In
this Issue:
Being
a Peace Maker
by Rev. Shelley Hamilton
Recently,
I read, “The job of the peacemaker is: to stop war,
to purify the world, to get it saved from poverty and riches,
to heal the sick, to comfort the sad, to wake up those
who have not yet found God, to create joy and beauty wherever
you go, to find God in everything and in everyone.”
I am
deeply troubled by the story that is crashing through cyberspace,
and all other forms of communication available to us, about
the three young men running through the city of Ft. Lauderdale,
Florida beating up homeless men with baseball bats. My
inclination, like many others, is most certainly not to
look at these men with the eyes and heart of God. Instead,
it is to step back in horror and revulsion as though I
have absolutely nothing in common with them. We use words
like “monsters,” “savages,” “not
human” and “evil” to describe these boys.
We don’t allow ourselves to acknowledge that looking
at them is looking at us.
What
do we expect? The President of the United States, the so-called “ruler
of the free world” authorizes
torture and spying on citizens of his own country without
just cause. The 20th Century was the most violent in recorded
history - World Wars I & II, in which our country
dropped atomic bombs, the Korean War, Vietnam, the Gulf
War, Iraq, Israel, Palestine. Right now, at least two-thirds
of the world is embroiled in some type of war or genocide.
In one way or another, the United States is involved in
all of those conflicts. We often sell arms to both sides
of a conflict. We challenge nations about their human rights
records, yet we regularly kill our citizens in gas chambers,
electric chairs and with poison-filled needles. China is
the only country in the world that has more people in their
prisons than we do. As horrible as this incident in Florida
is, it isn’t unusual. Everyday, the media is filled
with story after story of human evil and our inhumanity
to each other and creation.
Say
what you will about these boys, and in no way do I excuse
their behavior, but they are us. We (our society) created
them. Until we - individuals (me and you), families,
communities, states, nations - are willing to
explore what is systemically putrid in our societies and
do what is necessary to bring restoration and healing,
the evil and inhumanity will continue. We must not only
explore, but also make the commitments and sacrifices essential
to empower change.
I don’t
pretend to be an expert on peace or on creating cultures
of peace. Like each of you, I am a pilgrim trying to find
my way. I do know this: we must see all of creation, especially
humanity, through the eyes and soul of God. Only in this
way can we love unconditionally, without judgment or expectations.
We simply must accept our share of the responsibility for
the brokenness in ourselves and in the world.
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How to Get Free Publicity
featuring Jeff Crilley
Hosted by H4PJ and the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce
January 29 | 1pm | Aqua Italian Bistro in Dallas
 Join
Hope for Peace & Justice and the North Texas GLBT
Chamber this Sunday, January 29 at Aqua Italian Bistro, 4140
Lemmon Ave in Dallas, for a free seminar about getting free
publicity for your organization. The event will begin at
1pm and last for approximately one hour. Emmy Award-winning
reporter Jeff Crilley will share his secrets for getting
news coverage. Whether you have a non-profit agency, whether
you’re a small business owner, an individual who wants
coverage, or a PR pro, you’ll learn the stuff than
only those inside the newsroom know.
Jeff
Crilley has over two decades of TV news experience. Over
the years, Jeff has made a careful study of why some are
successful at getting coverage and others aren’t.
In his book Free Publicity he shares secrets even public
relations professionals don’t know.
A three-course brunch will be served for $14.95. Seating
is limited. Please RSVP to Mack Campbell at 214-351-1432
or mack.campbell@h4pj.org.
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Elton
John and Tim Rice’s
AIDA
Hope for Peace & Justice Presents
an Uptown Player Production
Special One Time Benefit Performance
February 19th | 7pm | Trinity River Arts Center
Support Hope for Peace & Justice on this special night.
The cast of AIDA has donated a special performance to Hope
for Peace & Justice. By purchasing your ticket to AIDA
through Hope for Peace & Justice, you help us raise money
for important campaigns, programs and workshops. Your ticket
includes an invitation to a pre-show dessert reception. Rev.
Michael S. Piazza, President of Hope for Peace & Justice,
will be on-hand to welcome you and give an update of current
issues.
Tickets
for the special performance of AIDA and pre-show reception
are only $50 and seating is limited.
Click here to buy your tickets
Music by: Elton John
Lyrics by: Tim Rice
Book by Linda Woolverton , Robert Falls
and David Henry Falls
Aida
is a contemporary musical take on the grand classic tale
of forbidden love between a soldier and an enslaved princess – a
love that condemns them to death, but ultimately transcends
the vast cultural differences between the two warring nations,
heralding an unprecedented time of peace and prosperity.
Directed by Doug Miller
Music Direction by Scott Eckert
Choreography by Vicki Squires
Click here to buy your tickets
United States Ranks 28th on Environment,
a New Study Says
by Felicity Barringer
Published
on Monday, January 23, 2006 by the New
York Times
WASHINGTON - A pilot nation-by-nation study of environmental
performance shows that just six nations - led by New Zealand,
followed by five from Northern Europe - have achieved 85
percent or better success in meeting a set of critical environmental
goals ranging from clean drinking water and low ozone levels
to sustainable fisheries and low greenhouse gas emissions.
