Avaaz.org is a new global web movement with a simple democratic mission: to close the gap between the world we have, and the world most people everywhere want
"World leaders have arrived and begun 60 hours of final negotiations. Each one will have to decide whether to step forward as heroes, or fail us all. But they will only act if we do.
Around the world a global movement has been building towards this moment. Now it's time for one last, massive push -- with a global public outcry for a real deal that will stop catastrophic climate change. In the next 48 hours we can build the largest petition in history. The names of petition signers are actually being read out inside the summit. Sign below, and tell everyone:
Petition to the 110 Presidents and Prime Ministers negotiating in Copenhagen:
We call on each one of you to make the concessions necessary to meet your historic responsibility in this crisis. Rich countries must offer fair funding, and all countries must set ambitious targets on emissions. Do not leave Copenhagen without a fair, ambitious and binding deal that keeps the world safe from catastrophic global warming of 2 degrees."
Save Copenhagen: Real Deal Now!
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Thursday, December 10, 2009
Anglican Bishop warns of implications concerning Government's decision to stop Kairos Funding
Pressure Mounts for CIDA to Renew Funding For KAIROS' Human Rights Program: Funding Cut puts Human Rights Defenders at Greater Risk
"Make no mistake. Lives will be seriously affected and possibly lost if some of the groups KAIROS supports do not receive its assistance," said The Right Reverend Philip Poole Bishop of York-Credit Valley of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto.
"Make no mistake. Lives will be seriously affected and possibly lost if some of the groups KAIROS supports do not receive its assistance," said The Right Reverend Philip Poole Bishop of York-Credit Valley of the Anglican Diocese of Toronto.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Anglican Church of Canada commends the Diocese of Huron and the Enviroaction Committee’s leadership
The following is a letter sent to the bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada.
November 19, 2009
Dear Bishop
This letter is to let you know about Greening Anglican Spaces, an important initiative of the Anglican Church of Canada, and to ask your help in forming a diocesan “green team” to provide local leadership and support for the initiative. If your diocese has already formed such a group, we commend you for your leadership and invite your participation and support.
Greening Anglican Spaces, a project of the Partners in Mission and Ecojustice Committee, developed to implement General Synod Resolution C001 adopted in 2007, calling upon all Anglican churches in every diocese to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A project team has been creating on-line tools – soon to be posted on the Anglican web page - to help parishes and dioceses increase the energy efficiency of our buildings, lessen greenhouse gases, save energy dollars, and together work towards a more sustainable future.
The Anglican Church of Canada is collaborating with the Greening Sacred Spaces project of Faith and the Common Good to develop educational materials and practical tools to help parishes in their greening efforts. A schedule of this joint project is attached.
Achieving increased energy efficiency in our buildings and changing our practices is a multi-year process. With your help, we believe we can support our parishes in serious greening efforts over the next three to five years, sending a clear signal to the wider community that Anglicans are serious about seeking a healthy, sustainable future. Specifically, we are asking you to name up to three people in your diocese who care about climate change, and who are interested in the practical aspects of reducing the church’s carbon footprint. Or to let us know what diocesan activities and teams you may already have in place. Kindly forward their name, e-mail address, telephone number and other contact information to mmaybee@national.anglican.ca. A reply by December 4, 2009 would be appreciated. One of the members of our project team will be in touch with you soon to follow up.
Greening Anglican Spaces is a practical response to the Fifth Mark of Mission, “To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” Last month, participants at an interfaith meeting hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury pledged to take whatever action they can “to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable practice”. Taking action continues to be urgent, whatever the results of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, and that is what this initiative proposes to do.
Thank you for your timely consideration of this request,
Sincerely,
Maylanne Maybee
Coordinator, Ecojustice Networks
The Anglican Church of Canada
mmaybee@national.anglican.ca
Ted Reeve
Faith & the Common Good Network
569 Spadina Ave
Toronto ON M5S 2J7
www.faith-commongood.net
November 19, 2009
Dear Bishop
This letter is to let you know about Greening Anglican Spaces, an important initiative of the Anglican Church of Canada, and to ask your help in forming a diocesan “green team” to provide local leadership and support for the initiative. If your diocese has already formed such a group, we commend you for your leadership and invite your participation and support.
