Carbon Rangers/Ecozoic Times

Dear Reader,

The May newsletter spent time on our wonderful Goldman Environmental Prize winners and I do hope that set of heroes encouraged you.  This month we shift our gaze to a more troubling set of headlines.  Hope and Alarm compete now for our attention.

Cyclone Exxon? By the time you read this note it will have been several weeks since a  deeply powerful monsoon moving from the Bay of Bengal  crashed into Bangladesh and Myanmar in Southeast Asia on May 14.  Bill McKibben has shared a comment that the typhoon,  “is called Cyclone Mocha, but it might as well be called Cyclone Exxon or Cyclone Chevron—they were among the companies that ignored the clear evidence of pending climate crisis and kept pushing their product till the Bay of Bengal was a hot tub.”

We lead with news of the important joint statement from GreenFaith and the Laudato Si Movement calling on the  G7 Governments to immediatelyend all new  fossil fuel development across the globe.

Oceans in the News. Several reports here look at Oceans. We note some encouragement and some distress as the world continues work toward saving our Oceans. The UN Conference on Plastic Pollution is meeting in Paris with special focus on plastic entering the Oceans.  The  UN Meeting on Ocean Fish Stocks has just concluded in New York at UN Headquarters.  There is disturbing news from Australian scientists  on Southern Ocean  “Overturning Circulation.”  In North America, NASA reports that Oceans are warming faster than we first realized.  And scientists have just reported finding several thousand species we have not seen before living near the deep Ocean floor in the Pacific.  World Environment Day takes aim at plastic pollution. T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard has been able to gather several signs of progress. Scientists and advocates are in Bonn this week meeting to plan for the COP28 in November.  You can also read why many have called for the removal of the President-Designate of the COP28 Climate Talks.

On May 13, the Vatican released the statement of Pope Francis marking the 2023 World Day of Prayer for Care of Creation on September 1.   We have an excerpt below.  Thomas Berry wisdom concludes as usual.

This newsletter will be on hiatus for July and August.  The next Carbon Rangers will arrive on September 1, the Day of Prayer noted above.  Please keep up the good work of caring for Creation wherever you are however you can.  We are all able to do something.  What is your one thing?  If you are in USA, try  https://www.beyondplastics.org/about

Cordially,
Br. Kevin

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