Articles

Lifelines weekend team of participants along with the Drala Long resident Buddhists    What is a lifeline?  Clearly it’s something that provides an opportunity for life. The Lifelines Project of the St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace is true to its name.  This project connects community and faith groups with farmers, helping to plant…

Image by Pexels The makeup of England’s woodlands is the result of human activity over centuries. During this time woodlands have been managed under the assumption that the environment they are growing in will be relatively stable, however, this key assumption is no longer valid. The projected rate of climate change we are currently facing…

I live in a remote forest area at the foothills of the Billawin Mountains (Victoria Range) in Gariwerd (Grampians), Western Victoria, Australia. It’s about four hours from Melbourne and six from Adelaide. Despite being far from the bustling cities, I feel more connected to life here than ever before.   Four years ago, I experienced…

In June 2015, at the opening of the EU Green Week, one of the speakers, Almir Surui, stood out from the rest of the panel due to his unique feather headdress.  Almir was the chief of the Surui, a tribe of the Amazonian Rainforest in Brazil.  Since 1992 his people had been trying to find…

Grasslands cover approximately twenty five percent of the Earth’s land surface and contain roughly twelve percent of the terrestrial carbon stocks. These ecosystems are mainly found in regions where there is a scarcity of water and not enough regular rainfall to support the growth of forests. There are different types of grasslands – ranging from…

Balancing the urge to acquire possessions against the desire to live simply is part of an eternal, never-ending debate. These days, has materialism become the dominant ‘religion’? Covid-19 has offered us the time and opportunity to de-clutter. The question is: Have we used it well? During the pandemic last year, I found I could not…

In a paper entitled Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future, CJA Bradshaw and his co-writers observed that there was a general consensus on what needs to be done to prevent a 6th extinction but no consensus on how to do it. Bradshaw points out that many ambitious targets have been set over the…

This article by Shivani, published in Times of India, Speaking Tree section, discusses some of the woes of this world and simple changes we can each make to create a much better world.

In this article, BK Brijmohan makes the case for each of us to take our own action to help sustainability of this world we live in.  He gives helpful advice.  It was published in the Times of India 28th December 2016.

Brijmohan of Brahma Kumaris makes a powerful case for planting more trees.

In an extract from his latest book, “Being Your Self”, Mike George makes a clear connection our ‘emotional patterns’ and ‘weather patterns’.

This article by Dr Tamasin Ramsay, published in the Outreach magazine, describes how the well-being of a Small Island Developing State (SIDS) can be directly related to the well-being of the women and girls of that nation.  The article shows how inner resources can be used more effectively.

A wider view

The Brahma Kumaris Environmental Policy aims to encourage all of us throughout the organisation to feel that we are guardians of the Earth’s resources.
We can help each other to grow in terms of our awareness of the natural world as a living system that needs our care; and deepen our concern for cultures living in environmentally susceptible lands.

by Valériane Bernard

Many people in the world still refrain from disposing of cooking oil in the sink with the excuse that the governments are not doing anything concrete! They also rant about the value of saving water to protect the environment, if councils and leaders do not care? This defeatist thinking overlooks the power of the individual and surrenders all power to external agencies. Is this what we want?

Anthony Strano, April 2012

This post will neither be about environmental policies, nor political/social issues regarding ecology. This not a watchdog post to monitor but it is just a post to say a great thank you, to express gratefulness to the green heroes of our planet, who silently and gallantly do their duty in the world’s forests but more so in millions of cities, towns and their parks. The heroes who are the lungs of Humanity, whose existence facilitates our own.

Anthony Strano, April 2012

It is early April, early morning and the curling mist fills the valley below Assisi. The only things I hear are the birds and the bells which chirrup and chime in turn. Otherwise a silence embraces the dawn lit city. A silence that has existed, I am sure, in Assisi during the time of Francis and Clare.

With inflation knocking on the door, and unemployment statistics rising, people are finding it increasingly difficult to ‘keep up with the Jones’s’! And yet the urge to buy impulsively and compete with the latest consumer trends, despite not having the bank balance to match it, is ever increasing.

Nature is perceived romantically as a sort of utopia that contrasts with the distopia of the urban spreads and their frenzied materialism. The image of the ‘noble savage’ depicted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, living harmoniously with nature, free of the ‘evils’ of selfishness, inspires environmental fundamentalists until today.

There is a sense of helplessness and soul-searching after one of the most powerful earthquakes in recorded memory hit the north-east of Japan. At the same time it is amazing to observe the offers of help from around the world flowing in for the victims of this humungous disaster. During these catastrophes does anyone stop to consider caste, creed, religion, gender, status?

Japanese Earthquake Disaster

We know that if we are to make an impact on the Environmental Crises, patterns of consumption have to shift substantially. We need a tidal wave of change towards ecological choices, so that we all feel like citizens of the world when we make decisions about buying products and services. And this would require a major shift in the conscience of the majority.