through Congress at the time, would make the endangerment finding moot. But he said the logic was flawed.
“The energy bill did not change the science, it did not change the law,” Burnett said, adding, “EPA still has a responsibility to respond to the Supreme Court.” 
Catholics are prominently featured in a new Sierra Club book, Faith in Action: Communities of Faith Bring Hope for the Planet. The book highlights faith-led environmental action in each of the 50 states plus Puerto Rico and Washington, DC. 
Don Conklin and Ellen Buelow, members of Holy Rosary Parish in Albuquerque, NM, helped engineer a light-bulb swap–incandescent bulbs for energy-saving compact flurorescent bulbs. Before the program was over, 3,000 bulbs changed hands.
“We did this as a Lenten project,” said Conklin, a pastoral associate at the 2,700-household parish. “And it didn’t cost us a thing. It was sponsored by the Sierra Club and PNM,” the electric company serving the Albuquerque area.
The bulbs were distributed during an annual parish awareness weekend. “We’re planning our next awareness weekend and we’re coming up with the theme of helping families,” Buelow told Catholic News Service. “We’d like to get the concept of simple living in there. Economize and save the environment.”
The Faith in Action book also included these Catholic-led initiatives:
- In Colorado, Bishops Michael J. Sheridan of Colorado Springs and Arthur N. Tafoya of Pueblo called for a unified response after sewerage spills threatened Fountain Creek, which runs through their communities. The bishops’ statement had a “significant impact” said Ross Vincent, vice chair of the Sangre de Cristo group of Sierra’s Rocky Mountain chapter. “People who wanted to believe things were OK with Fountain Creek began to pay attention and realize something needed to be done. The bishops’ statement came at a critical time and it was deeply appreciated.”
- In New Orleans, members of Mary, Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church and their pastor, Father Vien The Nguyen, were able to halt post-Hurricane Katrina operations at a landfill that was not only close to their neighborhood, but was adajacent to a protected wildlife sanctuary. More than 200,000 cubic yards of waste from Katrina had been dumped in the landfill, which still leaks toxins into a canal used by the Vietnamese community for irrigation and fishing.
- The Michigan Catholic Rural Life Coalition used the National Catholic Rural Life Conference’s “Eating Is A Moral Act” program to demonstrate the many ethical implications of consumers’ food purchases. The coalition also educates the public about the need to promote stewardship of the land and promotes a sustainable food system that nourishes people, local communities and the earth.
- In response to the U.S. Catholic bishops’ call for action on global warming, the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis co-sponsored, “Global Warming: A Catholic Perspective.” One thousand people from 95 parishes attended the event to address the effects of global warming on the environment and the world’s poor communities.
Several parishes have now established their own “global warming action teams.” One of them, St. Joan of Arc in Minneapolis, launched a Green Power Campaign to encourage parishioners to purchase wind-generated energy.
-In Caguas, Puerto Rico, Father Pedro Ortiz and the Catholic parish of Nuesta Senora de la Providencia formed the Alianza Comunitaria y Ambiental en Accion Solidaria (Community and Environmental Alliance in Solidarity) in April 2007. The parish sets aside portions of its liturgical calendar for reflection on relevant social issues. Now, 100 community organizations, nonprofits, churches and universities from across the island with common concern for the environment have joined the alliance.
“In past elections, voting guides for Catholics, written from both ends of the political spectrum, have focused on hot button issues like abortion, gay marriage, war and economic justice. The environment, if mentioned at all, has been an afterthought. But the increasing urgency of climate change and its potential to generate catastrophic consequences for human life and civilization make this election different. This time, the environment is front and center.”
“The environment has long been a poor stepchild within Christian theology, and the Catholic Church is no exception. While Catholic social teaching has not wholly ignored the issue, the major social encyclicals of the twentieth century largely failed to tackle the question of our obligations toward the Earth. Although by no means hostile to environmentalism, Catholic social teaching consistently failed to place ecological concerns at the center of the church’s attention. Recent years, however, have seen signs of a shift in attitudes…”
Read the rest of this great article by Eduardo Penalver in Commonweal.
“I think this pope recognizes that for this and the next generation, it may very well be that global warming is the most important international moral issue that faces humankind,” said the Rev. Thomas Reese, former editor of the Jesuit magazine, America.
