How animals are being affected by the changing environment.

Polar Bears are fit to swim long distances, but they are not built to live in the water. This may seem obvious, but in recent times polar bears have had to do some searching to find ice bergs that are suitable for their body size. For example, in the film titled Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore points out that the polar bear population is dwindling due to the challenge they are facing to find appropriate homes. In a scenario between us and the environment, the results are different. For example, in the rainforest it is estimated that every second, a plot of land the size of a baseball field is destroyed. This is important because there is so much diversity and plenty to be discovered in this varied area. In temperate regions in the world, rivers overflow with content fish. In neighboring urbanized vicinities, the gasses that factories produce turn to vapor high in the atmosphere. When it rains, these toxic gasses rain into the rivers with water, thus producing acid rain. Slowly the fish population is lessened. The question is clear when we decide which is more important: energy for our growing society, or the delicate ecosystem that envelopes our entire world.

What RCS students can do for the environment

Students today do not do enough for the environment. They seem to be too much in touch with style, fashion, and fun that they forget to see the beauty in our national parks and even right outside their homes. I think the way to solve this would be to have fun ways to spread environmental awareness. One way could be to have fairs that include fun, cool games that deal with helping the environment that kids could play. You could also go to different schools and organize fundraisers for the environment. Pascagoula does a Coast Cleanup every Earth Day. It gets a lot of attention and kids get a chance to interact in a fun way outside in the sun. We need to host sports games outside and get the people to bring cans or plastic to recycle if they want to play. Everyone of these ideas are fun, easy, and effective. All we need to do is to organize them.

-ZB

PROTECT IT!!!!

It's nice right? And we should all strive to keep it that way, and that's what most people are doing now but we have gone though a slum of years where the environment has taken a back seat to things like money and the well being of people. But what most people don't understand is that all these things are connected. The Catholic Church says "we should respect all life." Doesn't that mean we should respect the life of the trees, grass, air, and animals around us. God gave us the Earth so that we may inhabit it and that means we should take of it. The Catholic Church teaches that all life no matter how big or small has a right to live. Well the Earth is made up of a bunch of little things: people, trees, animals, plants, minerals, and those things that we as humans have not found yet. But they all share one thing: they are mostly alive or they have something that lives in them. So we should protect it all of it, not just because the Catholic Church says we should, we should protect it because we want to.

KD

Eco-Asceticism: What is wrong with you?

Who in the world would want to sit in the hot air of Ohio and NOT use their air conditioner? Well some Catholics are and it's just crazy. I understand that we are trying to save the world and conserve energy but for you too sit in such hot air and suffer is ridiculous. Some people go too far when they are trying to conserve. A family already has a passive-solar home, florescent light bulbs, efficient appliances, and some solar panels for electricity and hot water. And they still aren't using their air conditioner. So if people just try and conserve and not use a lot of energy and do what some families are doing then maybe some people wouldn't have to suffer without air conditioning to try and conserve. A lot of Catholics are using Eco-Asceticism in their houses and it's great for the environment and everybody that can should try and use it too.

CK

GWLCAD! = Guess what local Catholics are doing!

GWLCAD!
Recently, the USCCB established a group called the Environmental Justice Program (i.e. the EJP). They give grants to small community organizations to improve their cities and towns so they can provide little homes for charming little bluebirds and squirrels in order to keep them out of your house and maintain biodiversity. So in this case, everyone wins. Similarly, in New Jersey, the Genesis Farm was founded. The primary focus of the farm is to educate their visitors on topics such as "health of our global commons of air, water, land and nature." All the while, they keep God as a focus in their service work. Leaning toward a different facet of Catholic environmentalism, Father Kemp noticed that the environment wasn't being brought up in the liturgy as often as it should be. So, he founded an organization called Preach the Just Word. With it, he gathers new and old priests together and he gives them insight on how to integrate the environment into the masses they lead. That's all for now!

KP