Short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change

This from the NY Times:

"The issue can be overwhelming. The science is complicated. Predictions about the fate of the planet carry endless caveats and asterisks. 

We get it. 

And so, as the Paris climate talks get underway, we’ve provided quick answers to often-asked questions about climate change.

You can find the twelve questions and answers by clicking here.

-submitted by Gareth

The #1 factor that has allowed me to live car-free easily and pleasurably for 10 years

I think maybe Nancy R. will be able to identify with Zachary Shahan, who authored this article for Treehugger.com.  And, I think the rest of us will find it interesting as well.  To read the whole article, please click here.

Image Source:  Treehugger.com

Treehugger.com
March 21, 2014

It's hard to believe that I've lived car-free for nearly 10 years straight now. However, it's also hard to believe I ever thought owning a car was a good idea. I'm reminded of this any time I visit someplace where I need to rent a car. It's fun having one for a short time, but before long I realize how much worse the quality of life is when you have to drive everywhere.

However, I will be the first to admit that there is one key factor has allowed me to enjoy a car-free life for 10 years in 5 or 6 different cities. I won't give it away right yet ... but will first quickly run down how I got around in each of the 5 to 6 places I've lived in the past 10 years, in chronological order.

Zachary Shahan goes on to describe 6 different cities in which he's lived, and concludes with "the #1 factor".  There's no need to give a spoiler alert here, since you'll have to click the link to discover the main factor in his ability to live car-free.  And, if I remember right, Nancy R has spoken in much the same way about how it's possible for her to function car-free.

-Submitted by Gareth

West Broadway Community Ministries in Free Press

Today's Winnipeg Free Press has two articles featuring West Broadway Community Ministries.  

 

'No room at the inn in Manitoba' for needy

Christmas Eve trek stresses need for affordable housing

Winnipeg Free Press, December 26, 2013, pages A8, A9

Photo by John Woods, Winnipeg Free Press

"There's no place to go for the Holy Child. Is there no room in Winnipeg?"

So asked 21 members of three West Broadway-area churches who united to pound the pavement on Christmas Eve, knocking on doors on Langside Street in pursuit of affordable housing for Jesus.
In a stunt found more commonly in Mexico, the group performed a version of La Posada, which translates to "the inn." It tells the story of Mary's and Joseph's search for an inn where baby Jesus would be born -- but with a twist.

Community minister Lynda Trono of West Broadway's Community Ministry organized the roaming play and wrote its script, which talked about the lack of affordable housing for those in need in Winnipeg.

"It's a symbolic door-knocking that has to do with there being no room at the inn and right now there's no room at the inn in Manitoba," Trono said.

Trono wants to raise awareness about the meagre amount of money given to Manitobans living on social assistance and trying to afford rent.

Read the whole article by clicking here.

IMAGE COMPARISON:  Today's Free Press print copy followed the above story with a report on the crowds that typically line up for Boxing Day specials.  The accompanying photo is an interesting contrast to the image of the West Broadway action above:

Photo source: David Lipnowski, Free Press Archives

Community feels the love

Yule lunch brings fellowship to multi-faith people in need

Winnipeg Free Press, Dec. 26, 2013, page B2

People of all faiths packed into the West Broadway Community Ministry Wednesday afternoon to enjoy a Christmas lunch and each other's company.

Roughly 100 people attended the ministry's annual Christmas lunch put on by volunteers from the Shaarey Zedek Synagogue and the ministry.

Volunteer Larry Flynn helps serve during the Christmas lunch at the West Broadway Community Ministry.                   

(Photo source: Winnipeg Free Press)

The lunch of a chicken pot pie, potato salad and coleslaw began with the lighting of a multi-faith candle.

Volunteers and participants alike said the lunch is all about bringing the community together.
"I think it's so important during this season to be able to feel the love of a community," said Riva McWilliam, a longtime volunteer at the Christmas lunch.

McWilliam and her husband have been helping out with the annual meal for eight years, and it's become a Christmas tradition for them.

They do not celebrate Christmas, so they think it's a perfect opportunity to give back to people in need.

You can read the whole article by clicking here.

- Submitted by Gareth

We really are at peak car

From Treehugger, Dec. 10, 2013
By Lloyd Alter

Excerpts from the article:

The US Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) provides even more proof that Americans have fallen out of love with their cars. They summarize it in their new study, Transportation in Transition:

From 2006 to 2011, the average number of miles driven per resident fell in almost three-quarters of America’s largest urbanized areas for which up-to-date and accurate data are available. Most urbanized areas have also seen increases in public transit use and bicycle commuting and decreases in the share of households owning a car. 
.....

Photo Source: Phil Hossack, Winnipeg Free Press

Kaid Benfied at NRDC Switchboard concludes that we have to reallocate resources to reflect the trends.

