Blip

About this episode

2007 Earth Day Pharmaceutical Clean SweepThird annual Earth Keeper Clean SweepThis is the script to the second 2007 Earth Keeper Clean Sweep Update.These are days when I'm rummaging through my basement, putting together a collection of specific tools and equipment for the beginning of the maple syrup season. Gathering sap is unique part of Upper Peninsula life, dating back to traditions of the Ojibway, hundreds if not thousands of years ago. It's a time when temperatures fall below freezing by night and into the 40's F during the day. Some years sap flows but a few days, most often two or three weeks. Even then, it's always an intermittent process. The trees I tap are on a remote piece of land twenty miles north of Marquette. I've discovered that to have a good maple syrup season you need to watch the weather, be prepared, carry through the tapping and boiling process with special, reverent care. There's trouble afoot. The word from our north country neighbors, the New England maple producers, is that irregular seasonal patterns over recent years are wrecking havoc with our maple trees. Since 1971, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data, winter temperatures in the Northeast have increased 2.8 degrees. The progression of the maple-sugaring season is moving earlier and earlier and also getting shorter. Tim Perkins of the Maple Research Center at the University of Vermont, predicts that if this trend continues, large syrup producers will no longer harvest enough sap to make their operations worthwhile. His colleague, the New York Times quoted plant biologist Tom Vogelmann. "It's within, well, our lifetimes, " he says, "that you'll probably see this happen." This disturbing shift of the earth's natural rhythm is attributed to climate change. Whatever opinion you may hold on this subject, even extreme skeptics admit that the human factor in the increasing pollution of the earth's atmosphere is a critical component. Like children awakening from sleep, we are all becoming aware of the fragile interconnectedness of all things. Part of any lasting correction will need to be connected to a new, unprecedented respect for the natural world. One of the greatest impact can be made when we see models of interfaith cooperation and prophetic unite not just environmentalists, but people from all walks of life. The controversial Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan stepped down from a powerful, controversial ministry last week in Detroit telling tens of thousands of followers that Jesus Christ and the Prophet Muhammad would embrace each other with love if they were on the stage behind him. "Our lips are full of praise,' he said, "but our hearts are far removed from the prophets we all claim. That's why the world is in the shape that it's in." Here in Northern Michigan, Buddhists, Jews, Catholics, and leaders from nine faith traditions are currently working together in a historic environmental initiative. Along with the leadership of Superior Watershed Partnership and the EPA, we're moving forward with plans for a Peninsula-wide collection of unused, outdated pharmaceuticals (medicines) during the two weeks following the festivals of Passover and Easter. In days ahead as I trudge on snowshoes tapping trees and gathering sap, I'll be remembering the warnings from New England. I'll also be carried by hope that step-by-step, all of us are awakening to a new urgency about the earth, as naturalist Lon Emerick would put it, that we not so much "live on, but with." 2007 U.P. PHARMACEUTICAL CLEAN SWEEP When: 9 a.m. to noon. Saturday April 21 (Earth Day) Items to be accepted: Unused and outdated prescriptions and medications Location: Across the Upper Peninsula at a church parking lot near you. Collection sites will be announced in April. This effort is being sponsored by leaders of the Roman Catholic, Lutheran, United Methodist, Buddhist, Baha'i, Jewish, Unitarian Universalist, Presbyterian, and Episcopal communities of Northern Michigan in cooperation with the Superior Watershed Partnership and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community. For more information call the Superior Watershed Partnership at 906-228-6095. Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of videos by the Rev. Jon Magnuson and Carl Lindquist on the topic of the Earth Keeper Covenant Initiative, a multi-denominational commitment to protecting and preserving the environment and landscape of the Upper Peninsula. Earth Keeper related website addresses are:The Cedar Tree Institute:http://www.cedartreeinstitute.com/The Central Lake Superior Watershed Partnershipwww.superiorwatersheds.orgThe Lake Superior Interfaith Communication Network:http://www.lakesuperiorinterfaith.com/

• Release Date

  Mar 13, 2007

• Runtime

  05:18