Sunday, December 9, 2007

Social Justice and the Environment




Yesterday, December 8th, Crystle Numan of True City's eco-team gave a superb presentation called "Justice; Shalom with God, People and the World," at Melrose United Buffet Breakfast
(and what a tasty breakfast the men in the kitchen cooked up!)


A pity there were so few of us in attendance; I suppose everyone was out at the World Climate Day of Action rally in Toronto. Or perhaps they were at home writing angry letters to Harper. Maybe they had parked their vehicles and were negotiating the HSR bus system. No? Don't tell me. They were shopping at the Makers Market, that's it!

Anyway, Crystle described how the choices we make about how we live, what we buy, where we invest include a justice component. She posed the question "what are these implications?"

Justice is indeed tied up in the health of the environment. Where there is no justice the land, the people and the animals suffer.

Crystle got the brains thinking about consumption and the distance between what we consume and where it's made and by whom and under what conditions.

She presented us with a case study; Gold. The nasty business of gold production and it's terrible effects on people and the environment.
I thought guiltily about my recently pierced nose and the white gold jewel on it. Never even occurred to me to enquire as to where the gold came from.

And what about techno waste? Do our computers and cell phones sent to China for recycling really get recycled in an ecologically sound way?
Crystle read scriptures from the bible and presented the talk in the context of a Christian's God love of justice; His call to people to be in right relationship with the other. Are we?

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