In the wake of the most significant scientific report to date on the potentially dire consequences of global warming, a ray of hope has emerged. Ironically, it emanates from the convergence of forces that have often been at odds. One force, the world of science, has long been on the forefront of the issue of climate change. Another equally powerful force, religion, has often remained on the sidelines — until recently.
The Intergovernmental Panel on climate change (IPCC), a body of more than 2,000 of the world’s top scientists from more than 100 nations, stated in a Feb. 2 report that global warming is “unequivocal,” that it is rapidly changing the nature of our planet and its ecosystems, and that it is “very likely” being caused by human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
In the course of the last decade, a significant movement within the faith community has been mobilizing around the call to care for God’s creation, the web of life that sustains us all. This calling is the essence of religious life, and people of faith are beginning to hear it, even as scientists sound the alarm that we may be nearing a climactic tipping point.

Al Gore’s essay in Newsweek on the Electranet:

From the Dec. 18th Newsweek

My Turn: [The Energy Electranet]

The climate crisis will force a historic shift to a new global power network of small alternative sources. This network will then feed a smart electric grid. Welcome to the future.

By Al Gore
Newsweek

Dec. 18, 2006 issue - Over the past 200 years, the industrial revolution has created vast wealth and huge improvements in the human condition—in a few dozen highly industrialized countries. The engine of that revolution was fueled by coal and then supercharged with oil—multiplying the productivity of human labor many, many times over. Although we have reaped many benefits from this intensive use of energy, we are now faced with an urgent crisis—a crisis that is altering the very nature of the Earth’s climate.

Read the whole essay [here]

Largest science Teachers Organization Rejects Gore Video … Why?

By: John F. Borowski
t r u t h o u t | Guest Columnist

Tuesday 28 November 2006

Would the world’s largest science teacher’s organization ignore climate change education? (Why did the NSTA say no to free “An Inconvenient Truth” DVDs?)

The National science Teachers Association (NSTA) has spurned 50,000 free DVDs of Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” and is squandering a golden opportunity to educate tens of millions of youth in the United States! Why? This 55,000-member organization of teachers and scientists could use Al Gore’s film to orchestrate the single most influential educational goal in human history: the awareness and subsequent solving of climate change. There is no denying the escalating list of climate change evidence: from the potential extinction of polar bears and retreating glacial environments to the increase of global temperatures in unison with increased carbon dioxide levels.