I wracked my brain (an easy thing to do) searching for a 'significant' post for the last day of the year.
Exempt wells? Been there, done that.
Las Vegas? Would I kick them while they're down?
The California Bay-Delta? No can do, now that I'm on "The Committee".
Implications of Year 2012 for water resources?
I then found a document I have had in a folder for several years, a document that is almost 9 years old. I've been meaning to post it for quite some time, but something else always came up.
It's an international pastoral letter by the Catholic bishops of the Columbia River basin which exhorts Catholics and all others in the basin to act as watershed stewards and respect all living things in the basin.
Download Catholic Bishops-Caring for Columbia Watershed
The bishops make it clear where they stand: they don't care for "economic greed" that despoils the environment nor do they support "environmental elitism" that tramples upon the legitimate rights of others. Both should be eliminated.
They also provide four reflections on the river (p. 4), three visions - spiritual, social and ecological (p. 13) - seven convictions (p. 16), and then ten considerations (p. 17).
I'd encourage you to read the document. It's refreshing, uplifting, and thought-provoking. You can also take a look at this WWW site for more information.
Here is a list of spiritual organizations that support environmental stewardship. Most, but not all, are Christian organizations.
The following is from the homepage of Christian Ecology:
In 1967, historian Lynn White published a now famous piece entitled "The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis."
White, himself a Christian, concluded that many of our environmental problems could be traced to the Christian notion that God gave this earth to humans for their use and specifically directed humans to exercise dominion over the earth and all of its life forms. While it is questionable that this is what White intended, the effect of the piece has been to serve as an indictment of Christianity as the source of our environmental problems, and to render laughable the idea that Christianity might have anything to contribute to our environmental crisis. As essayist Wendell Berry has observed, "the culpability of Christianity in the destruction of the natural world and uselessness of Christianity in any effort to correct that destruction are now established cliches of the conservation movement."
Largely as a reaction and response to White’s piece, Christian thinkers have over the last three decades formulated a response to White’s indictment. The response has taken three distinct paths. One path, which can be called the Stewardship Model, concludes that God did indeed give humans dominion, but only on the condition that we act as wise stewards, exercising our dominion with prudence and care. This is the model that is preferred within evangelical and fundamentalist circles, to the extent that this wing of Christianity chooses to address the environmental issue.
Within mainstream and liberal Christianity are two more models, eco-feminism and creation spirituality. Eco-feminism observes that domination over women and over the earth spring from the same masculine, patriarchal institutions, and that salvation for the earth, women, and ultimately men, will flow from modifying those institutions. Creation spirituality attempts to help us recover the nature mysticism of some medieval Christians such as Meister Eckhart, Julian of Norwich, Mechtild of Madeburg, Hildegard of Bingen, and Francis of Assisi. Good stuff. And, for your information, here is the Evangelical Environmental Network. The November 2009 issue of AWRA's Water Resources IMPACT focuses on Spirituality and Water Management. It's got some excellent articles. View the ToC. It's great to see religious organizations that are proactive with respect to water and environmental stewardship. I realize I've opened Pandora's box. This is a rich subject that I've barely penetrated. There's plenty more to discuss. But that's what why we have 201o! Happy New Year! ¡Prospero Año Nuevo!
What a wonderful post. Happy New Year, Aquadoc.
Posted by: Emily Green | Thursday, 31 December 2009 at 09:17 AM