REMEMBER OUR HOME * Mother & Father EARTH

Is there a book of the Bible more often discussed and yet less understood than the Book of Revelation? The “seven seals.” The “dragon.” The “beast.” The “sea of glass.” The fantastic imagery found in the Book of Revelation has long captivated Christians but remains mysterious to many. In the midst of so much discussion about the end times, what does Revelation teach us about living in the present moment, with our eyes focused on the heavenly Jerusalem?

Michael Barber’s latest book, Coming Soon, explores these questions by taking a detailed look at Revelation and its rich tapestry of prophecy, history, and biblical allusion. Barber explores the profound link between the Mass celebrated here on earth and the eternal reality of heaven, demonstrating that the Apocalypse reveals truth that has practical implications for today and points to a firm hope in tomorrow.

Coming Soon is a verse-by-verse commentary on the Book of Revelation using the Revised Standard Version: Catholic Edition of the Bible. Barber provides a Catholic interpretation, which sees the liturgical background of this book of Scripture—a perspective missing in many Protestant commentaries.

http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/04/21-2

The Final Battle Starts Today
Nuking Earth Day

By HARVEY WASSERMAN

http://www.counterpunch.com/wasserman04212010.html

"The Climate Bill is due on Earth Day. By all accounts it will be a nuclear bomb.

It will be the ultimate challenge of the global grassroots green movement to transform it into something that can actually save the planet.

For the atomic power industry, the bill will cap a decade-long $640-million-plus virtual cleansing of its radioactive image.

It will have the Obama Administration and Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) embracing very substantial taxpayer subsidies for building new nuclear plants.

Ditto new offshore drilling and "clean coal." The markers have been laid for a greenwashed business-as-usual approach toward pretending to deal with global climate change and the life-threatening pollution in which our corporate power structure is drowning us. All without actually threatening certain corporate profits. ...."

read on

Bernie Sanders should be president
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snip
Let’s set the record straight. There is no serious dispute within the scientific community and in peer-reviewed journals that global warming is real and that it is significantly caused by anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Virtually the only people who disagree with this conclusion are representatives of the oil and coal companies, their apologists in the media and those on Capitol Hill who are stubborn defenders of their big polluter patrons.
As Congress debates global warming, it reminds me of those congressional hearings where tobacco company executives swore under oath that the nicotine they put in cigarettes was not addictive. Some people in Congress believed them. Despite overwhelming scientific evidence, the wealthy and powerful tobacco lobby had many allies in Congress toeing the company line.
Like the evidence that tobacco kills, the science on global warming is overwhelming. NASA just reported that the decade from 2000-2009 was the warmest on record. Carbon dioxide levels are increasing because we are burning fossil fuels and cutting down forests at a rate that is unsustainable. How do we know that carbon dioxide pollution causes global warming? Among the researchers who reached that conclusion are scientists at NASA, EPA, The National Science Foundation, and the departments of Energy, Commerce, Defense, Interior, State, Health, Transportation, and Agriculture. They say, through the U.S. Global Change Research Program, that “global warming is unequivocal and primarily human-induced.” The CIA and many military leaders have warned that climate change threatens our national security and international stability.
If anything, we have underestimated the problem. Our own National Academies of Science released findings last year that “climate change is happening even faster than previously estimated” and “the need for urgent action to address climate change is now indisputable.” U.S. average temperatures have already increased by 2 degrees Fahrenheit in the last 50 years, and a Massachusetts Institute of Technology report found a very high probability that unless we act now temperatures could rise by 9 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of this century. That would be catastrophic.
We already have seen sea levels rise by as much as nine inches in some areas. As ice sheets and glaciers continue to melt, rising sea levels will put coastal cities at risk of increased flooding and island nations in danger of being submerged. Our top U.S. scientists tell us that unchecked global warming also means increased risks of regional flooding and drought, increased risk to human health and more extreme weather events.
Despite the scientific evidence, some of my colleagues in Congress still tell the public that global warming is a “hoax.” They recently grasped onto a series of stolen e-mails from a few climate scientists, which they say undermines the science. Well, according to exhaustive reviews throughout the world, the e-mails do no such thing.
The truth is that there is a real global warming scandal, but it has nothing to do with the e-mails of a few scientists. The real scandal is that the oil companies and the coal industry and others with an economic stake in the status quo are using the tobacco-industry playbook to confuse the public and prevent Congress from taking strong action. Exxon-Mobil, for example, has spent more than $24 million since 1998 to fund organizations that are willing to dispute the consensus on global warming. Oil and gas companies spent $154 million lobbying Congress in 2009 alone trying to block legislation to move our county away from fossil fuels and toward sustainable energy.
As we celebrate this Earth Day, we can make this the year when we stop arguing about the science, and start doing something truly significant about global warming. That would make 2010 a year to celebrate for generations to come.
http://sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/news/?id=c576b848-4d4e-4ed4-a87c-7adc...

