"Military conflicts environmental degradation human health"

"Military conflicts always bring human suffering. They also bring longer-term security threats, such as environmental degradation and new risks to human health."
~Pekka Haavisto, Former Chairman, Post-Conflict Assessment Unit, United Nations Environment Program, 2005 Scarred Lands and Wounded Lives is a film about our deep dependence on the natural world and the significant threat to that world posed by war and preparation for war. read more here

SCARRED LANDS AND WOUNDED LIVES-

THE ENVIRONMENTAL FOOTPRINTS OF WAR

(71 minutes) Iraq/USA/Vietnam
Directors/Producers: Alice and Lincoln Day

Description:
The scale of environmental damage over the last half century is unprecedented. Falling water tables, shrinking forest cover, declining species diversity-all presage ecosystems in distress. These trends are now widely acknowledged as emanating from forces of humanity's own making: massive population increases, unsustainable demands on natural resources, species loss, ruinous environmental practices. Ironically, however, war, the most destructive of human behaviors, is commonly bypassed. In all its stages, from the production of weapons through combat to cleanup and restoration, war entails actions that pollute land, air, and water, destroy biodiversity, and drain natural resources. Yet the environmental damage occasioned by war and preparation for war is routinely underestimated, underreported, even ignored. The environment remains war's "silent casualty." Activities that do such damage cry out for far-reaching public scrutiny. The very sustainability of our planet is at stake. We can no longer maintain silence about the environmental impact of war on the grounds that such scrutiny is "inconvenient" or "callous" at a time when human life is so endangered. If we cannot eliminate war, we can at least require a fuller accounting of war's costs and consequences, and demand that destructive forces used in our name leave a lighter footprint on this highly vulnerable planet.
Biography:
The Days met at Columbia University as graduate students in sociology. Their earliest joint project was a book (Too Many Americans, 1964) about how continued population increase can adversely affect the quality of life not only in less developed countries but also in more developed countries. The Days have traveled extensively in the U.S., Australia, Europe and Turkey, and less extensively in Asia, Africa and Latin America. They lived in Australia for twenty-three years and have dual American/Australian citizenship.

Contact Information:
Alice and Lincoln Day
Fund for Sustainable Tomorrows

2124 Newport Place, N.W.
Washington, DC 20037
E-mail: scarredlands@verizon.net
We site: http://www.fundforsustainabletomorrows.org/ ____________________________________________________

©2008 United Nations Association Film Festival (UNAFF)
http://www.unaff.org/2008/f_scarred.html

http://www.linktv.org/video/3106

McCain's Good Oil, Bad Oil

Six years ago Congress granted the president Bush the power to unilaterally attack Iraq. Oil was the main motivator then and is now a topic of discussion in the presidential debates. How much of U.S. oil really comes from the Middle East? And is Arab oil, bad oil? Answers to these questions and more on Link TV's Mosaic Intelligence Report.

I am disappointed by ABC's refusal to air the Alliance for Climate Protection's Repower America ad. The ad has the simple message that massive spending on ads by oil and coal companies -- ads which your network airs -- is a key reason our nation hasn't switched to clean, renewable sources for energy. http://www.wecansolveit.org/

http://blog.wecansolveit.org/

Climate Training for Faith Leaders

October 17th, 2008 | Posted by Kevin Sweeney

For many of us, a report about the potential impacts of unchecked climate change can read a bit like the Old Testament.  Floods and fires.  Infestations.  Communities forced to flee.  Consideration of catastrophes “on a biblical scale” no longer require imagination — or even faith.  We can see the contemporary version of these catastrophes on the evening news.

But the biblical references matter greatly.  And faith plays an essential role in the work to solve the climate crisis.  This is why The Climate Project hosted a unique training session on climate change for more than 130 faith leaders last week in Nashville.  Al Gore spent three 14-hour days with a dedicated group of spiritual leaders, sharing tools and information they can take to their congregations and communities across the U.S.

Eric Sapp, director of the Eleison Group, a Virginia-based consulting firm focused on faith initiatives, attended the sessions in Nashville.  He said “the climate crisis is a top moral priority for the faith community.”

“The poor and the most vulnerable bear the brunt of the worst effects of climate change and we have a responsibility to care for the least among us, according to the Bible,” Sapp explained, saying the faith community is embracing the climate change issue in ways that break down traditional notions of conservative politics among Evangelicals. “The faith community’s outreach programs are absolutely progressive when it comes to preserving God’s gift of the Earth.”

Sapp was wowed by Gore’s passion, stamina and humor in the training and left impressed by the range of potential solutions to the climate crisis.  He left with a better sense of how to heed what he described as “Genesis’ call for us to be good stewards of God’s creation.”