Greening Anglican Spaces, a project of the Partners in Mission and Ecojustice Committee, developed to implement General Synod Resolution C001 adopted in 2007, calling upon all Anglican churches in every diocese to set targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
A project team has been creating on-line tools – soon to be posted on the Anglican web page - to help parishes and dioceses increase the energy efficiency of our buildings, lessen greenhouse gases, save energy dollars, and together work towards a more sustainable future.
The Anglican Church of Canada is collaborating with the Greening Sacred Spaces project of Faith and the Common Good to develop educational materials and practical tools to help parishes in their greening efforts. A schedule of this joint project is attached.
Achieving increased energy efficiency in our buildings and changing our practices is a multi-year process. With your help, we believe we can support our parishes in serious greening efforts over the next three to five years, sending a clear signal to the wider community that Anglicans are serious about seeking a healthy, sustainable future. Specifically, we are asking you to name up to three people in your diocese who care about climate change, and who are interested in the practical aspects of reducing the church’s carbon footprint. Or to let us know what diocesan activities and teams you may already have in place. Kindly forward their name, e-mail address, telephone number and other contact information to mmaybee@national.anglican.ca. A reply by December 4, 2009 would be appreciated. One of the members of our project team will be in touch with you soon to follow up.
Greening Anglican Spaces is a practical response to the Fifth Mark of Mission, “To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation, and sustain and renew the life of the earth.” Last month, participants at an interfaith meeting hosted by the Archbishop of Canterbury pledged to take whatever action they can “to reduce carbon emissions and promote sustainable practice”. Taking action continues to be urgent, whatever the results of the Copenhagen Climate Change Summit, and that is what this initiative proposes to do.
Thank you for your timely consideration of this request,
Sincerely,
Maylanne Maybee
Coordinator, Ecojustice Networks
The Anglican Church of Canada
mmaybee@national.anglican.ca
Ted Reeve
Faith & the Common Good Network
569 Spadina Ave
Toronto ON M5S 2J7
www.faith-commongood.net
Thursday, November 26, 2009
You'll be doin' all right, with your Advent of Blue, But I'll have a 'green', 'green' Advent
The Church of England has an online Advent Calendar, this year with an environmental theme, "Ready, Steady, SLOW" - sorry, but there are no chocolates behind any flaps...
The site encourages you to take time out this Advent to slow down and consider your lifestyle with daily challenges and thoughts. The calendar contains a range of reflections, actions and video clips. Advent Resources from the Church of England.
"We hope for a world in which we have learned to live with the grain of things, to live patiently, to live respectfully, to live in a way that takes our environment seriously..." Dr. Rowan Williams
Ready, Steady Slow
The site encourages you to take time out this Advent to slow down and consider your lifestyle with daily challenges and thoughts. The calendar contains a range of reflections, actions and video clips. Advent Resources from the Church of England.
"We hope for a world in which we have learned to live with the grain of things, to live patiently, to live respectfully, to live in a way that takes our environment seriously..." Dr. Rowan Williams
Ready, Steady Slow
Monday, November 23, 2009
Prayers of the People December 13, 2009
On Sunday December 13 the Diocese of Huron and the Enviroaction Committee ask you to include an intention in your ‘Prayers of the People’ on behalf of climate change talks in Copenhagen. Today we join churches around the world by ringing church bells or beating drums 350 times* to show our solidarity with those most affected.
"We pray for our brothers and sisters around the world suffering the impact of climate injustice. We pray that the leaders of the nations may work together at the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, so that a just, binding and science-based climate treaty may be achieved."
*Kairos says that “350 parts per million (ppm) is the upper limit for carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in our atmosphere. Until about 200 years ago, our atmosphere contained 275 ppm of CO2, but now the concentration stands at 390 ppm. Unless we are able to rapidly reduce, we risk irreversible impacts on all of Creation”
Contact us: Diocese of Huron EnviroAction Committee
Email: enviroactionhuron@gmail.com
"We pray for our brothers and sisters around the world suffering the impact of climate injustice. We pray that the leaders of the nations may work together at the climate change negotiations in Copenhagen, so that a just, binding and science-based climate treaty may be achieved."
*Kairos says that “350 parts per million (ppm) is the upper limit for carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration in our atmosphere. Until about 200 years ago, our atmosphere contained 275 ppm of CO2, but now the concentration stands at 390 ppm. Unless we are able to rapidly reduce, we risk irreversible impacts on all of Creation”
Contact us: Diocese of Huron EnviroAction Committee
Email: enviroactionhuron@gmail.com
Thursday, November 19, 2009
KAIROS: Copenhagen 2009
Sunday December 13 is a day of action for churches around the world. A global bell ringing action is timed to coincide with an ecumenical service that the World Council of Churches is coordinating at the height of the talks in Copenhagen. When it ends at 3:00 pm, churches all over Denmark will ring their bells. KAIROS is asking every church in the country to ring its church bells 350 times for climate justice on Sunday December 13, 2009 at 3:00pm (your local timezone).