Repost
Submitted by Alice on Fri, 04/23/2010 - 1:35am.

Earth Day
Submitted by Jmach1JP on Thu, 04/22/2010 - 12:41pm.
Earth day:
Clearly the human race has wrecked the planet.
Anyone who doubts climate change / global warming
is oblivious to what is in front of, and all around them.
Consider all the major Earth Quakes in the last year.
I can not remember a time when so many Major Quakes
occured in a single Week.
This Icelandic Volcano, "Katrina" ect.
The earth is on it's death bed.
It may be too late to save it,
but we must try our best.
If for nothing else but the good karma,
it's the right thing to do.
Let us all think of how our actions affect mother earth.
As a nation let us end the use of coal and oil
as out main source of energy.
Let us move toward clean energy via
technological innovation to make use
of the endless energy from the sun
and wind.
Let us learn to consume less,
use what we have more effectively,
and reuse the things that others have discarded,
rather than buying something new.
- me
_ _ _ _
WTF
»

Rita
St. Rita was born at Roccaporena near Spoleto, Umbria, Italy. She married at age 12 to Paolo Mancini. Her parents arranged her marriage, despite the fact that she repeatedly begged them to allow her to enter a convent. Mancini was a rich, quick-tempered, immoral man, who made many enemies in the region. St. Rita endured his insults, abuse, and infidelities for 18 years, and bore two sons with Mancini, Giangiacomo Antonio and Paolo Maria. Although she tried to raise them with Catholic values, her sons were unholy for most of their lives.
Toward the end of her husband's life, St. Rita helped convert him to live in a more pious manner. Although Mancini became more congenial, his allies betrayed him, and he was violently stabbed to death. Before his death, he repented to St. Rita and the Church, and she forgave him for his transgressions against her.
After Mancini's murder, her sons wished to exact revenge on their father's murderers. Knowing murder was wrong, she tried to persuade them from retaliating, but to no avail. She, instead, prayed to God for Him to take away the lives of her sons instead of seeing them commit such a terrible sin. In religious history, God heard St. Rita's words and her sons died of natural causes (disease) a year later.

:(

The Country!
By Miles Corwin, Los Angeles Times, January 28, 1989, page I23.

Santa Barbara's oil spill of 1969 is re-examined as the birth of the modern day environmental movement.

SANTA BARBARA - From a large crack on the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel, about 5 miles off the coastline, a few barrels of oil bubble to the surface each day. The slick and the nearby Unocal Corp. drilling platform Alpha are the last visible vestiges of the worst oil spill in the nation’s history.

Twenty years ago today, on January 28, 1969, a “blowout” erupted below the platform and, before it was plugged, more than 3 million gallons of crude oil spewed from drilling-induced cracks in the channel floor. For weeks national attention was focused on the spill’s disturbing, dramatic images. Oil-soaked birds, unable to fly, slowly dying on the sand. Waves so thick with crude oil that they broke on shore with an eerie silence. Thirty miles of sandy beaches coated with thick sludge. Hundreds of miles of ocean covered with an oily black sheen. But the spills impact went far beyond the fouled beaches. The disaster is considered to be a major factor in the birth of the modern-day environmental movement.

It was the Spark, “The blowout was the spark that brought the environmental issue to the nation’s attention,” said Arent Schuyler, lecturer emeritus in environmental studies at UC Santa Barbara. “People could see very vividly that their communities could bear the brunt of industrial accidents. They began forming environmental groups to protect their communities and started fighting for legislation to protect the environment.”

During the next few years there was more environmental legislation than at any time in the nation’s history. In 1969, Congress passed the National Environmental Policy Act which requires environmental impact studies before any federal action can be taken. California adopted similar legislation in 1970. A wave of national environmental legislation followed, including clean air and water acts, and laws that protected sensitive coastal areas and endangered species. The spill caused many people to doubt the safety claims of the oil industry and the government, said Michael Paparian, state director of the Sierra Club. Environmental activism gained widespread support he said and in the two years after the oil spill, Sierra club membership doubled.
http://www2.bren.ucsb.edu/~dhardy/1969_Santa_Barbara_Oil_Spill/Home.html