Despite advances in cleaner water and safer indoor cooking, pollution remains the world’s leading environmental risk factor for disease and premature death, responsible for one in every six deaths, or 9 million premature deaths annually, according to a new report in The Lancet. The report finds the majority of pollution-related deaths today come from what Read more
Pope Francis told world oil executives meeting at a two-day conference at the Vatican that transiting to less-polluting energy sources “is a challenge of epochal proportions”. The two-day conference was a follow-up to Francis’s 2015 encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si’. The encyclical calls for an energy policy “aimed at averting disastrous climate changes that Read more
In 2003, I was told by a restaurant owner on a Thai island that local fishermen used to wrap their lunch in banana leaves, which they would then casually toss overboard when done. That was OK, because the leaves decayed and the fish ate the scraps. But in the past decade, he said, while plastic Read more
The spire atop Ulm Minster, the world’s tallest church, juts 530 feet into the air above the German city for which it is named. In its 639th year, though, the Gothic structure could be laid low by a gross and unfortunate hazard: Too many revelrous Germans are ducking into the church’s alcoves to relieve their Read more
Church aid agencies are playing their part to support people in Vietnam whose livelihoods have been devastated by industrial marine pollution. On April 6, dead fish began washing ashore along 200 kilometres of the coastal provinces of Ha Tinh, Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue. Nearly three months later, authorities announced that toxic Read more
Archbishop of Naples Crescenzio Sepe didn’t mince words when speaking about the issue of pollution on Wednesday, going so far as to say, “Those who pollute are not in the grace of God and can not take communion.” His remarks came in the wake of revelations that local mafia had buried cancer-causing toxic waste around Read more
A group of landowners in Papua New Guinea say they will appeal against a court’s decision not to ban a nickel mine from dumping mining waste into the sea. Papua New Guinea’s National Court has rejected an application for a permanent halt to the use of deep sea waste disposal by the 1.5 billion dollar Read more
In a bid to portray the message of saving our environment, 550 students of St Joseph’s Secondary School in Suva will take to the stage in their annual concert next week to save earth. The students performed their first dress rehearsal to parents and teachers at the school hall at Waimanu Road yesterday. Principal Sister Read more
At the opening of a national Environment Week that was launched by the Fiji Department of Environment and the Pacific Conference of Churches at the Suva Civic Auditorium on Sunday Pacific Conference of Church’s Environment advocate, Peter Emberson said the theme was powerful in the sense that it would encourage people to reflect and think Read more