Capturing the spirit of Earth Day 2007 weekend, Jubilee Economic Ministries, in collaboration with Point Loma Nazarene Center for Justice and Reconciliation, will host a “Lifestyles for a Sustainable World: Changing Actions in a Changing Environment” symposium Saturday, April 21.
The third symposium of its kind in the last four years, the event takes place from 12:30 p.m. to
7:30 p.m. at 4101 University Ave.
The symposium is intended to connect people who want to share the practices, habits and challenges of reducing human impact on natural resources and the climate, said Jaime Gates, professor of sociology at Point Loma Nazarene University and director of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation.
The symposium will feature guest speakers, workshops and activities focusing on tending to spiritual, environmental and physical lifestyles. The symposium will cover topics such as consumer awareness, spirituality and practical answers to living green, Gates said.
The event will provide practical advice on various topics, including how to start a vegetable garden and realistic energy conservation. However, the workshops and presentations will also focus on the bigger picture to help participants learn how to “tend and care for the garden” that is the planet, said Mike Mooring, the symposium’s keynote speaker and a biology professor at Point Loma Nazarene University.
Mooring is scheduled to speak at 1:20 p.m. His talk is titled “Climate Change and the Christian Response” and will cover what the Bible addresses in terms of how people should view their role associated with the environment, he said.
“There is a groundswell of Christian and other faith communities that are seeing this as being the central issue of our day and something that we have to speak out on,” Mooring said.
Mooring will stress that awareness of the environment, global warming and climate changes is not a political issue. Instead, it is a moral issue, he said. His presentation will cover tough issues like treatment of and dependence on the planet, he said.
Mooring teaches on and off campus about the obligation of people to care for the environment. He is the co-chair of the Resource Stewardship Task Force Point Loma Nazarene University, where he works to increase the university’s recycling and energy conservation and to reduce its waste-stream, he said.
The symposium will also feature a second keynote speaker, Lauren Van Ham, an ordained interfaith minister who works throughout California teaching people how to live with principles of sustainability, she said. Van Ham is scheduled to speak at 2:35 p.m. about spirituality and sustainability, according to the event schedule.
“Although there may be some letting go of certain material things, the gain internally is much greater,” Van Ham said.
Van Ham said she teaches about the appreciation of simple things that make life truly fulfilling. Many of the material things that preoccupy people’s lives can cause stress and actually get in the way of a healthier, better quality of life, she said.
This includes eating healthier foods, getting involved in healthier relationships and spending time experiencing the world through positive attitude, she said. Van Ham said she lives life simply in a community that practices a sustainable lifestyle.
She works with Act Now Productions, which is currently working with WalMart. The program includes talks and workshops with employees concerning environmental issues.
But environmentalism isn’t enough, she said.
“We have to work with a culture that has essentially become addicted to capitalism,” Van Ham said of the challenges of creating a sustainable world.
A major challenge is finding a way to balance the need for monetary profit ” which make people feel economically safer ” with a desire to live simply yet abundantly, she said. That balance must be maintained if people are going to exist a hundred years from now, she said.
Following the keynote speakers, the symposium will break off into two workshop sessions, one from 3:40 to 4:40 p.m. and a second from 5 to 6 p.m.
The workshop topics include advice on how to engage the current political structure on environmental justice issues; agriculture and genetic engineering; city gardening; and advice on healthy eating, according to the event schedule.
The events will wrap up with a special lifestyles meal that incorporates lifestyles themes, discussions and music.
Jubilee Economic Ministries (JEM) was founded in 1999 and is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization whose mission is to provide education that facilitates real change toward a sustainable world, according to JEM representative Lee Van Ham.
JEM collaborates with Point Loma Nazarene University’s Center for Justice and Reconciliation, whose goal is to raise consciousness about social injustice and to advocate for the adoption of lifestyles that discourage the exploitation of people ” particularly in Third World countries, Gates said.
The Center for Justice and Reconciliation has worked to raise awareness about such issues as fair trade and global human sex trafficking, he said.
The “Lifestyles for a Sustainable World” symposium is open to the public. Tickets are $10 for online registration and $15 at the door. For more information visit www.pointloma.edu/sustainable or email [email protected].