Earth Day 2007

April 22 is Earth Day. Tel Shemesh celebrates Earth Day along with people around the world. In honor of Earth Day, Tel Shemesh, housed in New York City on the banks of the Hudson River, has signed on to the following statement by the Garrison Institute (www.garrisoninstitute.org). Individuals can sign the statement at: http://www.garrisoninstitute.org/programs.php?type=environment_compact.

Our Shared Nature: A Transformational Ecology Compact for the Hudson

We, the people of the Hudson River Valley, believe that we are called to a mutually enhancing relationship with Earth and all communities of life. We know that we must change our actions as human beings and communities yo protect the fragile environment we love and share. This is the only way to preserve and restore the bioregion we call home for future generations and all life.

As members of diverse and religious environmental communities of the Hudson River Valley, over 300 miles from headwaters to ocean, we are united in our awe for life. Our survival as a species depends on a renewed understanding of Earth based on interdependence.

This is an urgent call for visionary sustainability from the precipice of potential extinction. While we continue to grieve the loss of our fragile environment to human acts of devastation, over-consumption, pollution, global warming and climate change, we choose to have a new vision of hope. We believe that destructive human behaviors can be transformed.

Therefore, we declare that the land and waters of the Hudson valley bioregion are unique, precious, and irreplaceable. We actively commit to preserving, protecting, and restoring this region. Individually and collectively, we agree to live and act according to the following principles:

1. The Earth is a sacred trust.

2. We rely on the resources of Earth for our lives.

3. Earth does not belong to humans alone. We are but temporary stewards of the communities of life.

4. We will change our dominating relationship to Earth to one of respect and interdependence.

5. We will review and evaluate our actions to see how our lifestyles impact our home and our world.

6. We commit to an ethical and equitable rule of life to guide us to share resources more sustainably and seek justice.

7. We will shift our daily actions and financial practices to be environmentally responsible, acknowledging they may require more effort in our daily lives.

8. We agree to build a society that will sustain the whole earth community in health, abundance, and safety, without further sacrificing the natural world.

9. We will join local citizen networks and dedicate ourselves and our communities to consistent, positive social, spiritual, and environmental change.

10. We seek to be part of a movement of humans uniting on behalf of Earth community to build a local and global vision of sustainability.

11. We agree to seek what has been lost, restore our natural resources, and maintain our communties, wasting nothing.

12. We will celebrate all efforts already underway and support the continuing creation of new networks and collaborations.

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