Archive for December 2018
Hamilton’s Mohawk College has commissioned Canada’s largest net-zero-energy institutional building. The 96,000-square-foot Joyce Centre for Partnership & Innovation is heated and powered by geo-exchange wells and 1,900 solar panels. It’s aiming for certification under the Canada Green Building Council’s Zero Carbon Building Standard.
This story is thanks to Clean Energy Review: http://cleanenergycanada.org/clean-energy-review/ It illustrates that even though governments seem to be unwilling to implement effective policies to counter anthropogenic causes of climate change, good things are happening! Clean Energy Canada has weekly stories of these positive actions that people are taking individually, and as organized groups.
This story was posted on the United Church of Canada website (July 18, 2018) and is a statement that brings positive energy to my soul. As we remember the birth of Jesus, we also remember the narrative in Matthew’s Gospel that tells of Jesus and his family being refugees.
Racism and Islamophobia practised by individuals and nations continue to destroy God’s beloved community.
For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me. —Matthew 25:35–36
Affirming that God is at work in the religious life of all humanity, the United Church is committed to working with all people of goodwill for compassion, peace, and justice in the world. Together with our full communion partner the United Church of Christ (USA), we respond with outrage and sorrow to the recent US Supreme Court decision upholding President Trump’s executive order barring people from several Muslim-majority countries from travel to the United States.
When Jesus named welcoming the stranger as one of the characteristics of those who are faithful followers of his way, he spoke of a gathering of nations. This recent decision demonstrates once again that racism and Islamophobiapractised by individuals and nations continue to destroy God’s beloved community.
United Church of Christ leaders say that this “travel ban is a signal that we are closing the door to our neighbors who are fleeing violence and persecution, and that our faith calls us to do otherwise.” As part of our commitment to racial justice, The United Church of Canada is called to speak against discrimination rooted in racial and religious bigotry. Indeed, the recent travel ban decision has been criticized as the US Supreme Court once again legitimizing and legalizing racism.
International interfaith organization Religions for Peace expressed its sorrow and moral opposition to the Supreme Court ruling, calling all people of faith to “welcome the other.” “Each of our diverse faith traditions calls for profound active solidarity with, and empathy for, the ‘other’ rooted in a spirit of unity, as a deeply held and widely shared value among our religious communities,” states the organization.
Religions for Peace has joined with a global coalition of faith leaders (including the World Council of Churches, of which the United Church is a member) in the Faith over Fear campaign, an initiative which invites people of faith to “welcome the other” by opening their hearts and communities to refugees.
Although Canada’s refugee sponsorship programs have supported people of many faiths, Canadians are not immune to these global currents of fear and distrust of “the other,” or to underlying racism and Islamophobia. Recent responses to asylum-seekers entering Canada from the United States; hate crimes attacking individuals and their places of worship; increasing numbers of visa refusals for those coming to Canada from the global South—all point to a Canada less welcoming than our faith envisions. Recently the Canadian Council for Refugees, Amnesty International, and the Canadian Council of Churches (of which the United Church is a member) filed a court challenge of the safe third country agreement between Canada and the United States, through which refugee claimants cannot legally enter one of these countries from the other.
Choosing faith over fear requires us to denounce all actions that violate on the basis of race or religion. As people of faith, we must denounce that which violates the human rights, dignity, and very life of those around the globe who seek refuge from war, poverty, or climate devastation, and of those who simply seek to travel or work in a different part of the world.
We are called to work with Canadians of all faiths for immigration systems that “welcome the other” and contribute to communities that are just and inclusive, honouring diversity as a gift for all. Consider exploring the stories of hope and welcome on the Faith over Fear website. Or share this statement on your social media networks with the hashtag #NoMuslimBanEver.
For more information, contact:
Gail AllanProgram Coordinator Ecumenical and Interfaith
416-231-7680 ext. 4162
1-800-268-3781 ext. 4162
Yes, it is that time of year when observers of many aspects of life create their personal list of the “Ten Best …..”, etc..
In 2018 I had the privilege of watching quite a few movies, but only one was unique in the manner in which it affected my emotions AND my thinking. It is a film that I would recommend to anyone who is interested in current events, ethics, and theology – or any one of those.
This film has been reviewed in The Tyee by Dorothy Woodend.
Two of the paragraphs of Woodend’s review are:
“The temptation to look for an overarching idea or umbrella under which an entire year of films can be collected is something of a fool’s errand. But I am just that fool, and if there was one film that summed up the current moral moment, it was Paul Schrader’s First Reformed.
Schrader, to put it mildly, is an uneven filmmaker. Raised as a strict Calvinist he came late to movies, but went on to pen Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and The Last Temptation of Christ, and directed American Gigolo. Sure, he has also made a number of horrendous films, but the man has something to say, and his latest, First Reformed, charges full force at religion, corporate malfeasance, environmental collapse and the agonized search for meaning. And I do mean agonized. This isn’t the most fun thing to watch over the holidays, but it is riveting in ways that I did not expect. Made with rigour and purpose, it is also possessed of a seriousness and mystery that’s rare in contemporary cinema.“
The whole, excellent review can be accessed at:
We all know that there is a crisis happening now with respect to the climate(s) that we are living in. Denial, however, seems to be more powerful than the will to act to deal with the crisis.
The David Suzuki Foundation has written an important commentary on how the lack of leadership by people in positions of responsibility is affecting our democracies in North America. This certainly applies in Canada, and particularly in Ontario where there is no definite plan to counter additional greenhouse gas emissions. The Suzuki Foundation has written:
“In the face of an overwhelming crisis that threatens our very future, it might be time for an overhaul of our democratic and political systems, which are clearly failing the people they were designed to serve.”
Carbon tax needed
Donald Gutstein has written a book on how politicians have been influenced on this issue, and how people can inform themselves so that we can challenge their claims that they are taking meaningful action on global warming. The book is called:
“The Big Stall: How Big Oil and Think Tanks Are Blocking Action on Climate Change In Canada”
Here’s a brief review from the Toronto Public Library website:
Summary/Review: “In fall 2015, the new Trudeau government endorsed the Paris Accord and promised to tackle global wamring. In 2016, it released a major report which set out a national energy strategy embracing clean growth, technological innovation and carbon pricing. Rather than putting in place tough measures to achieve the Paris targets however, the government reframed global warming as a market opportunity for Canada’s clean technology sector.
In The Big Stall, Donald Gutstein traces the origins of the government’s climate change plan back to the energy sector itself – in particular Big Oil. He shows how, in the last fifteen years, Big Oil has infiltrated provincial and federal governments, academia, media and the non-profit sector to sway government and public opinion on the realities of climate change and what needs to be done about it.
Working both behind the scenes and in high-profile networks, Canada’s energy companies moved the debate away from discussion of the measures required to create a zero-carbon world and towards market-based solutions that will cut CO2 emissions – but not enough to prevent severe climate impacts. The progressive-seeming Trudeau Liberals have been co-opted by the embedded advocates of the oil and gas industry. The result: oil and gas companies can continue profiting from exporting their resources, instead of leaving them in the ground to minimize climate change. The door has been left wide open for oil companies to determine their own futures, and to go on drilling new wells, building new tar sands plants and constructing new pipelines.
This book offers the background information readers need to challenge politicians claiming they are taking meaningful action on global warming.”–
allanbaker 