EarthBeat Weekly: A new idea for Lent

Working with the Ignatian Solidarity Network, EarthBeat will present 40 reflections on food, faith and climate delivered each day by email.  Brenna Davis, ISN's director of education for justice and environmental initiatives, has written the reflections and has teamed up with EarthBeat's Jesse Remedios to produce them in a format we hope you'll find inspirational -- and not too time-consuming. (The reading times for the first couple of these reflections are 60 and 40 seconds, respectively.)

If you subscribed to last Fall's Season of Creation Daily emails, we'll automatically include you in the Lenten emails. If not, you can add your name here (and unsubscribe easily at any point along the way).

I also encourage you to join ISN's Lenten Food Waste Fast. You'll get a weekly update with pointers on reducing food waste along with an invitation to post a photo and short reflection to Instagram on each week's challenge. There are even some prizes involved. 

You'll find related content on EarthBeat beginning next week, with a report by Catherine Odell about a remarkable program that converts tons of food waste from dining halls at the University of Notre Dame into green power. 

Here's some of what's new on EarthBeat this week:

• In his ongoing coverage of divestment campaigns on Catholic campuses, staff writer Brian Roewe reports that Creighton University has decided on a partial divestment of its endowment from fossil fuel companies. 
• Correspondent Carli Pierson reports on the killing of two activists who had been speaking out on behalf of the preservation of a monarch butterfly sanctuary in Mexico.
• Columnist Fr. Daniel Horan assesses Pope Francis' Querida Amazonia in the context of a column he wrote last Fall asserting that "climate change is the most important life issue today."

Here's some additional climate-related coverage:

• A couple of billionaires -- Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Bloomberg News founder (and presidential candidate) Michael Bloomberg -- are making news on the climate front. Bloomberg Green, the company's new climate newsletter reports that Bezos has committed $10 billion of his $130 billion personal fortune to a new climate initiative. Bezos has christened the project, "Bezos Earth Fund," and announced it on Instagram. 
• Bill McKibben, perhaps the nation's leading climate writer, announced on Twitter that he'll write a new weekly climate newsletter for The New Yorker. You can sign up here. 
• Faith leaders in Australia have urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to step up to his "moral duty to look after God's creation and the millions of lives that are at risk from worsening climate impacts."

Upcoming Event:

Interfaith Power and Light is planning an "Earth Day climate event with a faith component" for the National Mall on April 25. 

You'll find more events like this -- virtual as well as in person -- on EarthBeat’s Event Calendar. And don't forget to post upcoming events that you’'e involved in!

Closing Beat: 

If you happen to be attending the Los Angeles Religious Education conference this weekend, please stop by the NCR booth and say hello to our colleagues -- pick up a packet of EarthBeat wildflower seeds. I'd love to include occasional photos of their progress in your garden -- or on your window sill -- in EarthBeat Weekly.

We hope you'll forward this week's newsletter to anyone you believe might want to subscribe. They can do so here. And if you'd like to support EarthBeat, please join NCR Forward for as little as five bucks a month.

Thanks for reading!

Bill Mitchell

NCR Climate Editor

bmitchell@ncronline.org