If churches around the world ring their bells at 3:00 pm local time, we’ll have a 24 hour chain of bells!
KAIROS: Copenhagen 2009
If churches around the world ring their bells at 3:00 pm local time, we’ll have a 24 hour chain of bells!
KAIROS: Copenhagen 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Call to Anglicans in Canada for Vision and Action on the Climate Crisis
Call to Anglicans in Canada for Vision and Action on the Climate Crisis
We, the undersigned, as Canadian Anglicans, call on our primate, bishops, clergy, and laity to address climate change as stewards of God’s good creation, required to act justly towards our fellow creatures and to Earth itself.
We are deeply concerned at:
* Increasingly urgent warnings on the need for substantial, swift greenhouse gas emission reductions, warnings issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1990 and widely ignored;
* Canada’s being the world’s worst per capita emitter, with increasing emissions flouting its Kyoto Protocol commitment to a 6% reduction from 1990 levels;
* The federal government’s failure to establish targets or a plan of emissions reductions, as the scientific consensus indicates, of 25-40% from 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050, in order to avoid an average global temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius, after which runaway crises can be expected;
* The inadequacy of provincial targets and reduction plans -- despite responsible policies in some provinces -- given that the harmful impacts of global heating are occurring faster than anticipated, making deeper, faster reductions necessary;
* Promotion by Canadian tax subsidies of tar sands extraction, the major cause for rising emissions and of massive pollution and water depletion, water itself being a critical environmental issue;
* Failure to recognize that fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource fast being depleted;
* The lack of requirement in our Constitution and other statutes for responsible use and conservation of these valuable one-time riches for future generations;
* Failure to include military operations, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, in reduction planning;
* The substantial carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian agricultural practices and other industries;
* Failure to take adequate advantage of well developed knowledge and technology for alternative fuels and for more efficient planning of cities and transportation systems, industrial European countries being more advanced in curbing emissions and committing to serious further reductions;
* Climate-change induced harm to developing countries and the far north in Canada, and the devastation of First Nations’ lands by the tar sands extraction.
We call on Anglicans to work for solutions to the climate crisis. In our liturgy, we confess that “we have sinned against God by what we have done and by what we have left undone,” yet, with blind eye and hardened heart, we do not “love our neighbours as ourselves.” Climate change is the slavery issue of our day: we in the developed world are the oppressors in a system that victimizes the Earth, our neighbours in the global South, and future generations. We fail to act as partners in the Covenant with God to care for this planet, and to live out the transformative love of our resurrection hope.
It’s time for new vision and commitment to a new kind of life, to renewed care of the land on which we live as tenants, to deeper respect for all the creatures within the Covenant, for the mountains and hills that sing, the trees and rivers that clap their hands.
Time is urgent. At the December 2009 Copenhagen Convention on post-Kyoto reduction targets, we need Canada to be a voice for the serious cuts deemed necessary by the best science.
We call on the Anglican Church to join with environmental organizations and other faith communities in urging the Government of Canada to make the effective, timely commitments needed. We call on church leaders to take these concerns to all levels of government.
We ask Anglicans to support a national call for climate change action by signing the KyotoPlus petition. Sign it on line at http://www.kairoscanada.org/en/get-involved/campaign/kyotoplus-petition, and download it at http://www.kyotoplus.ca/en/index.html.
We call on all levels of the church to set an example by making cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in our own operations. We urge routine incorporation of the care of creation and the responsibility for environmental justice in prayers, readings, and sermons.
Who is my neighbour? The command to “love one another” embraces people far away and future generations. The command to stewardship embraces the whole Earth, our
island home, and all life dependent on it.
Phyllis Creighton, MA, adjunct faculty, Divinity, Trinity College; Honorary Canon
Joy Kogawa, CM, OBC, LLD (hon), DLitt (hon), DD (hon), author
Diane Marshall, MEd, RMFT, Director, Institute of Family Living, Toronto
Lynn McDonald, PhD, LID (hon), university professor emerita, University of Guelph
Fellow Anglicans! Sign this Manifesto electronically at
Or print it out, sign it indicating parish and diocese, and mail it to
PO Box 92513, 152 Carlton Street
Toronto ON, M5A 2K1.