Especially because the new report is consistent with a multitude of information showing changes in living patterns and lifestyle preferences, we should shift more public resources into transit, to keep up with and strengthen the trends toward more sustainable modes of transportation.... We need to evolve our communities so that they become more suited to alternative modes, including walking and bicycling as well as transit, so that more [people] have more choices. And, where options do exist, we need to support and maintain them better in order to reduce carbon emissions, other forms of pollution, and automobile-dependent land uses.

.....
The PIRG study concludes with much the same thing, suggesting that our governments should:

• Revisit transportation plans
• Reallocate resources
• Remove barriers to non-driving transportation options.

You can read the entire article, including interesting data supporting the report, by clicking here.

- submitted by Gareth

The myth of the perfect gift

From Treehugger, Dec 9, 2013
by David Friedlander

Are you looking for the perfect gift this holiday season? Look no further. It doesn’t exist. As we reported the other day, Americans spend between 3-4% of their annual income on Christmas season gifts. The objective of this considerable allocation of funds, we might assume, is to give things to the people we love and like that will enrich their lives–things they will appreciate, use and enjoy.
The reality is something quite different. A Psychology Today article reports sobering information about the psychology of gift giving and receiving. Authors Ben C Fletcher and D Phil Oxon cite Professor Karen Pine’s research about festive gifts, which found that:

• 89% of women and 79% of men pretended to like a gift they hated.
• Half of all people had received at least one gift they hated the previous Christmas.
• Half of all people have lied to a loved one about a gift, pretending to like it.
• Gift receivers reported avoiding eye contact with the giver for fear of revealing how they really felt.
• Gift receivers reported producing fake smiles using only the mouth (not the eye) muscles when pretending to like a gift.

This was reposted in Treehugger from Life Edited.  You can read the entire article by clicking here. 

- submitted by Gareth

 

How to take control of consumerism during the holiday shopping season

From Treehugger, Dec. 6, 2013
Tom Szaky, Guest Writer

Let's start with a simple fact: Humans are proven to prefer consumerism.

Any economist will agree that consumerism is essential for the culture of capitalism to survive. Not only must consumers buy, they must buy more every year, and still more the year after that. Without perpetual and growing consumption, many economies would either decline or collapse. The sign of a healthy national economy, after all, is measured by the Gross National Product (GNP), and the GNP is a measure of the quantity of goods and services people consume.

So are we all in the service of consumerism? I would argue yes.

If you look at it most jobs in the world are in the service and facilitation of consumerism. Everything from the common factory worker in China to the sales associate at your Macy’s to most lawyers, accountants, real estate agents etc. Without consumption we probably couldn’t support the 7 billion people that live on our planet.

But we don’t have to be indentured servants to consumerism. We are servicing consumerism voluntarily. No one is making us buy anything. We are choosing to do so – be it for ease or comfort or simple malaise.

You can read the entire article by clicking here.

- submitted by Gareth

The park bench: Your front-row view of life’s passing parade

Note: After reading the Toronto Star article on the sculpture of the homeless Jesus on a bench (see previous post), and  the controversy it generated, I found this Globe and Mail column to be a fitting companion piece.  Can we find Jesus incarnated there, not only in the homeless person sleeping on a bench, but in all those with whom we share space on these universally accessible places of rest and reflection?  - submitted by Gareth

Immortalized in everything from film to sculpture, the humble public perch (even under a blanket of snow) is a powerful civic tool - part item of furniture, part gentle reminder that, in the democratic realm, everyone gets a seat.

by Sarah Hampson, Globe and Mail, Saturday, December 7, 2013

Isaac Davis (Woody Allen) with Mary Wilke (Diane Keaton) in "Manhattan", a United Artists release. The two are silhouetted in the shadow of the Queensboro Bridge in New York as they chat on a Sutton Place bench.
(United Artists)

It is where conversations can happen (or not), an invitation to stillness in a fast world, a place for romance and a promise of inclusion.

Had you not thought very much about the bench as public furniture? I hadn’t either until recently, when, on a visit to the park, I suddenly realized that I was in the living room of a grand palace, with grass as carpet, banks of trees as walls and the sky as ceiling. And there were all these people, a diverse crowd, sitting in the huge reception room on benches. There we all were, thrown together, part of a revolving mix of solitary participants at a gathering we didn’t know we had been invited to.

And then I thought – because thinking, after all, is what you do a fair amount of on a public bench – about how this piece of furniture functions as a powerful metaphor and civic tool. In this, the season of holiday conviviality, the bench – even if under a thick blanket of snow – is perhaps a gentle reminder that the world can and should be a generous and democratic place, where everyone has a place to sit and witness life’s passing parade.

You can read the entire column by CLICKING HERE.

Sculpture of Jesus the Homeless rejected by two prominent churches

Ontario sculptor struggled to find a home for his haunting sculpture of Jesus sleeping on a bench.

