Renewing the Campus: Sustainability and the Catholic University | October 9th to 11th

[Lindsey Cromwell (SCU)]

A national conference to be held at the University of Notre Dame on
October 9th to 11th.
Learn more: http://green.nd.edu/education/renewing-the-campus
Join us!


Conference Rationale (from Notre Dame's website)
The aim of this conference is to materially advance the engagement of
Catholic universities and the broader Catholic community with the most
pressing environmental challenges of our time, primarily those related
to climate change. The primary audience is faculty, students,
administrators, and clergy at Catholic universities in the United
States. Catholic student associations from secular universities,
members of the broader Catholic community, and representatives of the
U.S. conference of Catholic bishops, are also invited.

The conference is structured to encompass the multiplicity of
approaches to environmental issues at Catholic institutions of higher
learning, including those of theologians, scientists, sustainability
practitioners, student activists, and clergy. The aim of the
conference is to address the theological implications of climate
change as well as the ethical implications viewed through the lens of
Catholic Social Thought, with a focus on the opportunities for
Catholic universities to assume a leadership role on this issue within
both the academic and Catholic communities.

Catholic leaders have become increasingly vocal in recent years about
the environmental implications of two central tenets of Catholicism: a
God-centered and sacramental view of the universe and a passionate
concern for the world's poor. According to the first tenet, reverence
for God compels reverence for and care for God's creation; from this
perspective, life on Earth is a gift and a responsibility. The
destruction or diminishment of that gift does violence to our radical
interconnectedness with the rest of God's creation.

The second tenet compels us to seek justice for those who are most
vulnerable. Environmental inequity has long been one aspect of the
injustices perpetrated on the world's poor, but climate change brings
new threats to the world's poor on many levels. The loss of glacial
drinking water sources and the spread of vector-borne disease fall
primarily on developing nations. Drought, displacement due to sea
level rise, and increasingly severe heat waves and storms
disproportionately affect the poor worldwide because they have less
flexibility to adapt.

Across the United States and the world, many universities are taking a
leadership role in addressing climate change and unsustainable
resource use. In the process of reducing their own environmental
footprints, they are providing a market for emerging renewable and
efficiency technologies, prompting their home cities and states to
strive for meaningful sustainability goals and commitments, and
inculcating sustainability as a core ethical value among the next
generation of leaders.

Positioned as they are at the nexus of the academic and faith
communities, Catholic universities have a unique opportunity to bring
them together in the service of stewardship and environmental justice.
Our goals in creating this conference are to enhance understanding,
activism, and cooperation among Catholic universities in the area of
sustainability, to contribute a valuable faith perspective to the
national and international dialogue of university-based sustainability
efforts, and to provide an inspiration for the broader Catholic
community.