April 6, 2018 at 1:53 p.m.
ENVIRONMENT
Local Catholics fighting climate change
Ricardo Lopez-Torrijos of St. Vincent de Paul parish and the Shrine Church of Our Lady of the Americas in Albany is a national water resources consultant for small cities. He gives talks and writes articles about energy consumption and efficiency.
Mr. Lopez-Torrijos said the more-frequent severe storms in the northeast are connected to climate change: "What we are used to is not happening anymore. We need [to] start working on it. What people can do is different for each person."
Parishes and community organizations should be educating people on how to mitigate flood risks and develop more resilient communities, he said.
Start young
Parents should lead by example when it comes to energy consumption. "Try to be a good steward of your own body, your own family, your own community and the earth," Mr. Lopez-Torrijos said. "How we live is how we express ourselves as individuals and as Christians."
Innocent Ake of the Black Catholic Apostolate at St. Joan of Arc parish in Menands advocates teaching youth "the value of a protected environment." Adults can also make changes, he said, like buying fair-trade products and sharing a vehicle with family members.
Mr. Ake identifies greed as "the source of destruction of the environment. You're consuming more than what is necessary. If you're not able to limit yourself, [you] become new gods. We decide what to do in order to survive."
A business consultant, he advises Catholics to "have a place at the table in the discussion" about issues like drilling and hydraulic fracturing. For his own part, he has never owned a car and hasn't used air conditioning once this summer. During the recent heat wave, he was able to change his schedule to be productive late at night and sleep during the day.
"These are little things, but you need to do something," he urged. "Even one person doing that makes a difference."
Sisters' advocacy
Also subscribing to the every-effort-counts philosophy is Sister Clare Pelkey, CSJ, a member of the Home/Land committee of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet. Committee members write articles on environmental issues to educate sisters in the Albany province (see www.csjalbany.org/index.cfm/EarthConcerns), sign petitions and attend demonstrations against hydrofracking.
They also try to offset the carbon emissions produced by long trips. When some sisters traveled to St. Louis in 2011 for an anniversary celebration, for instance, they arranged to have 110 trees planted.
An environmental audit has led the committee to seek "green architects" for new building projects and reduce mowing on part of their Latham property to twice a year. They have welcomed Siena College environmental students who are studying flooding in the Krommakill watershed, which runs through their property.
"We have a sense of the real urgency to do something to preserve our environment," Sister Clare said. "I do have hope, because I believe that God is in charge of the world. I don't know that anybody can convince someone that hasn't evolved to that consciousness. I think it's a personal conversion of heart."
Young adult's work
Marie Hollister, a law student at the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Ind., would likely agree: The parishioner of St. John the Baptist Church in Valatie is currently a legal intern at Let's Share the Sun, a Troy-based non-profit that installs sustainable solar power in poor countries (read a previous story at www.evangelist.org).
Ms. Hollister also recycles, uses her bicycle to travel short distances and is spearheading efforts to make her law school more environmentally sustainable. She's considering practicing environmental law to protect natural areas.
"A large part of [Catholic] social teaching is stewardship and taking care of God's creation and the option for the poor," the 21-year-old said. "Renewable energy tends to be more expensive, so it's not always the first option. We have a responsibility to make this more affordable and accessible for people who can't do it themselves."
The poor "bear the brunt" of pollution and over-consumption, Ms. Hollister added.
Reforming our energy use and consumption are more important than finding alternative energy sources, says Karen Frishkoff, a nurse and a parishioner of Our Lady of Hope Church in Copake Falls. She advocates carpooling and buying used items or rethinking whether to buy them at all.
Those steps "can be done immediately, by everybody, and at no cost - at cost savings to each of us," said Mrs. Frishkoff, who attends weekend peace vigils in Hudson with other parishioners. "One of the signs I often carry is, 'Earth care, not warfare.' It is a very pressing problem that is often not the highest headline in the local newspaper."
NYSERDA official
Environmental issues have been top news in Frank Murray's world for three decades. He's the president and CEO of the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) and a parishioner of St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Delmar.
He has advised several New York governors on environmental policy, handling such notorious events as the Love Canal chemical dump site, PCBs in the Hudson River and the West Valley nuclear fuel reprocessing facility.
Mr. Murray said he saw "the impact of ill-conceived decision-making. You can't help but be moved."
He shared with Catholic governors a sense of intergenerational responsibility for the earth: "The scientists are warning us that if we don't do something and do it soon, we could find ourselves in a situation where the climate change is almost irreversible. It will be a very different world for our children and our grandchildren if we don't take action today."
NYSERDA is active in developing new technologies, investing in renewable energy, fostering markets for energy efficiency and more.
"We're talking about protecting systems that are essential to human survival," Mr. Murray said. "Science can be a real ally in this. We need to be careful that we [use] science in the right way."
For information on the Catholic Church's involvement in climate change issues, see http://catholicclimatecovenant.org.[[In-content Ad]]
250 X 250 AD
250 X 250 AD
Events
250 X 250 AD
Comments:
You must login to comment.