The study, jointly produced by Yale and Columbia Universities,
ranked the United States 28th over all, behind most of
Western Europe, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia, Costa Rica
and Chile, but ahead of Russia and South Korea.
The bottom half of the rankings is largely filled with
the countries of Africa and Central and South Asia. Pakistan
and India both rank among the 20 lowest-scoring countries,
with overall success rates of 41.1 percent and 47.7 percent,
respectively.
The pilot study, called the 2006 Environmental Performance
Index, has been reviewed by specialists both in the United
States and internationally.
Using a new variant of the methodology the two universities
have applied in their Environmental Sustainability Index,
produced in four previous years, the study was intended
to focus more attention on how various governments have
played the environmental hands they have been dealt, said
Daniel C. Esty, the director of the Yale Center for Environmental
Law and Policy and an author of the report.
The earlier sustainability measurements "tell you something
about long-term trajectories," Mr. Esty said. "We
think this tool has a much greater application in the policy
context."
For instance, Britain ranked 65th in last year's
sustainability index, but 5th in the latest study,
among the 133 nations measured. Among the reasons
for the earlier low ranking, Mr. Esty said, was that "they cut down almost all their
trees 500 years ago and before," something that modern
British governments could not control.
The 16 indicators used in the latest study, the
report says, provide "a powerful tool for evaluating environmental
investments and improving policy results."
The report will be issued during the World
Economic Forum, an annual conclave of business
and political leaders which meets in Davos,
Switzerland, this week. Mr. Esty said the report
was also intended as a tool to help monitor
progress on the environmental issues included
among the Millennium Development goals adopted
by 189 nations at the United Nations Millennium Summit.
"It's like holding up a mirror and having someone help
you see what you couldn't see before," he said. But
the report acknowledges "serious data gaps" that
resulted in leaving more than 65 countries out of the rankings.
In addition, some thorny methodological issues, like how
to measure land degradation or loss of wetlands, have no
widely accepted solutions, the report noted, and the authors
used the best measures they had available.
Like the sustainability index produced
last year, the pilot study ranks countries
within their geographic peer groups, so
that nations in arid regions or tropical
ones can be measured against one another.
So Belgium's overall ranking of 39, with
a 75.9 percent score, can be viewed by
region and by issue. Belgium ranks last,
for instance, among European countries in protection
of its water resources.
Air quality rankings tend to favor less industrialized
nations like Uganda, Gabon, Ecuador and Sri
Lanka. Among the countries of the Americas, the United
States ranks in the bottom third on this scale.
In the Americas, the United States is at the
bottom of the scale measuring agricultural, forest
and fisheries management, in part because the
study is weighted against countries with a high
level of crop subsidies. The study's authors
say that such subsidies "in agriculture, fisheries and energy
sectors have been shown to have negative impacts on resource
use and management practices."
In the area of environmental health,
the study measured such factors as sanitation,
lead exposure and indoor air pollution, a
particular concern in the least developed
countries, where indoor home fires may be
common. In those measures, the richest countries,
including the United States, Canada, Australia,
New Zealand, Japan, France, Britain, Ireland
and the countries of Northern and Central
Europe score near 100 percent.
On the same scale, the poorest countries fared worst,
with 32 of 37 sub-Saharan African nations,
along with Bangladesh, Haiti, Yemen, Tajikistan, Laos, Cambodia
and Papua New Guinea, scoring at or below 40 percent.
Chad and Niger rank last in the world, with scores of 0 percent
and 1 percent, respectively.
"In the zone we capture as the field of play, they're
at the very bottom," Mr. Esty said. "It doesn't
mean that nobody there has a toilet. It means a very, very
small percent do."
The energy sustainability portion
of the index factors national wealth
into measurements of energy efficiency
and greenhouse-gas emissions. Nonetheless,
all but three of the top 25 spots in
the worldwide rankings are occupied by
countries in economic distress, including
Uganda, Chad and Myanmar. Switzerland, Costa
Rica and Peru are the exceptions.
The study's definition of renewable energy resources
does not include nuclear power - in part,
Mr. Esty said, because countries with a high proportion of nuclear-fueled
energy, like Japan, the Czech Republic and
France, reaped the benefits of their energy choices by earning high
rankings on the study's other scales, like the air quality
index measuring particulate matter.
To create another scale that disproportionately
favored nuclear-energy users would have undermined
the overall reliability of the study, he said.
As a result, the renewable-energy rankings tilt
heavily toward countries reliant on hydropower,
like tiny Bhutan.
The study shows that annual carbon dioxide emissions,
measured as metric tons per $1 million of
gross domestic product, average about 363 tons. North Korea, Turkmenistan,
Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Mongolia rank at the
bottom of the scale, with amounts ranging from Mongolia's
1,992 tons to North Korea's 4,859 tons.
Carbon dioxide emissions from nations with rapid economic
expansion, like China and India, are more than
double the world average (731 tons and 621 tons, respectively).
The United States, at 171 tons per $1 million of gross
domestic product, ranks well behind some other nations
in the Group of 8, the major industrial powers - France
(56), Japan (57), Germany (80) and Britain (118) - but
close to Canada (168), ahead of Australia (209) and far
ahead of Russia (914).
Copyright
2006 The New York Times Company
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