Photo credit: eTombotron

The sin of mountaintop removal

By Kristen Hannum| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment

"You can't put a mountain back. Do you think you can do a better job than God?"

-- from Leveling Appalachia, a video from Yale's environmental service, e360.

Five hundred mountains in Appalachia are gone forever.

Glenmary Father John Rausch has little patience with those who excuse this kind of environmental destruction in favor of short-term jobs. "It's a false dichotomy," he says. "The coal industry is actually in business to put miners out of a job."

Kristen Hannum is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

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Photo Credit: alessandraelle

Clothesline rebels

By Kristen Hannum| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment

Alexander Lee and other Project Laundry List members don't believe that an energy guzzler like a clothes dryer plays any role in being a good neighbor. They're fighting for the right for all Americans to dry laundry outdoors--including those living in home-owners associations and under other covenants that forbid it. "It's about not trusting your neighbor to do the right thing," says Lee, a parishioner at Sacred Heart in Concord, New Hampshire.

Kristen Hannum is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

See more posts by Kristen Hannum
Photo Credit: alessandraelle

Clothesline rebels

By Kristen Hannum| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment

Alexander Lee and other Project Laundry List members don't believe that an energy guzzler like a clothes dryer plays any role in being a good neighbor. They're fighting for the right for all Americans to dry laundry outdoors--including those living in home-owners associations and under other covenants that forbid it. "It's about not trusting your neighbor to do the right thing," says Lee, a parishioner at Sacred Heart in Concord, New Hampshire.

Kristen Hannum is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

See more posts by Kristen Hannum

Working for the common grid

By Kevin Clarke| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Social Justice
Reducing our collective carbon footprint can be as easy as plugging in.

In the old days all the cool guys and gals who wanted to show up “the man” devoted a lot of their creative geekiness to figuring out ways to get “off the grid,” devising Rube Goldberg-ish mechanicals and homemade micro-tech geared to living outside the nation’s energy infrastructure. It was laudable self-reliance—sometimes run amok—but it belongs to another age.

Kevin Clarke is a writer living in New York.

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Working for the common grid

By Kevin Clarke| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Social Justice
Reducing our collective carbon footprint can be as easy as plugging in.

In the old days all the cool guys and gals who wanted to show up “the man” devoted a lot of their creative geekiness to figuring out ways to get “off the grid,” devising Rube Goldberg-ish mechanicals and homemade micro-tech geared to living outside the nation’s energy infrastructure. It was laudable self-reliance—sometimes run amok—but it belongs to another age.

Kevin Clarke is a writer living in New York.

See more posts by Kevin Clarke

Our Lady of Waste Management: Parish-based environmentalism

By Kristen Hannum| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Parish Life
Parishes are finding that reducing their carbon footprint is not only an environmental issue but a spiritual one, too.

Parishioners at Mary Immaculate Church in East Los Angeles meet monthly in convivencias, or town hall meetings, to discuss parish initiatives. Last autumn, when they learned that 38 million water bottles annually are sent to U.S. landfills, their vote on what the parish should do wasn't even close. Plastic water bottles are now banned from the campus.

Kristen Hannum is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

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Why should parishes go green?

By Kristen Hannum| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Parish Life
Five reasons Catholic communities should care about cleaning up the environment.

1. You don't have to believe in climate change to believe in its solution. Energy conservation and alternative energy use mean healthier children, improved national security, and lower heating and cooling bills for families and parishes. It's a "no regrets" strategy.

Kristen Hannum is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

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How to go green

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Article Environment
Tips and suggestions for parishes planning to prioritize the environment.


1.  Schedule a Bike- or Walk-to-Church Sunday.

2.  Offer pitchers of water instead of bottles at parish meetings and explain why plastic bottles aren’t good for the environment.

3.  Serve fair-trade coffee and tea (in mugs instead of foam cups) after Mass, again with signs explaining why.

Kristen Hannum is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

See more posts by Kristen Hannum

Why should parishes go green?

By Kristen Hannum| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Parish Life
Five reasons Catholic communities should care about cleaning up the environment.

1. You don't have to believe in climate change to believe in its solution. Energy conservation and alternative energy use mean healthier children, improved national security, and lower heating and cooling bills for families and parishes. It's a "no regrets" strategy.

Kristen Hannum is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

See more posts by Kristen Hannum

Our Lady of Waste Management: Parish-based environmentalism

By Kristen Hannum| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Parish Life
Parishes are finding that reducing their carbon footprint is not only an environmental issue but a spiritual one, too.

Parishioners at Mary Immaculate Church in East Los Angeles meet monthly in convivencias, or town hall meetings, to discuss parish initiatives. Last autumn, when they learned that 38 million water bottles annually are sent to U.S. landfills, their vote on what the parish should do wasn't even close. Plastic water bottles are now banned from the campus.

Kristen Hannum is a freelance journalist based in Denver, Colorado.

See more posts by Kristen Hannum

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