The producers of RENEWAL, the groundbreaking documentary film that is inspiring diverse faith communities across the country to take action for the environment, have launched a new venture.

Producer Marty Ostrow says, “The RENEWAL Web Festival is the perfect way to share your engagement in the religious-environmental movement. We’re inviting people to submit their own stories: videos, writings, photos, drawings, and poems.”

Ostrow explains, “We especially hope to hear about  how commitment to the environment has affected your experience of faith.”

Entries will be posted on the RENEWAL Project website, in coming weeks.

Read the producers’ Invitation and visit the RENEWAL website to learn how you can submit your own stories about renewal of the earth and renewal of faith.

Footage from PETA’s documentary Meet your Meat.

There are a lot of complications to the climate due to Inhumane Animal killing. When farm animals are in conditions such as overcrowding and uninhabitable surroundings, they become weaker and are unable to move around like they would in an open farm just as it is shown in the video I posted.  But what you may not know is that when an animal is killed in those sorts of conditions we are the ones who suffer, and it begins to build on our carbon footprint. After visiting the enviro-friendly website I learned that it takes 55 rain forest acres to produce one meal of meat protein. I also learned that when someone consumes meat that they contribute to the global warming process, meat consumption is  responsible for many abundant greenhouse gases. So the next time you go to the grocery store, I suggest that instead of steak night you can go for a more eco friendly and healthier meal of locally grown vegetables from your nearest market and reduce your carbon footprint.

Wilshire Blvd. and Western St. Bus Riders Union's press conference for Clean Air and Economic Justice Plan.

The BRU had a press conference on June 29, 2009 for the  release of the Clean Air and Economical Justice Plan (CAEJP) policy paper.  The policy paper explains what the CAEJP is and goes into detail about the amount of money nedeed to adopt the CAEJP and how it would cut travel time, increase ridership, reduce global warming, create new green jobs, etc.

Pointe Dume Marine Sciene Elementary School in Malibu recently became “the first public elementary school in Southern California to join the Grid,” according to this Examiner.com article. Their $100,000 purchase will lower school utility bills, earn them potential incentive payments and rebates, and allow them the satisfaction that their actions are reducing fossil fuel dependency. Point Dume reaps the benefits of the sun in many ways, but at some schools in LA, the only thing the golden rays help is weed growth.

La Tijera Elementary School in Inglewood  is a “future Measure K project under construction” according to the sign attached to the temporary fencing surrounding the school. Measure K was a bond measure for school improvements, but it seems to have failed at La Tijera. The school has been closed down for years with no sign of renovation. Chain linked fences hold up a ‘student entrance’ sign; weeds veil the writing on reserved parking spots; fireworks adorn the empty lot steps away from a ‘no fireworks’ sign; beer bottles, smashed and strewn across the property, accompany graffiti tags and old cement finger-inscriptions that read “6th grade is the bomb!” The unfortunate irony did not escape me. I received many inquisitive stares from drivers who must have wondered why I stood alone on a apparently abandoned property.

On my way home from the school, I saw this sign which recognizes that an essential part of community pride is a clean, beautiful environment in which to live :

The well-kept neighborhood in which the school resides has tree lined streets  and perfectly manicured front yards. It borders Ladera Heights and Inglewood, and is a predominantly middle-class, Black area. Walking distance from many amenities, including grocery stores, clothing stores and restaurants, it now lacks an easily accessible community school, which is severely disadvantageous because of the essential role that schooling plays in the future socioeconomic success of children.

The discrepancy between the two schools mentioned in this article is appalling. Residential segregation clearly contributes to the issue: one school, in a rich white neighborhood, has no problem raising $100,000, mostly from its PTA, to improve its facilities and simultaneously expose its students to valuable environmental knowledge; the other, in a middle-class Black neighborhood, is shut down with no clear future, and the parents have no choice. Considering the historic position of each group, little room for interpretation exists.

Because schools and neighborhoods are vital centers of social reproduction, they can contribute to how students feel about changing their environment. Aside from the sad fact that La Tijera School has become a hangout place for intoxicated fireworks sessions and other petty crime, it is unjust that its neighborhood children are denied access to a school of their own that teaches them to care about their surroundings and that also has the resources to walk the walk. Children in wealthier communities do not need to depend entirely on district funds and Measure K’s  to improve environmental education. That the quality and frequency of exposure to environmental action and education can be severely limited because of one’s neighborhood or income level puts a lot of LA residents, particularly poorer Blacks and Hispanics who are ghettoized, at a disadvantage in a world that is finally beginning to realize and change the ecological (and social!) damage it has caused.

[Show as slideshow]

In this past year the Supreme Court has become less supportive of environmental cases.  Richard Lazarus said that this past term of the Supreme Court was “the worst term ever” for environmental interests.  There were five cases in which the result in all of them was a loss for the environmental groups.  The court allowed the Navy to perform exercises in California that threatened the lives of whales there.  It also limited the liability of companies partly responsible for toxic spills.  Another result of a case made it harder to challenge Forest Service regulations.  It also made it easier to dump mining waste in an Alaskan lake.  The final result of a court case was that it allowed the Environmental protection agency to use cost-benfit analysis to decide how much marine life may be killed by cooling structures at power plants.  The turning point in this trend towards less receptiveness of environmental cases seems to be when Samuel Alito Jr. replaced Sandra Day O’Connor, who often voted for environmental interests.  Unfortunately, this easily seen because Alito Jr. was in the majority vote against all of the environmental interests.

The Obama administration will face challenges if the climate change bill they have been pushing is passed by the Senate. The policy will face a barrage of legal challenges from industrial groups, which may make their way up to the high courts.  Should Judge Sotomayor be confirmed for her position to the Supreme Court, she could play a large role in deciding these cases, because as mentioned earlier the judge she will be replacing often voted for the environmental interests.  Should she tend to vote against those interests the court will be even more lopsided on these sorts of cases, as the environmentalists have lost the previous five court cases that have made it to the Supreme Court.