For whom the bell tolls

Lack of political will and exaggerated expectations could explain the failure to achieve a fair, binding and ambitious agreement at the Copenhagen Conference.

As Archbishop Desmond Tutu began the concluding prayer at the ecumenical service on Sunday December the 13th, Copenhagen Cathedral bells started to ring, 350 times. Simultaneously, hundreds of Churches in Denmark joined the Cathedral bells – also ringing 350 times. 350 is a symbolic number for environment campaigners: 350 parts per million is deemed the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so as to avoid runaway climate change.

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We sink or swim together

The schedule of UN meetings before the Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change shows how intense is the negotiation process: 1-12 June, UN climate negotiations in Bonn; 21-25 September, UN Climate Summit in New York; 28 September – 9 October, UN negotiations in Bangkok; 2- 6 November, final round in Barcelona; and 7 – 18 December, the Copenhagen Conference itself. We are entering a critical phase of the Copenhagen preparations at international and European level and any agreement will require energy, diplomatic skills, and generosity.

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The relation and role of the Church in Creation today

Reynaldo “Rey” Raluto shares with ESSCNews some of his thoughts about Creation – our relation to it and its role today, as he finishes his doctoral studies in theology at the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) in preparation for his teaching assignment in St. John Vianney Theological Seminary in Cagayan de Oro. Rey is a priest from the Diocese of Malaybalay and is doing his doctoral research on the ecological perspective on liberation theology in the Philippine context.

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from the official English version