OMNI's War and Warming Anthologies: OMNI EARTH DAY, APRIL 22, 2025

OMNI

EARTH DAY, APRIL 22, 2025

Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology

What’s at Stake: This April 22, the 55th Earth Day, reminds us of our struggle to create a livable planet for all, and how much is still at stake. Yet Arkansas’ members of Congress want to turn back the clock. Futile as it might seem, let them know how you feel, to add to your protests.

Arkansas Senators, Representatives, and Congressional ...

CONTENTS EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2025

OR Books

AFSC, American Friends Service Committee

FCNL, Friends Committee for National Legislation

UUSJ, Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice

Move to Amend

Earth Day 2024 (carried over)

“War & Genocide on Earth Day.”
Jill Stein Green Party: People, Planet, Peace.

Earth Day 2024 Contents

TEXTS It's Earth Day 2025

FOR BOOKS
We’re highlighting two new books on how human interference rewires the natural world.

THE MANIFESTO OF HERMAN MELVILLE by Barry Sanders.
Herman Melville’s legendary Moby Dick is not, in fact, a novel, but a powerful environmental manifesto. "An enraged manifesto against American greed and destruction of the natural world will leave readers utterly convinced and shaken.” —Deanne Urmy

RETURN TO FUKUSHIMA by Thomas Bass.
Captures the aftermath of the 2011 nuclear disaster, chronicling the resilience of people navigating life amid radioactivity. “Fascinating...a compelling message about a crucial question―one so crucial that it bears on the survival of the earth.” —Noam Chomsky

AFSC. Celebrate Earth Day with a gift

During Earth Month in April, many of us turn our mind to what we can do to protect our shared home.At AFSC, we see the impacts of climate change and environmental injustice in every community where we work. It worsens violence, forces people from their homes, and widens the divide between the richest and the poorest.
Confronting climate change is a major challenge—but you’re part of a global AFSC community working year-round to secure a more sustainable and equitable future for all.
Here are just a few of the ways your support of AFSC powers work for environmental justice:

· Working with Indigenous communities, small-scale farmers, and others to safeguard traditional land and natural resources.

· Organizing to protect the basic rights to clean water and enough food for all.

· Pushing for laws and funding that prioritize human needs and care for the earth.

Please help these efforts continue. Make your gift today to support AFSC’s work for climate justice, and all of our work to build a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world.

In peace,

Joyce Ajlouny General Secretary

American Friends Service Committee 1501 Cherry Street Philadelphia, PA 19102

FCNL

On April 22, we mark the 55th Earth Day. It is a reminder of how far we’ve come in the fight for a livable planet, and how much is still at stake. Yet some members of Congress want to turn back the clock. Right now, there are serious attempts underway to repeal the clean energy tax credits passed in the Inflation Reduction Act (P.L. 117-169). We successfully lobbied for this bill, the strongest climate legislation in U.S. history.

If they succeed, we will lose critical investments in clean energy and well-paying jobs. Our journey toward environmental justice is derailed, and our chance at a climate-safe future will narrow. We cannot let this happen. But here’s the good news: our message is starting to break through. Lawmakers across the aisle are now speaking to defend these investments - but we cannot let up now.

Take two minutes to tell your members of Congress: Protect American clean energy jobs and investments.

These investments are already creating jobs, lowering energy bills, and cutting climate pollution—especially in the communities that need it most. Repealing them would be a disaster for our climate, our economy, and our future.

This Earth Day, join us in calling on Congress to protect, not cut, these important investments.
Sincerely, Daren Caughron, Legislative Manager, Sustainable Energy and Environment

In these troubling times for our nation, for our faith, our funds, our families and our futures, this Earth Day:

As we await another slew of Executive Orders aimed at advocates and activists for the environment, climate and justice we wish you courage and resilience.

As you wonder how to feed your soul despite the indifference being shown to our interconnected web of life, we wish you spiritual sustenance.

As you contemplate the work ahead of us, we invite you into accountable relationship with Mother Earth as the cornerstone of your witness, advocacy and agitation.

We counsel a posture of peaceful yet Faithful Defiance--active engagement! Yes, make some Good Trouble, show your Soul Force. Let us live into our religious values.

We will not obey oligarchy, plutocracy and autocracy in advance. Will commit to lift our voices in defense of this good green earth, this beautiful and wonderful creation.

We affirm belief in freedom and democracy and a United States in which we can all thrive.

MOVE TO AMEND
Dick --

This Earth Day, while the world pauses to honor our planet, we invite you to go deeper—to the root.

Because what’s killing the Earth isn’t just climate change. It’s not just pollution, deforestation, or rising seas.

It’s power.
The power of corporations to act as if they are people.
The power of money to speak louder than the will of millions.
The power of a legal system that puts profits over people—and the planet.

At Move to Amend, we’re growing a movement that goes beyond temporary fixes. Like a thriving ecosystem, lasting change starts from the ground up. While corporate interests continue to pollute and profit with impunity, people across the country are coming together to cultivate a future rooted in justice and sustainability. Momentum is blooming: the movement for systemic change is growing

The We the People Amendment (H.J. Res. 54) would end corporate constitutional rights and the doctrine that money equals speech—foundations of a system that allows polluters to operate above the law. . . .This Earth Day let’s go deeper—tackle the root, not just the symptoms.

OMNI EARTH DAY APRIL 22, 2024

https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/04/omni-earth-day-april-22-2024.html

HTTPS://omnicenter.org/donate

I copied several of the excellent messages arriving last year for my Earth Day 2024 Anthology

“War & Genocide on Earth Day.” Consortium News (4-22-24).

U.S. military aggression and imperial ambitions leave a trail of natural destruction — all under the guise of national security, writes Melissa Garriga. Read here...

People, Planet, Peace

Today, as we commemorate Earth Day, we are confronted with the harsh reality of a climate emergency that imperils the very survival of the human species.
In 2023, we witnessed the hottest year on record, with the past decade marking the 10 hottest years since we began keeping records. For decades climate scientists warned us that we could not allow global average temperatures to reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels without catastrophic, likely irreversible damage to our planet.

We sailed past 1.5 in the first quarter of 2024, and we are now on a collision course with +2°C.
The result has been a predictable and preventable wave of catastrophic fires, floods, megastorms, and droughts. We are watching ocean ecosystems collapse and a stark rise in climate refugees.
The brunt of this environmental devastation falls disproportionately on Black, brown, Indigenous, and low-income communities – both here in the United States and across the globe.
Yet, in the face of this existential emergency, what do we see? Continuous expansion of fossil fuel extraction under both Republican and Democratic leadership.

We must rally behind a real Green New Deal . . . .