Sculptor Timothy Schmalz has created a bronze sculpture called Jesus the Homeless outside Regis College, the Jesuit college at U of T.  (Image Source:  Toronto Star)

Jesus has been depicted in art as triumphant, gentle or suffering. Now, in a controversial new sculpture in downtown Toronto, he is shown as homeless — an outcast sleeping on a bench.

It takes a moment to see that the slight figure shrouded by a blanket, hauntingly similar to the real homeless who lie on grates and in doorways, is Jesus. It’s the gaping wounds in the feet that reveal the subject, whose face is draped and barely visible, as Jesus the Homeless.

Despite message of the sculpture — Jesus identifying with the poorest among us — it was rejected by two prominent Catholic churches, St. Michael’s Cathedral in Toronto and St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York.

“Homeless Jesus had no home,” says the artist, Timothy Schmalz, who specializes in religious sculpture. “How ironic.”

Rectors of both cathedrals were enthusiastic about the bronze piece and showed Schmalz possible locations, but higher-ups in the New York and Toronto archdiocese turned it down, he says.

“It was very upsetting because the rectors liked it, but when it got to the administration, people thought it might be too controversial or vague,” he says. He was told “it was not an appropriate image.”

The Toronto archdiocese tried to help him find an alternative location, including St. Augustine’s Seminary in Scarborough. But Schmalz, who describes his work as a visual prayer, wanted to reach a wider, secular audience. “I wanted not only the converted to see it, but also the marginalized. I almost gave up trying to find a place.”

Now the sculpture stands near Wellesley St. W., outside Regis College at the University of Toronto. It’s a Jesuit school of theology, where priests and lay people are trained, with an emphasis on social justice.

To some who have seen it, it speaks the message of the Gospels. When theologian Thomas Reynolds came upon it he felt “the shock of recognition.” He quoted the biblical passage: “ … the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”  “I’m so used to seeing images of Jesus that are palatable,” says Reynolds.

But recent depictions of Jesus in political and social contexts have spurred controversy.  At Emmanuel College, the educational arm of the United Church where Reynolds teaches, there is a graceful sculpture showing Jesus’ suffering in a crucified woman. Schmaltz says he intended that his Jesus the Homeless can be interpreted as either male or female.

Though the slender figure occupies most of the two-metre bench, Schmalz purposely left space at the end for someone to sit close to the slumbering figure, “as uncomfortably as possible.”

Please read the entire article by CLICKING HERE.

-submitted by Gareth

This is your annual reminder to forget Black Friday

An interesting article from Treehugger connecting with our wish to live simply, supporting Amanda's wish at our last meeting, to find a less consumer oriented approach to Christmas.

IMAGE SOURCE:  Buy Nothing Day

You can read the article by CLICKING HERE.

NOTE:  As I followed the link to Buy Nothing Day (the source of the image), I found THEIR WEBSITE.  Have a look if you get a chance.  Buy Nothing Day is connected to Adbusters, a magazine Aiden Enns (you may remember him from Faith in the City) used to work for.  He now publishes/edits GEEZ magazine.

Update on the Situation in Bangladesh after Rana Plaza disaster

Victims of the Rana Plaza disaster still waiting for compensation

Almost five months after the collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh, only nine of the twenty-nine brands invited to discuss compensation for the victims showed up for a meeting convened by IndustriALL Global Union and chaired by the International Labor Organization (ILO).
» Read more

Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity regains legal status

Thanks to international solidarity from trade union and labour rights organizations around the world, as well as pressure from the U.S Department of Labor, the NGO Affairs Bureau of Bangladesh (NAB) has restored the legal status of the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity (BCWS).
» Read more

- submitted by Bev

New Yorker Cartoon

 

This was the cartoon from my New Yorker calendar yesterday. Appropriate for our group.  Nancy

- submitted by Nancy

David Suzuki Foundation 30x30 Nature Challenge

Start a nature habit: Join the 30x30 Challenge  

Photo: Joel Robison

We know the more we connect to nature the smarter, healthier and happier we are.

Join thousands of other Canadians outside this May. Spend 30 minutes a day for 30 days in a row and feel great doing it.

Sign up for the David Suzuki Foundation’s 30x30 Nature Challenge. 

Add a daily dose of green to your routine and head to your nearest park, trail or garden. Take time to observe the wonders of nature nearby. Join the challenge and we’ll send you fun tips and ideas to help you reach your goal.

Together, let’s get healthy and happy. Let’s get outside.

- submitted by Karla

Homesteader Festival, June 1

Mike and Gareth had a brief conversation after yesterday's meeting about this event on June 1.  Fraserwood, Manitoba is along Hwy 7, under an hour (by car) north of Winnipeg, just west of Gimli.

