Bee forewarned: Lessons from the deaths of bees

By Kevin Clarke| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment
As the bee population declines, we can either listen to the buzz or feel the sting.

For years scientists have been puzzling over a vast die-off of bees in the United States and throughout Europe. After significant drops in recent years, alarms started sounding in 2012 when as much as 50 percent of the bee population in the United States perished. Finding the answer to the bee-pocalypse is important not only to save one of the wondrous sounds of nature—the soothing hum of the honeybee at work—but because bees represent an enormous industry in their own right.

Kevin Clarke is a writer living in New York.

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How does our food system affect what we eat?

By A U.S. Catholic interview| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Culture Environment

“We’ve gotten away from the real meaning of food, and the power of food,” Michael Pollan told us in a December 2013 interview. The famous food author has helped spur a movement encouraging people to return to using whole, real ingredients in home-cooked meals. He is known for touting a primary rule about food and eating: Eat food, not too much, mostly plants.

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How college campuses are going 'green'

By Katie Bahr| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Young Adults
At many Catholic colleges, an environmental revolution is under way: Out with the ubiquitous plastic water bottles, the reams of wasted paper, the showers that use a flood of water! In with being eco-friendly! And leading the way are the students themselves.

Katie Bahr is a staff writer for the Arlington Catholic Herald in Arlington, Virginia.

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How will climate change affect the next generation?

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Article Environment
So-called “cheap” energy sources will have a high cost for future generations.

We have been told that we live in a threshold age of energy production, an era when industrialized nations are poised to migrate from the combustion of fossil fuels to a solar- and wind-powered, renewable energy future. That has been the political assurance of the Obama administration and the appealing scenarios served up by energy futurists, even from the marketing departments of the large oil and gas corporations which today call the tune on energy policy.

Kevin Clarke is a writer living in New York.

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Slideshow: Going green at college campuses

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Article Environment Young Adults

When it comes to church teaching on stewardship of the earth and care for God’s creation, students at Catholic colleges and universities around the country are getting more than just a classroom education. New initiatives—many led by the students themselves—are taking these teachings out of the lecture hall and applying them from dorm rooms to dining halls, implementing new sustainability efforts to reduce their collective carbon footprint.

Let it rain: Marymount University puts an eco-friendly spin on gardening

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Article Environment Young Adults

Students at Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia worked together to construct a rain garden outside of their library. The idea took root to help reduce pollution levels in water runoff and to improve water quality on campus. Learn more in this short film about the benefits—both environmental and educational—of their unique garden.

Arresting development: The faith community should slow urban sprawl

By Meghan Murphy-Gill| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Social Justice

Editors' note: Sounding Board is one person’s take on a many-sided subject and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of U.S. Catholic, its editors, or the Claretians.

Meghan Murphy-Gill is a writer living in Chicago.

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Arresting development: The faith community should slow urban sprawl

By Meghan Murphy-Gill| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Social Justice

Editors' note: Sounding Board is one person’s take on a many-sided subject and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of U.S. Catholic, its editors, or the Claretians.

Meghan Murphy-Gill is a writer living in Chicago.

See more posts by Meghan Murphy-Gill

What the earth needs now is an ethic of life

By John E. Phelan| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Environment Ethic of Life

Care for all human life begins with protecting our planet.

John E. (Jay) Phelan is a senior professor of theological studies at North Park Theological Seminary in Chicago, where he has served for more than 20 years—14 of them as president and dean of the seminary.

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