We will report both printed and electronic support of the Manifesto to the Primate and Bishops. Pass the Manifesto on to other Anglicans.
We, the undersigned, as Canadian Anglicans, call on our primate, bishops, clergy, and laity to address climate change as stewards of God’s good creation, required to act justly towards our fellow creatures and to Earth itself.
We are deeply concerned at:
* Increasingly urgent warnings on the need for substantial, swift greenhouse gas emission reductions, warnings issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change since 1990 and widely ignored;
* Canada’s being the world’s worst per capita emitter, with increasing emissions flouting its Kyoto Protocol commitment to a 6% reduction from 1990 levels;
* The federal government’s failure to establish targets or a plan of emissions reductions, as the scientific consensus indicates, of 25-40% from 1990 levels by 2020 and 80% by 2050, in order to avoid an average global temperature increase of more than 2 degrees Celsius, after which runaway crises can be expected;
* The inadequacy of provincial targets and reduction plans -- despite responsible policies in some provinces -- given that the harmful impacts of global heating are occurring faster than anticipated, making deeper, faster reductions necessary;
* Promotion by Canadian tax subsidies of tar sands extraction, the major cause for rising emissions and of massive pollution and water depletion, water itself being a critical environmental issue;
* Failure to recognize that fossil fuels are a non-renewable resource fast being depleted;
* The lack of requirement in our Constitution and other statutes for responsible use and conservation of these valuable one-time riches for future generations;
* Failure to include military operations, a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, in reduction planning;
* The substantial carbon and other greenhouse gas emissions from Canadian agricultural practices and other industries;
* Failure to take adequate advantage of well developed knowledge and technology for alternative fuels and for more efficient planning of cities and transportation systems, industrial European countries being more advanced in curbing emissions and committing to serious further reductions;
* Climate-change induced harm to developing countries and the far north in Canada, and the devastation of First Nations’ lands by the tar sands extraction.
We call on Anglicans to work for solutions to the climate crisis. In our liturgy, we confess that “we have sinned against God by what we have done and by what we have left undone,” yet, with blind eye and hardened heart, we do not “love our neighbours as ourselves.” Climate change is the slavery issue of our day: we in the developed world are the oppressors in a system that victimizes the Earth, our neighbours in the global South, and future generations. We fail to act as partners in the Covenant with God to care for this planet, and to live out the transformative love of our resurrection hope.
It’s time for new vision and commitment to a new kind of life, to renewed care of the land on which we live as tenants, to deeper respect for all the creatures within the Covenant, for the mountains and hills that sing, the trees and rivers that clap their hands.
Time is urgent. At the December 2009 Copenhagen Convention on post-Kyoto reduction targets, we need Canada to be a voice for the serious cuts deemed necessary by the best science.
We call on the Anglican Church to join with environmental organizations and other faith communities in urging the Government of Canada to make the effective, timely commitments needed. We call on church leaders to take these concerns to all levels of government.
We ask Anglicans to support a national call for climate change action by signing the KyotoPlus petition. Sign it on line at http://www.kairoscanada.org/en/get-involved/campaign/kyotoplus-petition, and download it at http://www.kyotoplus.ca/en/index.html.
We call on all levels of the church to set an example by making cuts in greenhouse gas emissions in our own operations. We urge routine incorporation of the care of creation and the responsibility for environmental justice in prayers, readings, and sermons.
Who is my neighbour? The command to “love one another” embraces people far away and future generations. The command to stewardship embraces the whole Earth, our
island home, and all life dependent on it.
Phyllis Creighton, MA, adjunct faculty, Divinity, Trinity College; Honorary Canon
Joy Kogawa, CM, OBC, LLD (hon), DLitt (hon), DD (hon), author
Diane Marshall, MEd, RMFT, Director, Institute of Family Living, Toronto
Lynn McDonald, PhD, LID (hon), university professor emerita, University of Guelph
Fellow Anglicans! Sign this Manifesto electronically at
Or print it out, sign it indicating parish and diocese, and mail it to
PO Box 92513, 152 Carlton Street
Toronto ON, M5A 2K1.
We will report both printed and electronic support of the Manifesto to the Primate and Bishops. Pass the Manifesto on to other Anglicans.
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