Green Options

Comedian Sarah Silverman explains her ambitiously brilliant plan to end world hunger. She calls on Ratzinger, the chief architect responsible for obfuscating many of the Catholic Church’s most horrific sexual abuse scandals, to sell the Vatican and feed the world with the money.

“We need a hero, and who is more primed to be our hero than the pope? He’s literally a caped crusader,” explains Silverman. I think

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It’s difficult not to jump on the bad-pun bandwagon and quip something about the Pope and “power from above” on this one. The Vatican has installed 2,400 solar panels atop the Paul VI Auditorium roof. The result is reported to be a 300 kilowatt-hour benefit.

Sources: CrispGreen.com; and CBSNews.com

And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.

And the Pope answered, Let there be solar energy; and there was solar energy.

On Monday, the Vatican installed solar panels on its papal audience hall, channeling the light of God toward more renewable means.

Fellow Green Options blogger, Sam Aola Ooko, recently related that there has been a reconciliation of religion and evolution.

As written in that EcoWorldly blog post — St. Charles Darwin Unveiled: Catholics, Anglicans Finally Agreed on Evolution — it seems that the Vatican and the Church of England have decided that there is a place in the world for both beliefs, that Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and religious faith can coexist peacefully.

I’m fascinated.

I can understand, for example, the Christian view that the premise of evolution is faulty and can’t align with the belief that God created the Earth. Science says Earth dates billions of years back. The stories of the Bible say, “Oh, no it dih-n’t!”

Editor’s note: Chad Crawford, our regular writer on the intersection of religion and the environment, is taking some vacation time this week, so we’re pleased to offer another post from one of Professor Siman Sethi’s students in her Media and the Environment course at the University of Kansas. Writer Lauren Keith originally published this post to the course blog on Tuesday, March 11, 2008.

Are you there, God? It’s me, global warming.

When I logged on to Facebook yesterday, I was disturbed to see that my two least favorite things (organized religion and Yahoo! Inc.) have friend requested my best buddy, the Green Movement.

And the Green Movement accepted their friend request.

In a story posted yesterday on Yahoo! Green (which I had no idea existed until 12 hours ago), the Catholics’ second-in-command declared pollution a sin.

The Vatican may be a key link in the mass shift toward environmental sustainability. Pope Benedict XVI is concerned by "the growing recognition of the need to preserve the environment," and he’s not alone. His progressive stance on environmental responsibility could potentially bring the world’s estimated one billion or more Catholics into the fold of the environmental movement.

On Saturday, the Pope called on youth to "change the world." This was at the Vatican’s first

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People of faith from around the globe are taking the lead on global warming solutions. Following on the heels of an alliance among some U.S. faith leaders to fight global warming, the Vatican has announced plans to install a giant solar power system.

The 1,000 solar panels will adorn the football-sized roof of the Paul VI audience hall, one of the top energy guzzlers in the sovereign city state. The solar system [...]