This looks like a lot of fun.  With its focus on DIY (do it yourself), we think it would be a day to connect with notions of 'simple living', combined with good food and music.

The long-term weather forecast for June 1 is excellent - seriously!

One does have to buy tickets (early bird tickets are $30, until March 31 - after that $40).  That's just a few days from now!  Maybe we could borrow a schoolbus, and travel together.  What a hoot.

Find out about workshops, lunch (included in ticket price), and other information here.

- Submitted by Gareth

"Simpler Living" - Valerie Hiebert Lecture

“SIMPLER LIVING” AND LEARNING ABOUT CONSUMER CULTURE

“Simpler Living” is the way Valerie Hiebert of Providence College describes her ongoing journey to live more justly in today’s consumer culture. Six Augustine members attended her lecture on March 9 at McNally Robinson.

One of the slides she used in her presentation gave us several strategies to try:

Her presentation was inspiring because of her own attempts at simpler living, and the explanation she provided of historical forces that have shaped our culture and made it difficult to live out these simpler values.

In her case, her family now lives in the country, raising sheep and chickens, bartering with neighbours and, each day, trying to move towards simpler living. But she stressed that simpler living is a journey, not a destination. We can all wade in at the shallow end, shopping more justly, simplifying, looking more at what we need instead of what we want. Her journey started with simply changing her shopping patterns by shopping at thrift stores. We can all start wherever we have the most passion – by shopping more justly (she provided a list of merchants in the sweatshop “hall of shame.”); by eating locally; by simplifying our lives.

“Don’t be overwhelmed,” she said. “Start simply with what you have a passion for and live that with joy. Don’t judge others who are walking the same road but in different ways.”

One of the main strengths of her presentation was learning the history of how our society has come to be a consumer society and how difficult that makes it to live more simply.  Valerie described the forces that changed our culture from one in which people lived in self-sufficient communities to our present global consumer society.   She described how, in the 17^th century, Elizabeth I popularized the concept of “fashion” which created a desire for newness. (Elizabeth I died because of a lead-based make-up she popularized.)  Then, the industrial revolution replaced craftsmen’s shops and local markets with mass-produced goods. The opening of the new world brought colonization and more goods. The concept of “shopping” began, a concept which really took off with the development of the department store in the 1800’s.

She drew a direct line from these early forces to George Bush’s response on 9/11 when he told Americans the strongest response to international terrorism was for Americans to get out and shop.

Valerie’s presentation is available at:

http://www.providenceuc.ca/college/news_and_events/news_releases/index.cfm?newsid=564

Submitted by Mike M.

OVERDRESSED - A book recommendation

OVERDRESSED:  The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion

This morning, while grabbing a coffee at Stella's bakery, I sat next to a young woman reading a book. Noticing the title, OVERDRESSED:  The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion, I asked whether she would mind telling me what it's about.  She told me that it's about what the conditions are like where most clothing, shoes, and even textiles are produced, in order for us to buy them cheaply.  While there isn't much "new" in the book, she said, she would recommend it as a book to raise awareness about the issue.

We had a thought-provoking conversation about the complexity of making good purchasing decisions, whether clothing, food or 'whatever'.  So, this may be a good read for those in Just Living who want to focus on purchasing ethically.  As the quote from 'The Nation' says: "OVERDRESSED  does for T-Shirts and leggings what FAST FOOD NATION did for hamburgers and fries."

There is also a website:  OVERDRESSED: The book

Submitted by Gareth N.

Slow Church

Submitted by Gareth N.

I read an article this morning, which connects with our group’s wish to live simply, to live thoughtfully.  I’ve excerpted part of that article here in this post, so that you get a sense of what it’s about.  The article describes how the "Slow Food" movement, which emerged in the 1980's in Italy, has spawned other movements (Slow Cities, Slow Parenting), and now also "Slow Church".

Slow movements are beginning to recover what we have lost in our relentless pursuit of efficiency. Many Christians have been challenged by these Slow movements to consider the ways in which our faith has begun to move too fast as we make sacrifices to the gods of efficiency.

This quest has sparked a renewed interest in the joys of sharing life together in local congregations and has intensified into a growing conversation—rather than a movement—called Slow Church. Slowness itself is not a cardinal virtue of Slow Church, but rather a means of resisting the present-day powers of speed in order to be faithful church communities.

 To read the whole article, follow this link.

http://sojo.net/magazine/2012/12/slow-down-and-know-i-am-god

Living to Consume or Consuming to Live

This event has been promoted by Karla W. and Corie E., as well as Nancy R..  Perhaps a group from Just Living will want to attend together.

Simple Living - a website

Here's an interesting website, not very extensive, but points to some of the issues we've been discussing, and connects with our wish to live faithfully and simply.

http://www.simpleliving.org/Home_Page.html