The Environmental Protection and Justice Action Committee works to advance peace and social justice by promoting sustainable use of resources, healthy habitats, and environmental justice. Human activities on a global scale are clearly threatening ecological systems, putting our collective global security at risk. Global environmental devastation is driven by desperation of the world’s poor, and over-consumption by the world’s rich. Unprecedented rises in human population and consumption patterns stress the planet’s carrying capacity. Pollution of water and air, deteriorating fish stocks, damaged coral reefs, global warming, soil erosion, species extinction, depleting supplies of fossil fuels, and vanishing forests are a few examples of ecological decline. And because environmental problems are not equally distributed, but are experienced more frequently and severely by the poor, environmental degradation intersects with injustice, sowing seeds for conflict.Read the Complete Statement »
Join PsySR's Environmental Protection and Justice Action Committee Today!
Interested PsySR members are encouraged to join the Environmental Protection and Justice Action Committee. For more information about the committee’s projects, recent actions and how to join, please email Action Committee chair Meg Houlihan (mmhoulihan@carolina.rr.com) or contact PsySR's Central Office by email (info@psysr.org) or phone (202-543-5347). You can join the committee’s listserv by sending an e-mail message to psysr-sd-owner@yahoogroups.com (include "Request to Join Listserv" in the subject line).
Highlighted Theme for the Year: Psychological Dimensions of Climate Change
During the 2008-2009 year, the psychological dimensions of climate change is one of PsySR's four highlighted themes. A healthy environment is central to our physical and psychological well-being. Yet human activities on a global scale are threatening ecological systems and putting our collective security at risk. Of primary concern is global climate change, which is altering the Earth’s atmosphere, temperatures, weather patterns, sea levels and growing cycles in ways that jeopardize continued life on our planet as we know it. Please learn more about our committee's focus on the psychological dimensions of climate change HERE.
Nuclear Energy is NOT Sustainable Energy
PsySR's Environmental Protection and Justice Action Committee believes that nuclear energy is not a sustainable form of energy. Much of the planet's wealth has been spent on waste management technology, but the unsolved problem of nuclear waste makes nuclear energy unsustainable and inappropriate. Inadequate storage strategies increase fear and anger in many citizens throughout the world, also threatening their physical health. We object to the frequent tendency to move nuclear wastes into areas inhabited by underrepresented and oppressed populations, such as Native Americans and working poor people of the American West.
We also object to the structural violence caused by the excessive expense of nuclear energy. When huge resources are spent on nuclear power plants (not to mention the huge expenses for their eventual cleanup) money that should be spent on health, education, and social programs is diverted. Nuclear power is not financially sound, and we believe it never will be. Instead we urge that research and development funds be directed to truly renewable sources of energy, such as solar and wind power technologies.
Talking Points on Climate Change, Pesticides, and Toxic Cleaners
PsySR's Environmental Protection and Justice Action Committee has prepared a series of talking points on Climate Change, Pesticides, and Toxic Cleaners.
Links to Environment-Focused Websites
An alphabetical listing of websites focused on environmental issues and ways that citizens can take action TODAY to address this urgent challenge is available HERE.