Listening to the Earth - An Environmental Audit for Benedictine Communities

LISTENING TO THE EARTH An Environmental Audit For Benedictine Communities by Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania at Lake Erie-Allegheny Earth Force About the authors: This Environmental Audit for Benedictine Communities in Central and South America was prepared under the direction of members of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA whose work with Earth Force, Inc. gives expression to the Community’s commitment to Ecological Stewardship. Principal author, William L. Bartlett, graduated from Edinboro University of Pennsylvania with Bachelor’s degrees in Philosophy and Mathematics; he has been an advocate for environmental protection and human rights through his work with various non-profit making organisations. Presently he is preparing to spend a year serving as an Americorps volunteer working with Lake Erie-Allegheny Earth Force, where he will continue to work with groups of youth trying to implement sustainable changes in their communities. He remains very grateful for the Benedictine community of Erie, and for his beautiful son who was born during the preparation of this manual. Annette Marshall, OSB has served as Director of Administration for the Western Pennsylvania (USA) branch of Earth Force* since 1997. After twenty-five years as teacher and school administrator in Catholic elementary and high schools, she now enjoys sharing her love for nature and her commitment to developing the next generation of civic leaders with school teachers and youth leaders. Pat Lupo, OSB has served as Program Director for the Western Pennsylvania (USA) branch of Earth Force since 1997. Daily through the education of teachers and students and in her personal commitment to local, state, national and bi-national boards, Pat models responsible citizenship and environmental stewardship. Margarita Dangel, OSB has served as Education Director for the Western Pennsylvania (USA) branch of Earth Force since 1997. Her position as a summer camp director and assistant for environmental education at the Benedictine owned center prepared her in many ways to guide youth and educators to become actively involved in their community. Her goal is to help young people realize that they are really needed in their community and that they can contribute to finding solutions to environmental problems. * www.earthforce.org/section/offices/lea Cover image: “Web of Life” painting by Daniel Fallshaw ww .artofcreation.co.uk. LISTENING TO THE EARTH An Environmental Audit for Benedictine Communities by William L Bartlett Margarita Dangel OSB Pat Lupo OSB Annette Marshall OSB Lake Erie-Allegheny Earth Force, Erie, PA, USA This publication is funded by The World Bank’s Faiths and Environment Initiative* with support from the President’s Contingency Fund in partnership with ARC (Alliance of Religions and Conservation)† The authors would like to thank: Joanne Robinson – Handbook Co-ordinator, ARC Tony Whitten – Coordinator, the World Bank’s Faiths and Environment Initiative Bekir Onursal and John Morton – World Bank peer reviewers Richard Prime – designer P. Martin Neyt OSB and Gisela Happ OSB – AIM, Alliance Inter-Monastères, Paris Jordi Sánchez – translation into Spanish IoL Language Services Ltd (Débora Chobanian) – translation into Portuguese Published in London 2006 This edition is also published in Spanish and Portuguese © Earth Force, Inc. 2006 * www.worldbank.org/faithsandenvironment † ww .arcworld.org Contents FOREWORD by Joan D Chittister OSB . . . . . . vii ABOUT THIS MANUAL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 1 BENEDICTINE LIFE AND MINISTRIES Environmental Stewardship in Benedictine Life: Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Environmental Stewardship in Benedictine Life: Inventory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 1. Prayer and Liturgy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 2. Ministries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 3. Community Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 4. Community Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 5. Community Resource Management. . . . . 7 6. Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Environmental Stewardship in Benedictine Life: Evaluation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 1. Prayer and Liturgy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 2. Ministries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 3. Community Policy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 4. Leadership . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 5. Resource Management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 6. Investments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 2 AIR Overview of Chapter:Air Pollution, Indoor and Outdoor. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Air, Earth’s Sacred Gift. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Combustion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Definitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Overview of Outdoor and Indoor Air Pollution. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Outdoor Air Pollution: Assessment . . . . . 16 This Chapter’s Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Our Atmosphere: A Gift to be Preserved . . 16 Problems in the Air . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 The health effects of air pollution . . . . . . . 18 What’s causing the problems? . . . . . . . . . . 19 What’s being done? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 What can we do? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 Outdoor Air Pollution: Inventory . . . . . . 20 1. Vehicles. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20 2. Community Transportation Practices. . . 21 3. Public Transportation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 4. Other Internal Combustion Engines . . . 22 5. Other Combustion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 6 Ozone depleting substances . . . . . . . . . . 23 7. Herbicides and Pesticides. . . . . . . . . . . . 23 8. Community Tree Preservation . . . . . . . . 23 9A. Expert Environmental Information Source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 9B. Expert Public Health Information Source. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Outdoor Air Pollution: Evaluation. . . . . . 24 1. Community Vehicles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 2. Community Transportation Practices. . . 27 3. Public Transportation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 4. Other Combustion Engines . . . . . . . . . . 30 5. Burning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 6. Ozone Depleting Substances . . . . . . . . . 31 7. Pesticides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 8. Community Tree Preservation . . . . . . . . 31 9. Expert Information. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Indoor Air Pollution: Assessment . . . . . . 34 Air pollution—Inside . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34 Indoor Air Pollution: Inventory. . . . . . . . 34 1. Types and uses of community fuel. . . . . 34 2. Getting fuel; buying and gathering . . . . 35 3. Fuel drying (for biomass fuels). . . . . . . . 35 4. Health and Wellbeing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 5. Smoking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 6. entilation of the Kitchen area . . . . . . . 36 7. The stove . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 8. Smoke extraction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37 9. Education, Policy, and Civic Engagement38 i ... - tailieumienphi.vn