Climate policy in the new year we have just entered will, hopefully, take center stage in our national life. While we tend to think of changes in the ways we approach our lives, such as reducing our individual carbon footprints, states like New Jersey, Maryland, Michigan, Massachusetts, and Minnesota have committed resources to reducing fossil fuel use, a good start.
But the macro is more than reducing fossil fuel use. It also involves a total approach to our environment including opposing gas pipelines that are environmentally destructive and restoring habitat for wildlife and plants. The Pinelands and the Skylands are both natural treasures that need to be protected from encroaching development.
Happily, the EPA has reinstituted rules on clean waterways to protect wetlands, swamps, and rivers from development and pollution. Again, we should be able to put our hands into a running brook and feel water rather than contaminants, and wildlife should be able to drink from it.
Prayer for the Day
Let all the earth bless God, Creator and Sustainer of life.
Let all that grows from the earth, forest and plain, give praise.
Let the rivers and springs and all who dwell therein, sing to God.
Let the sound of the dolphins and the leviathan resonate with song.
Let the bellow of frogs and toads join in their praise.
Let all peoples of the earth praise God by sustaining the creation.
In the name of the One who gives us life in God,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The swamp isn’t a useless piece of land. The swamp is a kind of wetland. Wetlands are important to human beings.
- Dae-Seung Yang, from The Salamander’s Trial
We have lost our sense of respect for the wild river, for the complex workings of a wetland, for the intricate web of life that water supports.
- Sandra Postel, founder, Global Water Policy Project
As a deer longs for flowing stream, so I long for you, O God.
My being thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and behold the face of God?
Psalm 42: 1-2