Pope Benedict is not the first pope to talk about the environment - his predecessor, John Paul II was an avid outdoorsman who also expressed alarm about global warming.
But experts say the pope is taking on the issue from a pulpit no one in the world can match - leader of the 1.1 billion member Roman Catholic Church - with a seriousness that is outdoing even John Paul II.
“His vocal support particularly for climate solutions could really tip the balance in world action,” said Melanie Griffin, national director for the Sierra Club. “He’s not mincing words.”
In his first homily, Pope Benedict XVI declared that “the Earth’s treasures no longer serve to to build God’s garden for all to live in, but they have been made to serve the powers of exploitation and destruction.”
The pope presents climate change as a moral issue, warning that environmental neglect especially hurts the poor and vulnerable.
Besides Genesis, Benedict and others in the church pushing for an ecological tie to faith have pointed to St. Francis of Assisi, who lived a simple life respectful of the land and wildlife.
“The Catholic Church and Benedict have never been called trendy, but their concern for the environment is an extension of what we believe about creation and what we believe about the creator,” said John Carr, executive director of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops office of justice, peace and human development.
Population control, including immigration, are issues many environmental groups believe are central to habitat protection and conservation of resources. Their stances often go up against Church teaching on birth control and social justice.
But they have found common ground on protecting the earth from rapacious development. “The Catholic Church is not the Sierra Club at prayer, but we do share a commitment to the Earth that is based on a commitment to creation,” Carr said.
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.
Catholics in Waterloo, Iowa have Cool Congregations.
Cool Congregations is an education and stewardship program designed to help faith communities and people of faith recognize and respond to their responsibility for the care of God’s creation.
In Iowa, Cool Congregations is sponsored by Iowa Interfaith Power and Light, an affiliate of the Interfaith Power and Light network created by The Regeneration Project. Iowa Interfaith Power and Light is a joint initiative of Christian, Jewish and other faith communities in Iowa, including the Catholic diocese of Des Moines and the National Catholic Rural Life Conference.
The Iowa project is one of 25 state projects organized by The Regeneration Project to educate faith communities about global warming, promote renewal energy, energy efficiency and conservation.
Cool Congregations helps individuals, families and congregations become better steward’s of God’s creation. Cool Congregations participants learn how to reduce their contribution to global warming by implementing a wide range of practical (and in many cases inexpensive) action which reduce carbon dioxide emissions, reduce consumption of fossil fuels, improve energy efficiency, and reduce overall energy use.
The net result is that we reduce our contribution to global warming, and the devastating social, economic and environmental impact which it has, especially on the poor and marginalized who can least afford it.
Kudos to the folks in Waterloo.
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.”
Pope Benedict XVI’s personal commitment to protecting the environment delights me and gives me hope. I am gratified to see an increasing amount of statements from the Holy See on the environment, particularly on global warming and energy consumption.
Archbishop Celestino Migliore, permanent observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, affirmed this commitment during the session ”Addressing Climate Change: The United Nations and the World at Work.”
In his February 13th address, Archbishop Migliore noted some of the steps the Vatican is taking to offset their carbon footprints. Solar panels are scheduled to be installed in the Vatican. The Holy See is also participating in a tree planting project in Hungary, which will “provide environmental benefits to the host country, assist in the recovery of an environmentally degraded tract of land, and provide local jobs.”
He highlighted the shared responsibility of individuals and nations in protecting the planet.
“It is incumbent upon every individual and nation to seriously assume one’s share of the responsibility to find and implement the most balanced approach possible to this challenge,” he said. “Sustainable development provides the key to a strategy that harmoniously takes into account the demands of environmental preservation, climate change, economic development and basic human needs.”
Using an image from St. Gregory of Nyssa, Benedict XVI said the stable in Bethlehem represents our “ill-treated world,” polluted especially by the abuse of energy and its exploitation.
During his homily at Christmas Midnight Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, the Pope spoke of St. Gregory of Nyssa’s interpretation of the stable into which Christ was born. “What would he say if he could see the state of the world today, through the abuse of energy and its selfish and reckless exploitation?”
“Thus, according to Gregory’s vision, the stable in the Christmas message represents the ill-treated world. What Christ rebuilds is no ordinary place. He came to restore beauty and dignity to creation, to the universe…Christmas is the feast of restored creation.”
